EP.247 - TIM KEY AND TOM BASDEN

I

added one more podcast to the giant podcast bin.

Now you have plucked that podcast out and started listening.

I took my microphone and found some human folk.

Then I recorded all the noises while we spoke.

My name is Adam Buxton.

I'm a man.

I want you to enjoy this.

That's the plan.

Hey,

how are you doing, podcats?

It's Adam Buxton here, reporting to you from a Norfolk farm track on a balmy, not to say muggy evening, coming up to the end of May 2025.

Just me today,

because my best dog friend, Rosie,

was taken out for a walk by my son earlier today.

Why the hell did you take Rosie out for a walk without checking with me first whether I had a podcast intro and outro to record?

Don't you realize that she is an absolutely central part of the brand?

What are you trying to do?

Destroy the foundations of Castle Buckles?

That's what I was thinking.

But instead, I just said, Oh,

you've been out for a walk with Rosie.

How about another walk, then, Rosie?

You used to like multiple walks in the olden days.

Rosie gave me a pitying look as if to say, Well, these are not the olden days, as you are well aware, so why don't you do one?

And I will stay here and relax on the sofa.

So that's where she is.

Anyway, she sends lots of love.

She's doing well.

And I hope you're doing well.

And I hope you're enjoying my book,

which came out this week.

I have quite a large stack of hardback copies which I need to sign

and send out to people.

Apologies that I haven't been able to do that earlier if you've already ordered a signed copy from the bookhive in Norwich.

While you're waiting, why not pick up the audiobook?

It's cheaper than the old hardback.

It's got a lot of bonus stuff on there.

Not that I'm discouraging you from reading with your eyes.

My wife refuses to listen to the audiobook because she feels she has enough of my voice in her life as it is.

But she's actually been reading the physical thing and being quite nice about it.

which for me is the ultimate review, of course.

Anyway, look, let me tell you a bit about podcast number 247,

which features a rambling conversation with two of my favourite British writers, actors and comedians, Tim Key and Tom Basdin.

This is Tom's first time on the podcast.

You may know him from the sitcoms Plebs and Here We Go, both of which he writes and stars in.

Then there are the numerous performances in shows that include Ricky Gervais' comedy dramas Derek and Afterlife, as well as appearances in The Windsors, W1A, The Wrong Mans, Ghosts, and Diane Morgan's show Mandy.

Tom has also written on TV shows like Peep Show, Fresh Meat, and Gap Year, and he is the author of several plays.

And as if that wasn't enough, He's an extremely talented and accomplished musician.

As for Tim Key, well, I think this is his third appearance on the podcast.

And you might have seen him as Sidekick Simon in various Alan Partridge TV shows.

He also co-starred with Daisy Mae Cooper in the BBC sitcom The Witch Finder.

And there's been countless appearances on other great comedy shows over the years.

But Tim is also an author and poet.

As you'll hear, his latest book of beautifully laid-out poetry and dialogue vignettes, his fourth with designer Emily Juniper, is called LA Baby and details his experience of working in Los Angeles in 2024 for the upcoming American sitcom The Paper.

Set in the same universe as The American Office, The Paper is a mockumentary about an ailing Ohio newspaper and stars Donald Gleason and Sabrina Impatiatore, most famous for her role as the no-nonsense hotel manager during season two of HBO's The White Lotus.

My favourite season, and she was amazing in it.

Anyway, Tim is also in that show, which I think is due to be released in the States on NBC's Peacock channel in September or something like that.

Tim and Tom's friendship began at university, where with Stefan Golisevsky, hope I'm pronouncing that right, and Lloyd Wolfe, they formed the sketch group Cowards and have worked together on and off ever since.

Some of my favourite stuff that Tim and Tom have done together is on Tim Key's late-night poetry programme, where they play exaggerated versions of themselves in a show that began airing on BBC Radio 4 in 2012 and has run for five series so far.

And if you're familiar with that show, you'll know that Tim sometimes refers to Tom as Lord, which he does in our conversation.

To explain, according to Tim, the Lord nickname has two origins.

One, he used to be my landlord, which is neat, but it wasn't really the reason.

And two, he once claimed he had a lift in his family home, which is the reason, but which isn't very neat because it's confusing.

The Norwich Speed Devils are out tonight.

Tim and Tom's latest project together is a feature film.

on general release this week, as I speak.

It's called The Ballad of Wallace Island, in which Tim plays a lottery winner living on a remote island who offers a huge fee to his favourite folk duo Maguire Mortimer to reform and play a private gig just for him.

In the film, Maguire Mortimer were once romantically as well as artistically involved, but though Mortimer, played by Carrie Mulligan, has moved on and has an American husband, played by Familam's Akemji DeFournian, Maguire, played by Tom, has found moving on more of a struggle.

I got the opportunity to record with Tim and Tom face to face in London earlier this month.

And as well as talking about some of the inspirations behind the film and the experience of working with one of the best and most successful actors around, Kerry Mulligan that is, we also spoke about the remorseless march of AI.

I blew Tim's mind with a couple of bits of AI-powered software that I've been using recently.

And we talked about being told off while riding our bikes.

and we concluded by having Tim introduce myself and Tom to one of the all-time great accidental broadcasting sea bombs that somehow we had managed to miss.

Oh

it's the Canada geese massive.

Goosey gang, goosey gang, goosey gang, goosey gang.

Off they go.

So yes, obviously sea bomb warning, strong language ahoy.

I'll be back at the end for a bit more waffle, including upcoming live show news and

news about the release of my first single.

What the?

But right now, with Tim Key and Tom Basdin.

Here we go.

Ramble chat, let's have a ramble chat.

We'll focus first on this, then concentrate on that.

Come on, let's chew the fat and have a ramble chat.

Post on your conversation hope that mind you're talking and

the light.

Last time you interviewed me,

I think that the setup was

well, look, let's put it this way.

I could only see about a quarter of the top of your face.

Okay.

Because it went me, then it went your laptop, then it went you on quite a low chair, and then just a little bit peeking out from above the laptop.

Was that in that hotel in King's Cross?

Yes.

And I was in an alcove.

You were in an alcove.

Yeah, that's right.

It's not a criticism.

It's just nice to see the whole thing.

Oh, that's relaxing.

Yeah, I might do that.

I just put my arm over the high back of the chair in a way that's unnatural, but does actually actually feel good because

it's stretching.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Are you not stretching?

No, no need to put it back.

And then the last time I saw you in the physical world was beginning of last year or something in Norwich when we did a conversation about one of your book of poems.

Yeah.

Yeah, in the

conversation about chapters.

That's right.

Norwich Art Centre.

Which I thought started very strong.

And then

I felt like I lost them and I felt responsible.

And I felt like I'd let you down, if I want to be honest.

No, well, you didn't let anybody down.

You interviewed me.

You're only as good as your interviewee, aren't you?

Not really.

I don't believe that.

Do you know?

No.

I think it's on me.

Do you?

Yeah, a little bit.

But that's my ego talking.

Oh, wow.

Now, last night, I understand from your PR guy, Andy,

you had a private screening of your film.

Am I allowed to ask about this?

You're completely allowed to ask.

All right.

We didn't really have the screening.

Someone else had the screening on our behalf.

Richard Curtis

intervened.

Richard Curtis stepped up to the plate.

He'd already seen it and he was so knocked out by it, he's just like, I've got to show this to Paul Rudd and Nish Kumar.

There you go.

That's exactly what happened.

It's been the reaction of a lot of people.

How do we get this to Paul and Nish?

And how did it go?

Great.

I think Paul and Nish really, really enjoyed it.

And the other people that were there did too.

Nish was a good settler, actually, in that room.

There was a lot of famous people people who you don't know.

So to have a sort of Nish Kumar on board, who you sort of know of old, it's sort of, yeah, sort of a port in the storm at the drinks do afterwards.

You can't just be sort of stood there talking to Emily Maitless.

Was she there?

Yeah.

Oh, God, she was there, yeah.

She was there in force.

You're suddenly thinking, oh dear.

Here we go.

I'm talking to Emily Maitless.

What did she make of it?

She liked it.

She was great.

She was a a lot friendlier to us than, say, Prince Andrew, as I mean.

Yeah.

He enjoyed it, by the way.

Did he start to sweat?

It was a hot room.

Yeah, and still, yeah, no, no, nothing from

Andrew.

I watched the film three nights ago in the Castle Buckles screening area, which is the front room.

But we've got a projection screen.

You've been there, Tim.

I'm old enough to remember watching

the woman in black.

The woman in black, you did a show in Norwich, and then you came and stayed the night.

We had some jazzy wine and a reefer.

Did you?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And watched the woman in black.

And we snorted some snow.

Weird knife.

Would you rather I didn't mention that we had a reefer?

No, why not?

We had a reefer

in Adam's farming complex.

Is that what you farm?

It's pigs and weed.

Fuckles weed.

It's the finest in the land.

On that screen, we watched the ballad of Wallace Island.

Once we'd spent half an hour negotiating the security protocols set up to prevent piracy

and nothing to do with us.

You have to download the app.

First of all, you have to log in, set set up an account, and then download an app to receive a security code, scan the code with a QR symbol, and anyway, half an hour later, the film is starting.

And I made a few notes.

This is fantastic.

I'll share some of the notes.

Some of them are just random notes.

Some of them are more conversational.

And what do you see these notes as being?

Are they jumping off points?

Yeah.

Or do we just hear you out?

Either way.

Because the film is locked.

We can't really change it now, depending on what the message is.

No, no, it's not those kinds of notes.

responses.

No, I haven't said

you missed a trick here.

I think you should go and do something different.

I've written down things like Coral Shipman and Condoleezza Rice,

which is one of the lines from the film when you're making curry.

Making curry, yeah, reference Dr.

Coral Shipman.

Didn't go for much actually in the States.

Yeah, it was thank God for Condoleezza Rice in the States.

That brought them back.

But yeah, it's quite a deep cut, comedy-wise, that one, as a reference.

Yeah.

And I was wondering, what are the Americans going to make of a Caroline?

Yeah, he never could quite crack the States.

It's hard.

It's hard.

British act.

Travel.

I enjoyed this film so much.

Thank you.

I don't think I expected it to be quite like that.

It's like, it's got so much heart.

I'd seen the short film yeah that you made in 2007 yeah yeah and how did you come to make that one in the first place i'm i remember being deeply envious and impressed by your ambition to go off and make a short film back in those days

you feel this question lord i loved your answer to this

yeah we were talking about this earlier on and um when we've been talking to americans about the film and where the idea came from we couldn't remember or we just said like it was just one of lots of ideas we had and then i remembered

recently.

Brilliant new audience.

And I don't know if this is true because it's so long ago.

I don't think it works with the timeline, but this is a brilliant.

No, I think it does work with the timeline.

It's not far off.

Brilliant answer, though.

Okay, so you've overhyped it now.

But just before this, we were asked to do a private gig by Rick Edwards off of Radio 5 and Etal for some very rich people.

He tutored the kid of these rich people, and they wanted a private comedy gig in their house on their estate in, I think, near Exeter.

I think near Exeter, and I think I want to to throw in the word billionaires.

Okay, so it was he then assembled the line up, and it was me and Tim and Alex Horne and Rick and Joe Wilkinson.

And we went down there and they put us up in a sort of a small house on the estate, and we had a golf buggy to kind of like just maraud around on.

And then we did this gig for them after dinner, and there must have been like eight of them, the couple and then some friends.

And they were just sat there in their dining room, just sort of on, you know, on

their dining chairs.

Drawing chairs.

And then we'd sort of do like 10 minutes each.

And after a while, I think because they're just very rich and they'd probably never been to a comedy show before, they'd sort of start going, oh, no, not him.

Can you get the other guy back?

Keep asking for Joe Wilkinson.

So they kept asking for Joe Wilkinson.

Can we get the tall chap back?

He's got funny bones.

Yeah, it wasn't.

This stuff's a little bit undergraduate, esoteric.

Looks like the chat with the poems.

It was a bit,

not another song, is it?

That kind of thing.

When was this again?

Well, this must have been around 2007.

I honestly think it was just before we made the short.

I really do.

And so I think that might have been in our heads because we just found it such a funny and humiliating experience.

It probably made its way into becoming one of our ideas.

But you didn't get half a million quid.

We didn't.

We got paid pretty well.

We didn't do badly.

And at the end of it, they tipped as well.

Did they?

I mean, these guys, they had...

I mean, if you're bonkers.

I'm trying to get out the email, but if you can get a gig in this mansion.

Did you stay overnight then?

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, we were drinking brown velvets.

Brown velvets, yeah.

We managed to, I think we stopped off at an off-licence and bought a load of lagers and bitters and things.

And then when we got there, it was very much a case of, well, obviously you're going to have some champagne and, you know,

oil the wheels backstage.

And they were fans of yours already, were they?

Or had they asked someone else just to get a line up together?

Rick had been tutoring their child.

I I think it was a case of summon some comedy.

And they said, yeah, send for the clowns.

Right.

Honestly, that's what it was.

They didn't know us from Adam.

Oh, my God.

And did they share with you what their favourite kind of comedy was?

Did they make any pronouns?

Were they sort of saying, like, you know who I really am?

Michael McIntyre.

His observations are absolutely spot on, aren't they?

I think it's more sort of Noel Coward would have been the first time.

Right, so they were quite a lot older, were they?

I don't remember that.

I think actually, important part of the story, I think they were a very nice one there as well.

Well, it depends what you mean.

They were very nice, but they were also, they didn't really understand the kind of audience and like comic relationships, so they just sort of start talking to you in the middle of like a bit, but not even heckling.

That is true, actually.

It was just sort of all right for B are you?

Go on.

You know what I mean?

Like, it wasn't rude, it was just like, oh, this is this is really odd.

Yeah, it's like one person at a drinks do happened to be on a stage.

And were they sort of landed gentry or were they like

succession type billionaires?

I think LGs, weren't they?

It was more downtown Abbey than succession.

Okay, no baseball cap.

It didn't feel like

new money.

No, more tweedy.

Wow.

And is that the quintessential example of the private gig for you guys?

Have you had other ones?

That's the only private gig I've ever done.

I think the same, yeah.

Have you ever done a private gig?

Well, I sort of did one by default.

I was in New York.

Sorry, ours was by default.

I didn't get paid for my one though I was in New York and I was trying to

I was doing some podcasts I guess it was 2014 or thereabouts and it was half an excuse just to go on holiday a little bit and half I thought while I'm here I'll do some podcasts I recorded with John Ronson and a few other people who were out there And then I thought, oh, I'll book myself a few stand-up shows, a few gigs, because I had some stuff back then, you know, I thought, and I had a little portable projector that I would take with me.

I just thought, I'll do some small shows and show my videos and read out some YouTube comments and introduce myself to an American crowd.

I'm guessing this went well.

Well,

there was a couple of shows that were okay, but one of them at a venue called The Creek and the Cave,

which was across the bridge over in Long Island City,

and it was a nice little venue.

And I turned up there and set up my projector, sound checked, everything good.

It was only a a small room, like 50 people, seats laid out.

And then I went off to the bar and I got talking to a British guy who was there, a guy called Mike, and he was from Manchester.

And he said, Yeah, I'll come to see you actually.

And I was like, Oh, right, okay, cool.

And we got on well, and we had a nice chat.

And then I looked at my watch.

I was like, shit, I'm on in like two minutes.

I better get down there.

So he's like, All right, yeah, I'll come with you.

We go in there, no one there.

So I looked at Mike and I said, Oh, well, this is awkward.

I guess my profile is not as big as it could be in the US.

I'd only tweeted about the show about eight hours before.

You know what I mean?

That was the extent of the publicity.

And I said,

well, I guess I better give you your money back.

And he said, oh, you could do the show.

Yeah, you've got to do the show.

I did the show.

Of course, you did the show.

I did an hour, but it was very.

Can you walk out?

The sound guy felt sorry for me, so he came and doubled the audience.

Oh, wow.

And sat around.

Yeah, I once did a gig with Alex Horn where there was two people in the audience, and then we needed two volunteers.

Was it fun?

Yeah.

Honestly,

if you'd watched that gig, well, you wouldn't, there was no one there, but you wouldn't have known there was no one in the audience.

Horn, just absolute pro.

Doing the bit with the volunteers just to an empty room.

yeah right we have that we have the sound man aspects was in the box okay yeah so the sound man's there so the you know if a tree falls in a forest you're good still but yeah horn just doing it with complete commitment

it's like an art piece yeah

one-on-one gigs intimate experiences especially musical intimate experiences I'm segueing to a scene in the film that I want to talk to you about.

But may I say at this point how how much I loved it, I don't know if I've made that clear yet.

I loved this film.

I'm sure it was helped by the fact that I know you both a little bit and I'm well disposed to you, so I wanted it to be good, but I really loved it.

There was also the anxiety that it might not be good, and then how awkward that would be, but it was lovely

and funny, and the right length, one hour, 40 minutes.

Yeah.

You don't want to go anywhere over that, but

that was basically our not only, but that was like the the biggest editorial note: was like, don't go over 100 minutes.

And I'm actually very glad that we didn't fight that because I think there's a cut of it that's two hours 45, which is insane when you think about the finished film that we could have eked it out to that.

But that cut, I think you'd be like, Oh, did we watch that?

Yeah, we're watching it and like, well, that's got to stay.

That bit's got to stay.

Have you got subplots in there that you cut out?

We've got scenes, yeah.

There are whole scenes, yeah.

Yeah, whole scenes, not many of them, though.

It's more like just riffs and nonsense.

What happens to extras in the streaming era?

Like, in the old days, all that stuff would turn up on the DVD.

I mean, you still do DVDs, I guess, but the market's way down.

And when you stream a film, like, do you get extras?

I don't think you do.

I think, like,

you do get blooper reels of, like, TV shows, don't you?

They love that.

Are you going to put a blooper reel on the DVD?

I don't think we're very bloopery.

I think if it goes wrong, I think there's some shows where everyone just like creases up.

And I think if it goes wrong in our one, we're just like a bit annoyed that that's gone wrong.

Yeah, and it's also, I think it's also like the, you know, Griff, the director, just forcing a smile and looking at his watch.

Exactly.

You've got your underpaid crew going.

18 days it took, and there's, yeah, so there's really

some things where you go, yeah, this is a complicated scene.

That's taken longer than we thought.

But I mean, if it's a case of Basmos wetting himself about, you know, something that a slip of the tongue, that doesn't get us anywhere, does it?

I watched Being There with Peter Sellers the other day.

Great film.

And it's got a blooper reel at the end of it.

Yes, I forgot.

There's a whole montage over the credits of Peter Sellers cracking up.

First ones.

Maybe.

But what a weird film to have a blooper reel at the end of.

Anyway.

Wallace Island, though.

Ooh.

I mean, it's got special effects.

My favourite kinds of special effects, which are emotional pyrotechnics.

Okay, I like that.

And you can put that on the poster.

There's a wonderful scene in which your character and Carrie Mulligan's character, so Herb and Nell,

are actually having a moment of reminiscence and getting on a little bit better than they have been.

The atmosphere has thawed, and they're kind of rekindling their musical connection.

And Tim, your character Charles, is sat there watching.

And, you know, obviously, he's looking forward to his private one-on-one gig with this reunited duo.

But suddenly, from nowhere, he's got a private show in the dining room.

They're getting on well, they're back together again.

The old magic is still there.

They start playing and harmonizing.

And the emotional special effects close up on Tim Key's face

for genuine, non-ironic emotion at being overwhelmed with sort of

everything, all the emotions.

It's a massive overload.

Him watching these people that he's invested so much love and

it's tied up with his relationship with his ex and everything.

It's all there.

And it's really resonant as well because I think most people have had moments like that when they do see music performed at close quarters.

And it is such an incredible experience.

Like it's like nothing else.

And then if it's two people and they're harmonizing, like harmonizing is a special magic human thing, isn't it?

Well, do you know the thing that's

the thing that is quite interesting about that scene when we shot it is that no one had heard me and Carrie singing together before.

Right.

So, we'd kind of like practiced a little bit.

We didn't have very long, as we've sort of touched on, and we didn't have Carrie for very long.

And so, we'd rehearsed a little bit in makeup, like a little bit in the makeup truck, but in a quite a loosey-goosey kind of like, you know, keep it fun way.

And then just kind of got to set and just sort of did it

it just sort of came together in a really really lovely you know happy accidental way that i think the fact that we that we hadn't played together very much fitted with what it was needed at that moment which is two people kind of who hadn't played together for like 10 years sort of rediscovering something were you in the zone or were you nervous were you breaking it because you felt like you weren't sure it was going to work i mean i think for the whole shoot it was a combination of those two things i think i'm obviously much more comfortable doing stuff with Tim, that's like comic stuff with Tim, than say dramatic stuff with Kerry Mulligan.

Because

that's like

wildly out of my comfort zone.

How did she come to be involved?

Was she someone you had worked with already?

No, Tim got involved.

It was just a huge Hail Mary.

We wrote that character and then made a hit list of who we wanted to do it.

She was at the top when I reached out to her.

And luckily, she knew who we were and she said I'd love to read it and so she was on board pretty much immediately we got we got very lucky with her and you knew she could sing

yeah from things like um inside Lewin Davis and she you know she's singing in that oh yeah I felt confident she could do it and you know she sort of I think because she's married to Marcus Mumford she doesn't really see herself as that musical right but she's really good like she picked up all the tunes very quickly and sort of understood how the songs are put together and if she hadn't been then it would have been difficult given the time frame.

But that scene you're talking about, we've probably only had about three complete takes, really.

And it was kind of a in terms of my fantastic performance in it, it was all kind of quite real.

It wasn't too much of a stretch.

And actually, the whole room was kind of like that because Griff hadn't seen them.

Yeah, the director.

And then there's crew in there, just sort of, you know, on chairs and things, holding booms and sort of round monitors.

And so I think it was,

yeah it's a scene that we've talked about a lot in in other interviews because i think it does sort of pop out as being quite emotional and it sort of was the in some ways sort of the epicenter of the whole shoot wasn't it like tom says that we didn't take ages doing that scene but it's kind of yeah it's kind of it's quite good value very good value your your end reveal which i won't spoil but you've got a nice little narrative wrap-up thing it's very satisfying and i got quite emotional good and uh do do you get emotional a lot?

I mean I do.

Do you?

But I've got to say it was a right state watching a woman in black with me.

I think it's because his friend was in it.

I mean I can get emotional.

It's not that I'm totally unselective but no I did get emotional and

I just felt like, hooray, I want to watch a film that's got some heart and that's actually about relationships and also that it's about music as well.

And also that it was very funny did you do a lot of improvising or were you sticking fairly close to your script um it's a bit of a mixture of the two i think what we tend to do is write it try and get it really funny in the writing yeah and then film that and then after that it gets be a bit looser and do some takes where it's kind of goes a bit crazy and and also sometimes at the end of a scene just carry on for a bit and so the director wouldn't always always say cut I mean sort of after about four or five days actually he was sort of saying cut a bit quicker I guess yeah are there any are there any moments in the final cut that are moments that arose spontaneously yeah I mean there's improv throughout the film but there's a couple of scenes which are like largely just stuff we were trying out there and then like like things like like looking at the boat timetable and things like that.

Just, you know, you can probably tell it's the stuff where it's just dialogue.

It's just the kind of like, you know, there's a sort of, you could leave the camera running and we could try different things indefinitely.

Those are the scenes where you get the sort of freest swing with the improv.

But when it's like jokes around tennis serves, you can't really improv very much in that environment.

Yeah.

I felt like Carrie Mulligan did a spontaneous laugh at one point.

I think that sort of makes the film that stuff.

When she arrives and then when their relationship starts to just warm up again,

and there's suddenly a kind of a little gang of the three of us.

And yeah, I'm being being like a plonker, and they're both kind of loving it, and then she's laughing.

And you talked about this the other day, where it sort of unlocks in Herb that he can sort of

notices that I'm harmless enough and quite fun, and so you do.

And I think all of that comes from Carrie's laughing.

Carrie's just sort of being, you know, so naturally credit.

It's probably, I mean, she's such a good actor.

It probably

wouldn't well be acting.

I wouldn't be able to call it.

Rather than a real laugh.

Yeah, we won't know.

It's all fake.

Did you feel, though, were you aware that you're acting?

And this is not to disrespect both of your extraordinary and established acting talent.

Well, do you know what?

Just to take the pressure off you so you don't feel bad.

I'll ask him the question.

Okay.

Did you feel like

it's a scandal that you're able to be on the screen with Kerry Marshall?

It's an outrage.

It shouldn't have happened.

I don't know why she hadn't noticed

I think right at the start when we were like when we had our hit list and we aimed high and then it started to look like we might get Kerry Mulligan, we knew if we didn't sort of up our game and try and act really, really well, we would look like an absolute disgrace.

So it kind of it just lifted the bar slightly.

Yeah.

Like bringing in a very expensive new signing at a football club where the other people have to sort of fight for their place.

Not that she was ever going to take one of our parts, but she's Bruno Gimaraish and she's weird, lots of of Sean Longstaff.

It's been said before, and it'll be said again.

Carrie Mulligan is Bruno Gimaraish.

Is it Sean Longstaff that I'm thinking of?

Last name?

Seanstaff.

There's brothers.

I think Sean Longstaff is the guy who's still sort of.

Well, Adam will be able to tell us.

What's the makeup of the Nicossel squad these days?

All of the stuff you've just been saying for the last couple of minutes is literally like,

do you pick up any leading man tips from Kerry?

Brilliant.

Like any kind of acting insights you're thinking, oh, this is Hollywood game insights.

No, I mean, I think like the really disarming thing about Carrie is that she's really lovely and chatty and just kind of easy to work with, and then she'll just slip into being really amazing in a way that you go, oh, but my preparation is exactly the same, but I don't know if I'd back myself to be able to just sort of slip into it in that way.

You know, she's not the kind of actor where you've got to call her Nell the whole time or, you know, she'll only sort of eat whatever the character eats, whatever, that sort of nonsense.

Well, what I have heard is that David Suchet dresses as Poirot to do his ADR.

Really?

That's why.

I told you that.

Well, then, so I've still heard it.

Have I not heard that?

It's my anecdote.

Well, I've heard it, and I'm just telling Adam that I've heard it.

And actually, the dignified thing to do there would have been to say either nothing

or wow.

Wow, like I haven't heard it before.

It would have been helpful.

Wow.

Bearing in mind the amount of people who listen to this.

I'll help you out.

What's ADR?

Oh, additional dialogue replacement.

Recording.

Recording.

Recording.

Works both ways.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, what would you replace additional dialogue?

I'd like to explain.

There'll be people who don't know what you mean.

Okay, right.

Well, let's start again.

Not listening to this podcast.

It's all, especially now, we're in a post, the rest is entertainment universe.

Every corner of the entertainment industry is now intimately occupied by the average person.

Absolutely.

Everyone.

They've glued it all together, haven't they?

They've sewn it up, if you like.

There's no such thing as backstage anymore.

Which podcast do you listen to?

Well, I listen to that one.

Yep.

And

what tends to happen is that, depending on my guest, I will explore a lot of podcasts that they've been on, and that will introduce me to other ones.

Like I was listening to one

made by a guy who calls himself Rick Roll.

And Rick Roll, that's like that thing with Rick Castle.

Yes, exactly.

I think maybe that's the point.

Rick Roll is a thing.

Rick Roll podcast.

There we go.

Or maybe he's Rich Roll.

Yeah, he's not Rick Roll.

That's what.

He's relying on the mistake to be made.

Rich delves into all things wellness with some of the brightest and most forward-thinking paradigm-busting minds in health and fitness.

You love paradigm-busting.

Oh, god, yeah, I'd love to go on that and promote the movie.

I listen to you.

Do you hear much about wellness?

No, very little.

Do you know what?

Well, look at the state of him.

I mean,

that's a bit of a humble brag.

Look at the state of him.

My wife, in fact, said, Yeah, here we go.

He's very handsome.

There we are, did she?

Yeah, yeah.

There we are.

This is great.

What she didn't say, but I know she was thinking, was like, he's not losing his hair at all.

Oh,

do you ever take that thing off?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's just getting thin.

It's not.

There's some still there.

Oh, there's some bits and bobs.

Is that happening, though?

Yeah.

Oh, if it makes you feel better.

There was a review of the film where someone said the way that the way that

they'd started thinning Herb's hair was really effective way of showing it was sort of past his prime, which is obviously a kick in the nuts because that hadn't happened.

Fair enough.

But anyway, I recommend Rich Roll.

I enjoyed his conversation with Yuval Noah Harari.

Do you know who I mean by that?

I love old Yuval.

This man bought me sapions.

Yes.

Pretty good.

Have you got it?

Not yet, no.

Oh, that's good.

Got to read it.

Not yet.

That's a banger.

Yeah, well, not yet.

But it's on my shelf.

It's sort of, you know, loaded up.

The shelf is like in order.

You've got to get through the sports, by the way.

Shut up.

All I have just got through one.

Have you?

Yeah, I just got through Pocket Money.

Who's that?

That's about Snooker.

And then I've also just got through a Brian Clough one.

Yeah, well, you've got to make space for your Herara.

It's more important than a sports pocket money.

What does he talk about in sapiens?

I mean, like, humans,

history of humanity.

Where we come from, where we're going.

Oh.

It's big.

Big picture.

Do you audiobook stuff, Tim?

I've only audio booked twice.

Oh, really?

Yep.

I audiobooked Bob Mortimer.

Yes.

That's a decent one to audiobook.

Definitely.

Does he read it?

Yeah.

Oh that's nice.

Who do you think is reading it?

Vic?

I don't know.

And then I've audiobooked,

you know, the actor.

Huh?

Pacino.

Pacino, is that good?

What is it?

Cozy crime?

It's not a cozy crime, it's an autobiography, a memoir.

And why don't you ask if he reads it?

Does he read it?

And he's not too.

Of course he reads it.

Bob's reading that one.

He's not too doddery, is he?

No, he's not.

He's just had a child.

I saw an article about Pacino just becoming a father again.

It's something like 82.

Yeah, and going, it's great.

You know, I see the kid on Zoom sometimes.

Don't say that out.

Well, hang on, why?

Is he still working as well?

I don't know what he's doing.

I think 82 and a child and still working is the Triple Crown, isn't it?

I mean, is he working?

I don't know.

And plus, he's read his own audio book.

You read your own audio book.

Yeah, I just finished it it yesterday.

Reading it out.

Yeah.

Oh, fantastic.

Maybe I'll read that one.

On audio.

Because I read the other one.

Yeah.

This one's got music clips in it.

Oh, you should listen to that.

Oh, I'll listen to the clipies.

But Yuval Noah Harari, though, I was listening to him talking about AI, which his new book is all about.

And

I generally avoid people...

talking about how doomed we all are because of AI.

But he talks about it in a very interesting way.

And in the course of listening to this podcast, I was alerted to a bit of software that I'd never heard of before.

And it's a website called, or I don't know what it is, online tool called Notebook LM.

And you can upload a piece of text or a PDF of a book if you have one.

And Notebook LM will munch it in five seconds.

And then if you want, it'll spit out a podcast, an AI-generated podcast with two people talking about the book as if it was a five who invited us on.

Well, exactly.

Are you joking?

No.

And have you, have you spat, did you spit yours in?

No, I spat yours in.

You've got a new book.

Did you spit mine in?

Yeah.

So it would have been nice to have been asked.

It's nice to be asked before you spit me in.

I checked.

It says it makes a big play of saying we don't share the data and

we don't teach the AI.

I don't mind you spitting out the data.

And did it spit the the podcast out?

Yep.

Okay.

But

can you set up the book first?

Okay, yeah.

My book is called LA Baby.

Right, which it didn't quite understand from the PDF.

It was like La Baby.

It called it Leaving London or something like that.

Oh, yeah.

The first poem is called So Long London.

Yeah.

Yeah, okay.

I tell you that's because, if you really want to know, that's because Emily Juniper, who designs the book, she has two files, and the cover of the book is on a separate file.

So, what your idiot has done is

added two and two, it made five, I'm afraid, and called the book, the name of the first poem, So Long London.

Anyway, my book is about me going to live in LA

for three months at the end of last year.

And it's me kind of out there, just sort of a fish out of water tale, I suppose, yeah, like an alien in LA.

And you're working on a production that is undisclosed in the book, but are you allowed to say what it is now?

It's disclosed in real life, yeah.

It's called The Paper, and it's like a sitcom by the chaps who made you know the office

the American office.

It's not Gervaise in LA.

I don't think it's Gervaise in LA.

I think the Gervaise is much more Hampstead, isn't it?

So, yeah, it's but you don't really see much about that.

It's sort of an irrelevance, that's in the background.

It's me just sort of plodding around and trying to work out how to live in LA.

Oh, yeah, good point, yeah.

So I've done enough there.

Here's the podcast.

Here's how it starts.

July B.

July the podcast.

Now, you sent us Tim Key's book, So Long London, and we're diving straight into his experiences as an Englishman working on a show out in Los Angeles.

Yeah, and what's great is the way he shares it, isn't it?

It's not just prose.

No, exactly.

It's like through these quick little anecdotes, bits of poetry, even lists and like overheard chats.

This was generated in 10 seconds, about five seconds after it had ingested the PDF.

Oh, we're doomed.

We're done for.

Well, I don't know if we're doomed, because it's not an interesting podcast.

It's just punditry, though, isn't it?

It's a boring podcast, and it doesn't really

pick up on what's good about the book or your work.

I'm sure it gives you a good idea.

What's bad about the book?

Doesn't it?

There's nothing bad about the book.

Now, I wonder if it makes sense for you to read out a poem and then hear what they have to say about it.

Have you got the book?

Oh, I think I might.

I have the book with me.

It is called.

Oh, is it a poem?

No, it's just a sort of encounter.

Let's find this.

That's the problem, isn't it?

It's taking you longer to find in it than it is the AI.

Yeah.

Everyone's an actor.

Page 91.

Love that.

Got it.

Okay.

The barmaid asked me what I was writing.

Poems?

She immediately looked bored as fuck, like a light had gone out, started fussing over some other barfly.

Sometime later, she reappeared, asked if I wanted more Pilsner.

Screenplay, I said.

I meant screenplay.

And she stopped in her tracks, hovered.

She had on denim shorts with what looked like rivets drawn into the pockets.

We stared at one another for forty-five seconds before she began to move away once more.

You can be in it, I said, and she sat herself down on the stool next to me immediately.

What's the role, anyway?

Oh, you'll be the lead.

I covered my insipid poetry up with the nearest charcuterie board.

She smiled.

I must say, facially, she didn't look a million miles away from our own Melinda Messenger.

Clever boy writing a screenplay like that, she said, removing her baseball cap and signaling for another barmaid to fix her a gym beam neat.

This is what the AI podcast says about that section.

It's around here.

Then the barmaid encounter, his slightly desperate ploy, claiming he's writing a screenplay.

You can be in it.

You be the lead.

It's awkward, but kind of charming, isn't it?

A classic move.

Hilarious, though.

Shows that performative thing again, especially in a city where screenplay is like a magic word.

Her whole attitude changes.

Speaks volumes about the, you know, perceived glamour of the industry.

Definitely.

And reinforces that recurring idea.

Yeah.

Everyone's an actor.

Even the sound guy has an American accent.

It just feels like acting or the pursuit of it is woven into the fabric of LA life.

Yeah.

I mean, it's not deep stuff, but it's crazy stuff.

What has happened?

But it makes sense.

It has the form.

That's what AI is very, very good at and getting better at every day.

At approximating and recreating the form of something really beautifully, like the rhythm of it, even the there's even a laugh in there.

The kind of laugh.

It's fascinating because obviously they've identified which bits, like

you know,

where it's trying to be funny, which is amazing.

I can't handle it.

I'm shaken.

But it's boring bollocks.

Well, no, that's your words.

They enjoyed the book.

But they, you know, they don't.

Do you think they've listened to this podcast?

You know, when they use their 10 seconds, are they going throughout the whole of the internet and getting all of the podcasts that have ever been

podcasted?

I would imagine so.

Yeah, yeah.

They're thorough.

They are munching.

I don't know what is happening.

But you know what?

But they don't have...

There's no jingles.

There's no dog walks in the countryside.

There's nothing.

No, no,

there's no humanities either.

I would have thought jingles, they'll soon be able to corner the market on that.

Oh, yeah, I'm sure.

No, definitely.

I'm not saying they couldn't walk.

I think if you were to prompt these units to say, okay, make a podcast in the style of Adam Buxton, and he's interviewing David Tennant, they would say, well, here you go, mate.

And then even if you did have to say, Come on, let's have some jingles in there.

I think you'd have the podcast, wouldn't you?

Yes, but I hope people would notice that it was slightly worse

i think some people wouldn't some people would be fine like are you crying a bit i'm getting emotional again

well have you had tenant on would be a totally

i'd get tenant in now just to sort of get him done but i had another taste of this the other day when my editor book editor said look there's another autobiography by you on amazon in fact there's two they look as if they've been generated by AI,

or at least someone has asked AI to generate them.

They're the Battle of Wallace Island on Amazon, actually.

Really?

Yeah, like

AI books.

Are you joking?

I saw that, yeah.

And they're just pamphlets.

All it does is it takes anything that, I guess they look at the numbers of the podcast or whatever, and they go, oh, yeah, some morons might buy this.

And it's a sort of 20-page pamphlet with an AI-generated picture of someone that is supposed to look like me on the front.

Yeah, I did buy it.

Have you got it here?

The green.

Yeah.

Okay.

Oh, my God.

Oh, but

you'd bite their hand off to have that photo, wouldn't you?

Well, exactly.

The AI has made me look like Bradley Cooper.

It really has.

Hang on, how much are you paying this AI?

And it's, well, that's the thing, is that it's all superficially, because AI, unless you ask it to be mean, defaults to positivity and politeness.

And so, as far as I can tell, in there, what you've got is just a mulch of bits of interviews I've done and things that I've written or whatever.

And so, it's got a few accurate facts, but it's also got a lot of quotes.

And almost all the quotes are made up.

Like, I definitely didn't say them.

But they are certainly the kind of things that I might say.

But the way it does them,

it sounds like someone taking the piss out of me.

It sounds like it's been written by someone that hates me.

Is it worth me just reading?

Daily routines and quirky quirky family moments.

This will be the reef of momentum.

Okay, let's see.

Life at the Buxton household revolves around simple pleasures: school runs, meal prep, and endless dog walks.

Rosie, the family dog, is practically a fourth child, and according to Adam, the only one who truly appreciates his jokes.

Rosie's my biggest fan, he says.

She doesn't roll her eyes when I do my posh man ordering a kebab bit for the hundredth time.

Where's that from?

I've never done posh man ordering a kebab.

Yeah, yeah, let's hear it.

Could I have like, I had a very spicy thing when I was in Morocco.

I was wondering if you could do that or like,

you know, the special kind of herbs.

I don't want to say the name of the herbs because I might get the pronunciation wrong and I don't want to be the best.

Could that be the Turkish shirk kebab?

You'd love to get AI to do that.

So that's my kebab, man.

That's Poshman ordering a kebab.

Okay.

Family Family routines are peppered with Buxton-style quirks.

Weekend mornings might involve pancake-making disasters.

I mean, impromptu karaoke sessions or debates about which Star Wars character would make the best babysitter.

Yeah.

It's obviously Jewbaker, Adam insists.

Oh my god.

Is that have you insisted on that?

No.

No debates about Star Wars characters.

I can imagine it.

But you can imagine it.

And I have written similar sorts of things.

So how does this work?

Like, could you sue them?

Could you say that's...

Who are you suing?

You're sueing?

You're suing what?

suing.

You're suing.

No, because there is a human intelligence attached to it somewhere along the line.

Yeah, but someone's making money out of it.

They're selling it.

The money's not going to a computer to do nothing with it.

I don't think so.

It's what it says.

It's by John Lucas Whitehead.

Yes, who has written other titles as well.

Because I had about six hours of being consumed by paranoia that it wasn't AI, that it was actually a kind of series of books of takedowns.

Because there's another one about Miranda Hart

and

by this same person.

I suddenly thought, maybe this is someone who is writing kind of spoof profiles a little bit like Craig Brown does in Private Eye, writes them in the voice of someone, but actually they're parodies.

It's like this is the kind of shit that Adam Buxton would say.

There's a section called Dropping Out of Warwick.

Yeah, which I did.

Yeah, but what is in the book?

I know.

It was so weird.

I had to.

Dropping out of Warwick.

We have.

Why did you drop out of Warwick?

Well, actually, don't worry about that.

I'll read this.

I had to ring up my agent, who is also your agent, Tim.

Yeah,

just to remind you.

And I said, look, I've got this book.

It's slightly freaking me out.

At first I thought it was AI, but now I'm thinking that it's someone that hates me and they're writing a parody of me and all the stupid things I say.

Is there anything we can do about it?

And she said, oh, you've gone mad.

Well, you haven't gone that mad because the book exists.

The book exists.

I'm not fussed, though.

It's not the fact that it exists.

It's like if someone wants to waste their time doing that, then good luck to them.

You know what I mean?

They've wasted five seconds on that.

I do know what you mean, but I sort of feel like

I guess the way that you know the fight back is that

people say that AI can't have access to the stuff that I've written or recorded because no one's asked me or paid me anything.

Absolutely.

Well, that horse is bolted.

I mean, the stuff...

Is that all over?

Well, all the old stuff.

I don't think you can retrospectively take all that stuff down and remove it from the algorithms or whatever.

But now, like my new book, there's a whole thing that says none of this can be used to train AI and all that sort of stuff.

So, going forward, you can do that.

Should I have put that in my thing?

Yeah, it should be in there.

It's not too late.

This goes to print next Wednesday.

Yeah, you should make sure that.

It's just a stamp,

part of the contract.

Oh, okay, I'll look into that.

And it's within the last year, that particular skill that the AI has to recreate voices and stuff has got amazingly good.

Like, way, way better.

This time last year, like, I'll give you this

site, and I won't say what the name of the site is, but there's lots of celebrity AI generating

sites around.

And you.

Oh, well, you're not going to give us the name just because you don't want to give them the oxygen of publicity.

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

Arsholes.

But.

Do you not think?

Well, the nerds.

Yeah, bloody nerds.

I knew they'd win in the end.

They played the long long game, didn't they?

The nerds?

Okay.

Nerds didn't stand a chance in the time occasion, did they?

No.

I don't think you heard much of them then.

No, it wouldn't have been nerds.

It wasn't really the nerds.

Evolution has brought us nerds.

You're not million miles away from being a nerd, are you, Adam?

Me, massive nerd.

Yep.

I mean, I do feel partly responsible for all this.

I kind of in Bloody Walsh,

I embrace all this stuff.

I love technology, you know, and I am sort of fascinated by the possibilities of it.

I bet this has been recorded, is it?

Okay, generating, you have to see if you can spot who this is chatting about

you guys.

Chatting about us.

This is amazing.

What has this nerd come up with here?

It's excited to see the ballad of Wallace Island.

Love Tom Basdin.

Very funny, handsome man.

Tim Key, he's a crazy guy.

I love those poems.

Smart guy, not a dummy.

Not bad.

I can't cope.

It's not bad.

Can you make him say some more?

Sure, what do you want him to say?

Anything just, you know, go a bit deeper.

That's incredible.

What about you?

About us both.

Okay.

Yeah.

That's what.

What did you type in?

Typed in that.

Yeah.

Oh, you typed in

get Trump to have a guy.

Oh, you had to type in the words.

Yeah, I typed in the words.

Oh, I thought that was his thought.

No, that wasn't.

I didn't say

you typed in those exact words.

I typed in.

I was outside.

So that's well scripted.

It was good.

Yes.

That was good.

You pronounced my name right, which most Americans don't manage.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Good on him.

Yeah.

But you could use those same words and make a different person say it.

Yes.

Yeah.

Okay, who do we want?

I think,

why don't you go more niche and see if he's

who it is?

Yeah, like...

I don't say who, but, like, you know.

Oh, right.

We're going to ask him to go niche.

Yeah, yeah, go niche.

And Peggy from Heidi Eye.

Okay, well, these are the

These are the same words, but different guy.

And it's interesting, the selection of people.

Oh, there's a drop-down menu.

Yeah.

And

all the people on the menu are

internet.

They're sort of massive personalities, particularly on the internet.

And a lot of them are, I would say,

relatively...

controversial or at least have a controversial aspect to them.

So here's another one saying the same thing.

I'm excited to see the ballad of Wallace Island.

Love Tom Basdin.

Very funny hand.

Oh, this is Jordan B.

Peterson.

Tim Key, he's a crazy guy.

I love those poems.

Smart guy, not a dummy.

Funnily enough, the same words sound quite appropriate.

They really do.

Go on the drop down one more time.

All right, one more.

You want like sort of Reg Holsworth from Coronation Street, doesn't it, do you?

They don't have Reg Holsworth.

You want Laura Batty?

Yeah.

That's what you want.

They don't even have Melinda Messenger.

No.

Well, they've got a lot of catching up to do.

One more.

I'm excited to see The Ballad of Wallace Island.

Love Tom Baston.

Very funny, handsome man.

Tim Key.

He's a crazy guy.

I love those poems.

Smart guy, not a dummy.

I don't know who that is.

Rogan.

Oh, that's Rogues.

See, I've never listened to that.

Right.

It's big, isn't it?

I gather.

It's the biggest.

Is it?

That's galling for you.

This is crazy.

I mean, it's nuts, isn't it?

Speaking of Trump, did you guys watch the Zelensky conference last time?

Yeah.

Yeah.

That was really hard.

Did you have any kind of comedic response to that?

Did you sort of think like...

It's just so crazy to watch it.

They had a stooge in there just pointing at Zelensky and saying, where's your suit?

And it's like such a mad thing to stage manage that we'll soften him up with this guy.

talking about this.

I guess the thing is though, because Trump's sort of from the world of business, a certain kind of business, he's basically thought this is like when you give an employee a dressing down for not respecting the boss enough or sort of wearing trainers for the office when they should be wearing their smart shoes.

And so he's just thought, well, that's what this meeting is, and we're going to do one of them.

But obviously, most people watching it don't think it's that kind of meeting at all.

Yes.

And it was.

It was like a scene from The Apprentice.

Yeah.

And that's...

how he thinks about it because it was so extended.

Normally those things are so cursory and it's just like smile for the cameras.

Then then you go and you have the actual chat behind the scenes yeah but yeah it's also just quite extraordinary to see like a grown-up telling off another grown-up like in any in any capacity yeah you just don't really see that you know you really don't no when was the last time you got told off good question that's decent isn't it that's one of my that's on my list of emergency questions is it is it really yeah yeah when was the last time you got told off yep I think I got told off for cycling on the heath on a path that isn't a designated cycling path.

Does that count?

Yeah, of course it does.

Because it's still being told off as that awful.

What was your response?

Sorry, sorry.

Yeah, sorry.

And then carrying on as soon as.

No, fuck you.

I did try that once, and then I felt awful, and it obviously escalated it.

You always feel awful after a fucking.

Yeah, you have to be a certain kind of personality to pull that off.

How would you describe that personality?

It's not far off.

I think in a car, I've sort of got it in me in a car.

There we go.

A lot of people.

In other personalities.

But that's different.

Everyone's got got it in them in a car.

Why is it different, though?

I don't know.

I guess because they've got their shell.

Pussy.

You're a pussy, maybe.

Yeah, what do you think?

Oh, possibly.

I don't know.

You tell me.

How about you, Tim?

When was the last time you were told?

I got told off.

Oh, God.

I think I got told off by a taxi driver when I was riding my line bike erratically.

And actually, he then, he started a bit of a kind of, you know, I think he made it his business to sort of track me for a bit.

Did he?

Yeah.

Why?

Because you were cheeky with him.

I hate to say it, but I think I smiled.

I didn't wink, but I think.

You smiled in a kind of like, fuck you way.

In a kind of like, I don't care.

Whatever.

Yeah.

I don't think I did anything.

The thing was, it started, and I think I didn't do anything wrong.

After that, some of the stuff I did, I think, was slightly wrong.

When was the last time you got

this morning?

Was it?

Yeah.

Yeah.

On the bike.

I think it happens so often because there's such a lot of animals.

We're all on our bikes.

Yeah.

We were all on our bikes in our stories.

Because there's a load of terrible cyclists, it should be said, that are very dangerous and don't respect other road users.

And that is stressful if you're in a car and you nearly kill a cyclist.

I get that.

But also, sometimes you get people in cars who see someone like me.

It's like a sort of silly middle-aged bloke with a beard and a high vis on, and they think, oh, this guy's not going to kill me if I just lean out the window and yell abuse at him for getting too close to my car.

So that's what happened this morning.

This person who just sort of was just randomly yelling something I couldn't quite understand, and then pulled up next to them at the lights.

I was like, What?

What's your problem?

And they were like, You're getting too close to my car, too close to my car.

I could have killed you, but I was like,

At least it wasn't about the podcast.

Didn't grow Ruth Jones enough.

Ruth Jones.

When are you going to get Ruth Jones on?

Mackenzie!

Mackenzie Grooke!

When do you get him?

The detectress is amazing!

From the office!

Have you had Mackenzie?

No.

He'd be fantastic.

He would be good.

Oh, brilliant.

Well, if he's listening, you're welcome.

Yeah, please.

Please come on, Mackenzie.

I tell you one thing I want to know about you guys is: will there be more Tim Key's late-night poetry programme?

Oh, yeah, there will.

Will there?

Yeah, yeah, there's been some movement in that direction.

Good.

Maybe like next start of next year?

Really?

I need to write it.

Have you not written any of this?

This could be a real case of come back AI, always forgiven.

I mean, you know, I don't have a bad word to say about it.

And that would be for Radio 4 again, would it?

That would be for Radio 4, and I believe it would be for Radio 4

late at night, because the last series we did it at tea time.

Did you?

Yeah, they were keen to do it at tea time,

but I quite like it when it's sort of, you know, shuffled away and sort of

naughty.

Would you swear?

They don't love that on Radio 4.

But they don't mind a bit of shitbags or something like that.

They're okay with that.

It's quite cute swearing.

Yeah, they don't mind a bit of that, but they don't really like the old C-bomb, ideally.

Well, James Nocherty did it, didn't he?

I've had some very happy times listening to those compilations of broadcast accidentally saying the C word.

What's your favourite one?

Victoria Derbyshire's is pretty good.

Victoria Derbyshire.

Which one's that?

That's the best one.

Let's see if we can find that.

Someone says it twice, don't they?

I think Nikki Campbell has a couple of goes at it.

You say that the man that you're backing, Jeremy Cunt.

I'm so sorry, Jeremy Hunt.

I've never said that before in my life.

It's usually men who say that, so I really, really want to apologise.

I'm sorry.

She really dwells on it.

I know.

By the time you get to it, it's usually men who say it.

It's just like, no, no, no, just say sorry, just say sorry and move on.

Don't do punditry on

what has just happened.

Oh, my God.

Oh, dear.

But your career flashes before your eyes, I guess, if you're a newsreader and that happens.

I'm surprised it doesn't happen more often.

I mean, John Inverdale's is really good.

Have you heard his one?

I don't know.

John Inverdale's is absolutely fantastic.

I don't know that one.

You do know that one.

Do I?

Yeah, this is world class.

It's going to all come flooding back to you.

You know you get wet and you muck it out and it's hard work but through all of that

you know it's a way of life that most of them wouldn't swap.

A lot of people go off and do other things then come back to it.

Okay this is looking at it through rose-counted

rose tinted glasses from the past.

I apologise there for a slip of the tongue.

That's extraordinary.

You must have heard that one.

I haven't, I haven't.

That's fantastic.

How's he got there?

Because he's looking at a guy and thinking this guy's a cunt.

What is this cup talking about?

Shut up, you stupid cup.

How's he got there?

It's pretty basic stuff.

I'd never heard that one before.

Yeah, that's amazing.

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Continue.

So, for you, our listener, thinking about Key's experience, what does it ultimately say about chasing creative dreams in a place like Hollywood?

Yeah, does that whole idea of meritocracy, the cream rising, really hold up there?

Shh, shut up.

Hey, Hey, welcome back podcasts.

Tim Key and Tom Basden there with a bit of John Inverdale.

Beautiful.

I've put a link to that clip in the description of today's podcast where you will find lots of other useful links.

Link to my book, I Love You Biden.

And if you know, I've put a book out.

It's a hilarious and heartwarming memoir.

There's also a link to the original short film that Tim and Tom made back in 2007.

The one and only Herb Maguire plays Wallace Island.

If you want to check out where it all came from, no Kerry Mulligan in that one though.

The film, The Ballad of Wallace Island, is out this week as I speak on the 30th of May 2025.

See it at the movies.

You've also got links to Tim's books, The New One, LA Baby, which is out in July.

He's going to be on tour doing a few book-related shows where he goes on stage and chats to people, kind of the way he did with me last year.

Haven't been invited this time round.

Well, I don't think he's playing in Norwich.

But anyway, you can see details of where he is playing by clicking the link in the description, which will take you to my website.

And there you will also find an excellent episode of Tim Key's late-night poetry program.

Science, it was called, from 2014, also featuring Diane Morgan.

And there's other interesting bits and pieces there to peruse.

Thank you so much to Tim and Tom for making the time.

It was lovely to see them both.

Thanks also to everyone who came along to the Intelligence Squared event at the Union Chapel last week.

It was great, lovely and full.

Catelyn Moran was a wonderful host.

We had a really good talk.

I was expecting to show some videos that night and I'd spent a few days putting stuff together only only to arrive at the venue and discover that I'd got the wrong end of the stick and actually there was no screen.

Entirely my fault but actually in the end it didn't matter.

Catelyn and I had a really good talk, went to some stupid places,

some more serious places and then I got to meet some of you afterwards at the book signing which I really enjoyed.

Thank you very much to everyone who came along that night.

Asked questions, bought books and said kind things much appreciated I was very nervous about that evening it was the first big live thing that I'd done

related to the book but I really enjoyed it got another talk coming up this week in fact with friend of the podcast Samira Ahmed on Tuesday the 27th at the Hay Festival in Hayon Y

so I don't know if you're over that way do come along our session is at 4 p.m.

And I guess it'll last about an hour or something.

I hope to see some of you there.

But there'll be other book-related shows this year.

I'll let you know about them as they come along.

But I'm also on a comedy bill back at the Union Chapel on Monday, I think it is, July the 21st.

And that's a good bill.

John Robbins is MCing.

Ashling B is going to be there.

Rhea Lena, Mike Wozniak, and I think more people to be confirmed.

Anyway I'm part of that lineup.

Possibly even headlining.

Link in the description for tickets.

Lots of activity, I apologise if I'm overloading you.

If you wish to be kept abreast of some of these things then occasionally I'll send out a newsletter which you can sign up for by clicking on the link in the description and going to my website.

And if you scroll down on the home page, you can sign up for the newsletter.

I just sent one out last week about the book.

Before that I think I hadn't sent one out since 2023 so I don't really inundate people with newsletters but I guess this year is unusually busy for me.

I also have my album coming out, Buckle Up.

It's going to be released on September the 12th, 2025.

And the first single from the album, Pizza Time, is coming out this this week, I think.

Unless I've got the wrong end of the stick entirely, which isn't totally impossible.

But I think it's going to be played, my first single, on Craig Charles's Six Music Show, maybe even on Tuesday.

If you've got my book, you will know that I write about making the album, and particularly about how Pizza Time came together.

And you will read about how Johnny Greenwood played a crucial role in the creation of Pizza Time.

You get to hear clips of the demo version and a little bit of the actual single version in the audiobook.

It feels quite strange to think of it being played in the outside world, i.e., outside the universe of this podcast.

But let's see how it goes.

Number one with the bullet.

How do people even buy singles anymore?

I think the last single I bought

was...

Now that's a good question.

What was it?

Was it Gangnam style?

No, I think it was before Gangnam style.

Anyway, I'll probably send out a newsletter in the next week or so with a bit more info about the album.

So if you'd like to receive that and

infrequent blasts thereafter, sign up for the newsletter on my website.

Alright, that's enough, plug-in.

Thank you very much indeed once again to Tim and Tom.

Thanks to Seamus Murphy Mitchell for his invaluable production support and additional conversation editing on this episode.

Thanks Seamus.

Thanks to Helen Green so much for her beautiful artwork and she has been helping me with the artwork for the album too along with the brilliant artist Bryony Jackson.

In fact you might see a picture of that if you sign up for the newsletter.

Thanks to everyone at ACAST for all their hard work liaising with my sponsors.

But thanks most of all to you.

I'm very grateful that you keep keep coming back and listening to the podcast.

And I wonder if there's any chance of a hug, like just a quick hug.

Is that okay?

Come here.

Good to see you.

And until the next time, please go carefully out there.

It's all like terrible cyclists, chippy middle-aged men, AI impersonators.

But if it makes any difference at all, I love you.

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please like and subscribe.

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I take a pant for me thumbs up, give me like a smile and a thumbs up,

I say a pant for me bums up,

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I say a pack when my butts are.

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I say a pack when it buttons up.

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