00:00:02.52 alexei sayle Hello everybody, welcome to episode 84 of the Alexi Sale podcast. ah Thank you for hanging in there. And in fact, increasing in your thousands, in your millions, more and more, ah more and more listeners, in your thousands, in your millions, we are all Parasterians.

00:00:21.97 Talal K Paris Hiltons.

00:00:23.04 alexei sayle ah We're all Paris Hiltons. correct.

00:00:27.14 Talal K We're all Crystal Palace.

00:00:28.82 alexei sayle yeah

00:00:29.54 Talal K At the march on Saturday, there was um where you you were there, I'm assuming.

00:00:33.40 alexei sayle Yes, of course.

00:00:34.39 Talal K And that was the same day that Crystal Palace won the cup, apparently.

00:00:37.72 alexei sayle FA Cup, yes.

00:00:39.24 Talal K And they were all marching at the same time.

00:00:41.31 alexei sayle yeah

00:00:41.38 Talal K There was like, we could hear football chants happening off off screen.

00:00:45.26 alexei sayle But ah Crystal Palace, Palestinian Saudi Arabia campaign had come on the march rather than ah watch the match, yeah yeah?

00:00:50.90 Talal K For real.

00:00:52.53 alexei sayle I mean, there's no greater self-sacrifice than that, is there, really?

00:00:54.98 Talal K Oh my God.

00:00:57.46 alexei sayle I don't know where Mark Steele noted Crystal Palace fan was, but... Yeah, they sacrificed there.

00:01:04.53 Talal K Oh, I kept going around going, this isn't a palace march, it a Palestine march.

00:01:10.21 alexei sayle but That's hilarious.

00:01:10.98 Talal K um I know I'm so funny, but then it was, it got funny cause I kept saying it.

00:01:13.89 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:01:16.08 Talal K my friends My friends got really annoyed and then it started being funny. um Oh, I didn't know that. Okay, because we were like complaining about it i didn't know that they were there for in solidarity.

00:01:26.46 alexei sayle Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:01:28.14 Talal K So big up and props to them, I guess.

00:01:30.66 alexei sayle Absolutely, it's a big thing, yeah.

00:01:30.69 Talal K And congrats for winning a winning an nice cup.

00:01:33.90 alexei sayle Well, yes, especially against you know a kind of no team financed by um ah you know a

00:01:40.76 Talal K The Saudi war machine.

00:01:42.18 alexei sayle yeah not quite the Saudi war machine, but certainly the Gulf war machine. yeah but

00:01:47.20 Talal K it Qatar owned?

00:01:48.49 alexei sayle It's not Qatar or one of Emirates funds Manchester City, yeah.

00:01:55.82 Talal K Man City.

00:01:57.16 alexei sayle ah Whereas I don't quite know what what... I forget what the owner of Crystal Palace is called.

00:02:01.39 Talal K Owned by the Sultan of Brunei.

00:02:02.90 alexei sayle It's just a local property developer.

00:02:04.43 Talal K and That's cool. And Palace is my local team. so

00:02:08.17 alexei sayle Yeah, you should...

00:02:08.81 Talal K But I really don't give a single flying fuck about it.

00:02:12.24 alexei sayle I'm sorry to hear that.

00:02:12.38 Talal K But i'm I'm happy for them.

00:02:13.10 alexei sayle Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

00:02:16.34 Talal K Oh, wow. I didn't realize that.

00:02:18.57 alexei sayle And congratulations to Spurs for winning the Europa Cup last night.

00:02:23.75 Talal K I thought they were really bad at the moment. Isn't that something you were saying?

00:02:25.95 alexei sayle Yeah, they're both... It was, ah it was a um mean i you know... Yeah, it was ah it was bizarre, really. I think they're like... the the like after the teams that get relegated, Manchester United and Manchester, Manchester United and Spurs are the next, like most, or more or less most relegatable.

00:02:46.07 alexei sayle And yet they somehow managed to get in the Europa League and then Spurs won, I think with a goal that basically came off the arm of a Manchester United player.

00:02:57.02 Talal K Wow.

00:02:57.39 alexei sayle ah So, and but it, you know,

00:02:58.37 Talal K What does that mean to be relegated?

00:03:00.60 alexei sayle Well, you go down to the championship.

00:03:01.76 Talal K sounds bad.

00:03:03.11 alexei sayle it's Blimey, you don't know anything about football, do you? No, you go down. Three teams have gone down this season. ipswi The three teams that came up have gone back down. ipswi

00:03:14.62 Talal K It's like being demoted.

00:03:14.98 alexei sayle Leicester and...

00:03:15.62 Talal K It's like being demoted.

00:03:17.11 alexei sayle Eh? They've been demoted, yes.

00:03:18.64 Talal K Uh-huh.

00:03:20.04 alexei sayle They've been demoted.

00:03:20.09 Talal K Okay.

00:03:21.14 alexei sayle Leicester, Southampton and...

00:03:26.98 alexei sayle Ipswich. ah um just good do I mean, football podcasts are very, maybe we should do football podcasts where we both struggle with, you know,

00:03:30.67 Talal K No.

00:03:35.99 Talal K Oh

00:03:39.63 Talal K my God. Yes.

00:03:41.98 alexei sayle The indifferent in your case and ill-informed in my case football podcast. Actually, we should at least um send out our support to comrade Gary Lineker who's been been the object of remorseless attention from the Israel lobby and has finally left the BBC.

00:03:50.60 Talal K um my god

00:03:55.51 Talal K yes

00:04:05.86 alexei sayle And he... He's a good guy. really I mean, it's absurd, obviously. One of the wonder people on the BBC board is a guy called Robbie Gibb, the BBC fucking board. Robbie Gibb was appointed by David Cameron, but the Labour Party has kept him on.

00:04:19.50 alexei sayle was listed for many years as the sole owner of the Jewish Chronicle. The Jewish Chronicle is ah ah fanatically pro-genocide, pro-apartheid.

00:04:30.83 alexei sayle Didn't used to be. I used to like the Jewish Chronicle in the old days, but it it then under a guy called Stephen Pollard and then even wears individual called Jake Wallace Simmons.

00:04:32.26 Talal K Paper.

00:04:40.61 alexei sayle um And it's been it's been censured 40 times by... The feeble Ipsos, the press regulator that, you know, for a magazine, for a newspaper that only goes out once a week, is phenomenal and toothless.

00:04:54.60 alexei sayle And also been sued four times successfully. And if you know difficult it is to get libel damages, that's payout massive libel damages.

00:05:02.78 Talal K For what?

00:05:03.59 alexei sayle to left-wingers either for telling lies about them or for alleging anti-Semitism.

00:05:07.11 Talal K Oh.

00:05:09.33 alexei sayle Massive. Anyway, Robbie Gibb was listed as the sole owner for many years of the... Obviously, he didn't really own it. Somebody else did. But ah ah listed for many years as the sole owner and is now, I think, a director of the Jewish Chronicle. So this is ah this is a man on the BBC board who is the was the sole owner, supposedly, of a...

00:05:30.03 alexei sayle of a pro-genocide, pro-apartheid, pro-ethnic cleansing newspaper for many years.

00:05:35.67 Talal K yeah

00:05:36.25 alexei sayle And, you know, Gary Lineker retweets something with an unfortunate, I don't know, I don't know the provenance of that emoji, yes.

00:05:43.60 Talal K There was a rat emoji someone had put next to a video.

00:05:45.91 alexei sayle I mean, tropes, yeah, really.

00:05:47.80 Talal K So it wasn't part of the video he shared, but it was like pasted on top of it.

00:05:52.71 alexei sayle Right. I mean, red i mean tropes, they're they're useful things, tropes, aren't they? They're like, tropes are a thing that's a bit like another thing, therefore you can accuse people of, you know, thought crime.

00:06:02.92 Talal K Yeah. It's because like the I don't know if it was because you could easily say, oh, no, they're just calling Zionist rats because they're deceitful, you know.

00:06:07.73 alexei sayle it's It's ridiculous anyway.

00:06:13.74 Talal K but

00:06:14.19 alexei sayle Yeah, it's a trope.

00:06:15.20 Talal K But it is a it was used in Nazi propaganda and stuff, wasn't it?

00:06:17.70 alexei sayle It's a... Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:06:19.64 Talal K That symbol.

00:06:19.93 alexei sayle Although, I mean, Squawk Box has got loads of examples of Zionists and their supporters of using... rat imagery themselves to refer to the palestinians and that for some reason is all right anyway big thanks to um big you know big heartfelt well done for gary lineker your your your thought will go on and if you would like to include our podcast on your massive podcast empire we would be uh more than grateful

00:06:31.69 Talal K Wow.

00:06:51.13 Talal K Yeah.

00:06:52.28 alexei sayle to get to you know but we love you anyway yeah

00:06:52.87 Talal K this Yeah, such a sweet, lovely guy.

00:06:57.58 alexei sayle yeah

00:06:57.66 Talal K He's going to be fine as well, you know.

00:06:59.29 alexei sayle Oh, yeah, he doesn't need, you know, he doesn't need the BBC, he doesn't need...

00:07:03.11 Talal K Mm-hmm.

00:07:04.54 alexei sayle And hopefully he can, you know, he has voice of sanity, maybe he can...

00:07:04.81 Talal K but

00:07:09.08 alexei sayle Maybe he's the one to lead our left-wing party, you know, was saying was no bad. We need ah a white male with a northern accent, or he's a Midlands accent, to lead our left-wing party.

00:07:21.49 alexei sayle Maybe he could do it. i't I think he's his politics are more... centris But also, um we have yesterday, the um Metropolitan Police, I think, or the CPS, are charging one of kneecap with terrorism, or with supporting terrorism, for supposedly waiving a Hezbollah flag.

00:07:34.63 Talal K That's correct.

00:07:41.45 Talal K Hezbollah flag at a show in Kentish town, I think.

00:07:46.27 alexei sayle Yep, and it made me just reflect on, again, with Gary Lineker, you know, you know the the the kind of aggravation, you know, just how much Israel costs us, you know, how much the Israel lobby costs us in its negative effect on our...

00:08:02.15 alexei sayle on our free speech you know and ah on ah on um you know and also you know i mean they weren't the sole reason but also you know the only decent the only chance of a decent politician in jeremy corbyn that the islam israel lobby was very front and center in the efforts to sabotage him that it you know that israel cost us the israel lobby cost us so much really yeah our poisons are yeah

00:08:22.10 Talal K Yep.

00:08:24.56 Talal K We can't do anything. They've got like, we can't have anything. I mean, they, you know, they've got unlimited funds. They've got so much resources. They've got, you know, evil is one of the most tenacious and persistent and powerful forces, energies, you know, if if something, because they are by nature deceitful and selfish.

00:08:40.72 alexei sayle Mmm. Cheers.

00:08:43.69 alexei sayle to

00:08:46.54 Talal K And so they will do what it takes to get what they want.

00:08:48.24 alexei sayle Yeah, well, they, yeah, and that's all they think about.

00:08:49.71 Talal K You know, it's just,

00:08:51.46 alexei sayle That's all bad people think about is doing bad things.

00:08:53.03 Talal K They don't think about...

00:08:54.30 alexei sayle Because, of course, left-wing people, we're all like, oh, well, if we do this, how does this affect the...

00:09:00.56 Talal K want to put anyone out.

00:09:01.66 alexei sayle kid Oh, no, I was...

00:09:02.72 Talal K Would you mind if we...

00:09:04.10 alexei sayle Oh, yes, you mind if we...

00:09:04.38 Talal K I need permission to do a protest.

00:09:06.37 alexei sayle you mind if we could just storm the telephone exchange? Would you be annoyed if we just seize the levers...

00:09:11.28 Talal K Yeah. They're just spud guns. I promise.

00:09:17.39 alexei sayle we said because we're Because we're thoughtful, because we're nice, we worry we worry about.

00:09:20.79 Talal K Yeah.

00:09:21.76 alexei sayle Oh, there's a... there a There's a... There's a rare... Nest of rare harriers and on the... On the roof of the telephone exchange. We can't fire artillery at it.

00:09:36.77 alexei sayle Oh, dear. Anyway, least wherere the we're the good guys.

00:09:39.57 Talal K Yeah, and we can't, you know you know, and if you put a fucking coconut on a placard, ah you you literally have to go to court and ruin your life and do a whole fucking court case and shit.

00:09:41.24 alexei sayle They're the bad guys. So, of course...

00:09:46.35 alexei sayle Yeah...

00:09:49.53 alexei sayle Unbelievable. Yeah. Yeah.

00:09:51.80 Talal K Whereas Zionists will go on TV and just bare face lie to the public, ah presenting it as fact.

00:09:52.56 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:09:56.07 alexei sayle All the time. All the time.

00:10:00.28 alexei sayle Yes.

00:10:00.89 Talal K They will ruin people's careers

00:10:00.97 alexei sayle They lie and they lie and they lie. I think somebody brilliant once said, yeah.

00:10:05.62 Talal K And kill tens of thousands of children.

00:10:08.68 alexei sayle Yes. in a move

00:10:09.45 Talal K you know, not losing any jobs, not fucking getting any consequences yet.

00:10:11.71 alexei sayle Yes.

00:10:14.80 alexei sayle No. Being on the board of the freaking BBC. Yeah. Yep, yep, yep, yep.

00:10:21.60 Talal K It's sickening. And they'll come second in Eurovision.

00:10:24.74 alexei sayle Well, that's also, yes, it was Eurovision. I mean, that's another effect, i mean because they clearly, they want they they plan to rig the vote, and we're voting from Israelis and Israeli supporters. We're using multiple credit cards, as I understand it, to vote all around the world, and they clearly rigged the public vote.

00:10:43.07 Talal K Yeah, even if they...

00:10:43.34 alexei sayle And that's another thing that they cost. I mean, it I don't care about Eurovision, but I mean, they, they've poisoned that as well.

00:10:46.59 Talal K No.

00:10:48.82 alexei sayle They've sold Eurovision.

00:10:49.03 Talal K Yeah. Something meant to be like cheeky and fun and silly.

00:10:52.71 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:10:53.96 Talal K i They don't even need to rig it because anyone who's...

00:10:53.97 alexei sayle And they were going to use it for their.

00:10:57.49 Talal K ah A Palestine supporter just simply didn't watch it or call or care or vote or anything.

00:11:02.93 alexei sayle No.

00:11:04.65 Talal K And then all the Zionists obviously are just going to all vote for Israel.

00:11:07.40 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:11:08.75 Talal K So it was doomed. It was not doomed, but it was fated.

00:11:12.61 alexei sayle No, but it's another thing that they poison, they've kind politicised.

00:11:13.86 Talal K was fated

00:11:20.26 Talal K It's disgusting. The obvious things, how can they ban Russia and not Israel?

00:11:24.58 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:11:24.87 Talal K um It's, it's, and Israel's not even in fucking Europe. That's the irony of Israel is that they they're dying to be considered European.

00:11:31.11 alexei sayle No. That's another.

00:11:35.78 alexei sayle Don't.

00:11:36.28 Talal K They're the only white country in the Middle East. Sorry, the only democracy in the Middle East. That's what I meant to say.

00:11:41.43 alexei sayle That's not even true.

00:11:42.93 Talal K Yeah, it's not.

00:11:44.78 alexei sayle But, um yes, but also to come back to um kneecap, um it's also, as I think ah where many people have written about the ludicrously wide ah parameters of the British Terror Act that you can, that clearly, Hezbollah, you know, is known.

00:11:49.69 Talal K Oh.

00:12:04.77 alexei sayle I mean, we have people from Sinn Féin, ah you know, whose political wing, the IRA, you know, killed British troops and killed British civilians. The founders of Israel killed British troops and British, you know, killed British troops, killed civilians in bombing attacks, but that's all been forgiven.

00:12:18.94 Talal K Mm-hmm.

00:12:24.17 alexei sayle So the the definition of who is a terrorist, I think, is entirely fluid. And I have a friend who is ah <unk>m senior a senior diplomat in the Foreign Office who said the only reason that Hezbollah was designated a terrorist organization was because of pressure from the Israelis.

00:12:40.58 alexei sayle Hezbollah has only got one enemy, that is Israel. I know you're not particularly fond of them. um

00:12:44.83 Talal K I'm not. They are murderers.

00:12:46.59 alexei sayle Well, they do, but, you know, so do.

00:12:46.81 Talal K They're fuckheads. They kill civilians. And they kill, like, Palestinian and Syrian civilians intentionally.

00:12:54.34 alexei sayle And so do, yes. But that's, you know, that that's, they use, I mean, the definition of terrorism seems to be people who use force for political ends who aren't us, really.

00:13:07.51 alexei sayle And whatever you think, they have no, they have no, Britain is not their enemy. they are any Their enemies are within the Middle East.

00:13:16.46 Talal K Yeah, that's fair.

00:13:17.04 alexei sayle And um why is a member of a Northern Ireland rap group are being prosecuted for waving their flag? It is absurd.

00:13:28.45 alexei sayle And again, it's another... It's it's obviously about paying a price for speaking out.

00:13:33.42 Talal K It's a fucking artist doing art.

00:13:34.01 alexei sayle ah

00:13:35.86 Talal K You know, he's of clearly making a parallel, drawing a parallel between Hezbollah and IRA and making a wider political point.

00:13:36.72 alexei sayle Yeah, but there's also that, yeah.

00:13:40.89 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:13:44.58 Talal K And just being a punk musician, you know, that's, it's so fucked.

00:13:46.40 alexei sayle Yes. Yes. Anyway, you know.

00:13:52.04 Talal K And it makes me think, you know, we do this and this goes out to the public and

00:13:56.55 alexei sayle Yeah. And we in no way. Well, you just said something. You'd be negative about it. we We could get. We in no way.

00:14:02.20 Talal K yeah, but who knows what they'll handpick from everything we've ever said and and twist it and say, oh, this is a terrorist.

00:14:02.87 alexei sayle This podcast.

00:14:06.01 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:14:09.09 alexei sayle oh Oh, all kinds of things. Yeah.

00:14:12.66 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:14:13.90 Talal K And it's like, we're just two idiots chatting shit and being like doing our art.

00:14:14.10 alexei sayle Anyway. Anyway.

00:14:17.10 alexei sayle so

00:14:22.60 Talal K Somehow this is actually art that we're making right now.

00:14:25.29 alexei sayle Yes.

00:14:26.16 Talal K This microphone is my paintbrush.

00:14:28.19 alexei sayle But it just it shows how the Labour government particularly is you know keen to chill free speech with its wide framings of the Terrorism Act and...

00:14:28.85 Talal K The screen.

00:14:32.81 Talal K Cowards.

00:14:35.55 Talal K Cowards.

00:14:39.75 Talal K That's the second time he said wide. they Because they their next gig is the Wide Awake Festival. its I think it's this coming weekend. Tomorrow, even.

00:14:49.43 alexei sayle And thiss it's not being cancelled at this moment, has it?

00:14:51.67 Talal K No, and it's at the end of my road in Brockwell Park.

00:14:51.89 alexei sayle No. Yeah. All right.

00:14:54.13 Talal K And i'm part of the I'm part of the Save Brockwell Park movement. who I've, like, signed the petition.

00:14:59.69 alexei sayle Yeah. yeah

00:15:02.18 Talal K That's all.

00:15:02.31 alexei sayle That's a, that's a, yeah.

00:15:02.60 Talal K But, like...

00:15:05.14 alexei sayle Well, it's, it's, that's a mix. Yes. Well, I do, I do vaguely think that the use of public parks for rock festivals is a, it's not to be encouraged really, isn't it?

00:15:14.46 Talal K its It's like a month and a half that we can't, I can't go to my local park.

00:15:17.33 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:15:18.75 Talal K It's disgusting.

00:15:19.35 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:15:19.43 Talal K And then when the fences finally come down, the grass is all but gone.

00:15:23.93 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:15:24.90 Talal K And you know, the the nature and the wildlife there, God knows what the damage done to all that.

00:15:29.06 alexei sayle Yeah. yeah It is.

00:15:31.12 Talal K um is grim.

00:15:32.83 alexei sayle It's a bad thing.

00:15:34.29 Talal K And it is one of the most beautiful parks ah they I've ever seen.

00:15:36.91 alexei sayle It's lovely. Yeah.

00:15:41.28 alexei sayle But maybe we should, well, we should just let kneecap perform and nobody else.

00:15:46.53 Talal K That's the conflict for me. It's like, I want them to have a headline at a good show.

00:15:48.95 alexei sayle Yeah, yeah, that'd be interesting.

00:15:49.94 Talal K Yeah. Just kneecap to it.

00:15:53.30 alexei sayle Interesting to see. So anyway, we've just come off a run of, um was it three live shows at the Museum of Comedy?

00:16:02.66 Talal K And the Museum of Comedy feels weird not having scores of people in front of us right now.

00:16:04.17 alexei sayle Yeah. how

00:16:09.90 alexei sayle No, there's, yeah, well, there's, yeah, my house.

00:16:12.86 Talal K Yeah. Yeah.

00:16:13.06 alexei sayle It's party central all the time. It's

00:16:15.25 Talal K wow I've got back of my fruit bowl.

00:16:16.58 alexei sayle It's not really.

00:16:17.50 Talal K got my fruit bowl back.

00:16:18.34 alexei sayle Oh, it's still depleted. There's only oranges about All right.

00:16:22.08 Talal K There's one brown banana in there as well. It's bit depressed.

00:16:26.04 alexei sayle um

00:16:26.15 Talal K It's been nice. so how does it feel for you?

00:16:28.78 alexei sayle Yeah, no, I think

00:16:28.91 Talal K Now, compare and contrast live show and Zencast recorded show.

00:16:34.08 alexei sayle Well, I think obviously you have to be a bit more, you have to be a bit more on the button than um particularly this, this podcast. ah You have to, you know, because you're facing the audience, you have to be more on your toes, really.

00:16:46.45 alexei sayle Beautiful, beautiful atmosphere. I think that, um you know, just really, and they did you know, I mean, it's only a small room, but it's, it's like the last two were sold out when it was, you know, it's it's slowly built really.

00:16:49.63 Talal K Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

00:16:58.52 Talal K Mm-hmm.

00:16:59.59 alexei sayle And it's something that we want to, build on we've put in another block of we haven't don't know if we quite confirmed them yet but we put another block in in july and august on a sunday we thought we'd go for sundays i hope that that builds up and then also if i think you know why not you know try it in a larger room as well do it at the leicester square theater as well as the

00:17:10.57 Talal K Yep.

00:17:22.59 Talal K There's talks about doing that once a year for now.

00:17:23.49 alexei sayle Talk about that. Yeah, we're going on the road. We're going hopefully to Liverpool and Shoreham and University of Kent. It's easy, you know, it's it's nice. It's, um you know, it's a way to interact with the public without having to, um you know, having to have...

00:17:40.08 Talal K Have you gotten used to the feeling, to the idea of stepping out there with little to nothing prepared at all?

00:17:48.49 alexei sayle Yeah, well, I was never not used to it, really. I never, I mean... I don't know whether there ever come point where run out of things to say, really. I mean, um ah it, but it, you know, so far it's just kind of,

00:18:04.57 alexei sayle um I mean, um I have no, you know, I don't really, I mean, I've got the odd thing in my mind that I want to talk about, but, ah you know, see if we can keep that doing it, keep going indefinitely.

00:18:10.22 Talal K Yeah.

00:18:16.10 Talal K I find it...

00:18:16.35 alexei sayle But it does, there is a sense of community as well, isn't there, that you feel, mean, there was a woman who, there was a woman who'd come from Derry, there was guy who come from Leeds, yeah.

00:18:19.38 Talal K Yeah.

00:18:23.00 Talal K Margot.

00:18:25.23 alexei sayle um And so perhaps more people will do that, you know, come and just to sort of see us and then chat afterwards.

00:18:32.10 Talal K Yeah, you reminded me. Steve came. um That might have been the Leeds guy. Is... and Is Newbury near Leeds?

00:18:43.55 alexei sayle No.

00:18:44.30 Talal K No. Newbury, that's in London. Anyway, he told me about this event.

00:18:47.40 alexei sayle What's in the southeast?

00:18:49.95 Talal K He told me about this event on the 25th of June called Are We There Yet? um

00:18:59.48 Talal K And it's... Okay. Lighthearted approach to tough issues. There's going to talk about a race, Palestine. ah There's the flyer for the Patreon subscribers.

00:19:08.91 alexei sayle Corn exchange Newbury.

00:19:10.64 Talal K Yeah. um I told him I'd give it a shout out on the show. You just reminded me of it. I should have studied it a bit more. But the Corn Exchange in Newbury, Are We There Yet?

00:19:22.97 Talal K Are We There Yet? takes a lighthearted approach to some tough issues. Whilst the elites siphon up the wealth and appear to play with our rights like a game, the rest of us are left wondering, will it ever change?

00:19:35.61 Talal K It's, I think, it's a play. And then there'll be a Q&A afterwards.

00:19:39.63 alexei sayle All right, okay, right.

00:19:41.21 Talal K ah Comedy, multilingual storytelling, absurd spectacle. The play delivers a message of hope, unity and compassion. um Steve was really nice. He's a Patreon member.

00:19:51.37 alexei sayle never Yeah, nice, yeah.

00:19:53.08 Talal K ah And he he met us both.

00:19:55.66 alexei sayle I like a show in a corn exchange.

00:19:58.15 Talal K Yeah. Oh, yeah.

00:19:58.54 alexei sayle That's a tip to balance with me. if If I see something and it's in a corn exchange, I will ah go and see it, but I'll only pay in corn.

00:20:08.76 Talal K that's a good point it says it right on the door mate

00:20:10.01 alexei sayle Yeah, I will exchange corn. There's a hop exchange in Borough. In fact, I knew a bloke. I think he must to be dead now. He was a hop trader.

00:20:21.81 alexei sayle I think he was very broke.

00:20:21.96 Talal K in damascus we have the daughter exchange

00:20:25.07 alexei sayle Ha ha ha ha ha.

00:20:25.75 Talal K Sorry.

00:20:26.23 alexei sayle Ha ha ha ha ha.

00:20:28.69 Talal K Shut up. That was funny. um ah i really appreciate everyone who came to the live show. It was a really nice sense of community, a nice mix of Patreon members, non-Patreon, and even some people who'd never heard the podcast.

00:20:39.68 alexei sayle yeah

00:20:43.08 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:20:43.83 Talal K Hopefully new listeners to the show.

00:20:43.83 alexei sayle was way Yeah.

00:20:46.50 Talal K um And that last show where that was fully sold out, ah we had the least prepared. And I found it really exciting and... And yeah, like you said, there's always something to talk about.

00:20:57.41 Talal K and

00:20:57.68 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:20:58.22 Talal K But there was the odd moment where we'd like catch catch each other's eye and we knew that neither of us had anything.

00:21:00.36 alexei sayle That's good. yeah

00:21:03.86 Talal K And then we'd have to pull a new topic out out of our asses.

00:21:04.33 alexei sayle yeah

00:21:07.50 Talal K And it was fun.

00:21:07.83 alexei sayle yeah

00:21:08.18 Talal K And I think the feedback I got is that people really enjoy that.

00:21:08.65 alexei sayle that's good

00:21:13.76 Talal K they That's the podcast experience is what of several people have said to me.

00:21:15.88 alexei sayle Yeah, right.

00:21:17.40 Talal K that's That's what they've come for is to see that excitement and to to know that we're all on the same level.

00:21:20.91 alexei sayle Right.

00:21:24.63 Talal K Paige, no one knows what's coming next, including us, and that's the podcast experience.

00:21:25.33 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:21:30.87 Talal K Thanks for all the lovely feedback and the comments.

00:21:32.33 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:21:33.00 Talal K and

00:21:33.28 alexei sayle Yeah. No, more and more than, you know, we keep, say we've got a block of another four and then, you know, it you know once around the country and it's, you know, it's easier than doing

00:21:43.10 Talal K Yeah.

00:21:45.89 alexei sayle It's easier than going out and doing stand-up, which is too, you know, it's just to bit too nerve-wracking, I find.

00:21:48.56 Talal K Yeah.

00:21:53.87 Talal K um Can I just mention, seeing we're talking about ah things as I mentioned feedback, it would be nice to just remind people your feedback really matters and it really helps the show.

00:22:04.65 Talal K If you leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you listen to this.

00:22:11.09 alexei sayle Yes, our listeners are still very bad about that, aren't they?

00:22:11.60 Talal K um

00:22:14.14 alexei sayle They they need to...

00:22:14.32 Talal K No, we've had 545 ratings on Apple.

00:22:17.02 alexei sayle alright they're good then alright then there's a guy on YouTube that listens to like ratio is still a bit tragic yeah

00:22:18.37 Talal K Yeah, they're not bad, but more.

00:22:24.88 Talal K I love him every every week he on the comments. He's like, only 15% of viewers have liked this video.

00:22:29.90 alexei sayle the yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah we appreciate your work as well friend yeah but uh yes

00:22:31.70 Talal K Come on, guys. Support Talan and Alexi. I'm like, go on, brother. Yes, please. I think his name's Rob, I think.

00:22:40.28 Talal K Yes, comrade. Salute. um But yeah, like Zapata mustache. Oh, could that possibly be your friend?

00:22:49.13 alexei sayle No, it's ah it's a type of moustache.

00:22:51.82 Talal K Oh, it is, yeah. But your friend who who do illustrated Alex Tell in the imaginary?

00:22:52.63 alexei sayle Yeah. It's called Zarate. He's not called Zapata.

00:22:56.76 Talal K Zarate.

00:22:58.10 alexei sayle Zapata means shoe.

00:23:00.08 Talal K Zapata Mustache on Apple Podcasts ah wrote a five-star review.

00:23:02.26 alexei sayle No.

00:23:04.52 Talal K Long-time Patreon and worth every penny. Although we get nothing in return, which isn't true any anymore, you get ah you get to see the full video ah episode, the full video podcast every week.

00:23:11.92 alexei sayle that

00:23:16.94 Talal K um But then the podcast is enough. A podcast with varied and interesting guests. Love hearing snippets of Alexi's career and Talal. Steers the conversation along interesting topics.

00:23:28.99 Talal K Thank you Zapata Moustache. ah Brazil, no Brails writes, this is what cool is comrades. Real left politics, funny comedy and films, a trifecta of cool.

00:23:44.82 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:23:45.41 Talal K One more, Alan. Alan says, really enjoying this podcast. Talal is doing a five-star job steering the ship. Thanks, guys. I've been a fan of Alexei since childhood.

00:23:56.07 Talal K Being a scouser, he reminded me of my mad uncle, Tom. One of my favorite ever sketches from the young ones is when he'd done an impression of Benito Mussolini and s sung a ridiculous song called Funny Noises?

00:24:08.82 Talal K No, I think it was Stupid Noises.

00:24:09.52 alexei sayle Yeah, stupid noises.

00:24:11.40 Talal K It would be brilliant if Alexei could reenact the scene on the podcast.

00:24:15.08 alexei sayle I can't do that. I could do the one, what was it It's where I used to my stand-up act. I'd do the the St.

00:24:22.74 Talal K being an

00:24:23.21 alexei sayle Winifred School Choir. um was ah but were a chart-topping act for a while. It was a group of tots from a school somewhere up north, Oldham or somewhere.

00:24:36.09 alexei sayle St. Winifred School Choir singing...

00:24:38.00 Talal K are they the ones who did uh grandma we love you

00:24:40.65 alexei sayle Yes, that's right. So it's a triple impersonation. So it was George Formby, Lancashire entertainer, doing the St. Winifred School Choir, singing about Mussolini. And what they go?

00:24:52.54 alexei sayle Oh, Mussolini, we love you. We love you a lot. When you left your home for a wander round Rome, you were hung from a lamppost and shot.

00:25:08.86 alexei sayle Oh, I'm hanging from the lamppost at the corner of the square.

00:25:15.09 alexei sayle that's that that that is many forgotten entertainers there. St. Winifred School Choir, where are they now?

00:25:20.23 Talal K Oh.

00:25:22.59 alexei sayle And George Formby. Turned out nice again, ain't it? Oh, I'm hanging from the lamppost at the corner of the street in case a certain little lady goes by.

00:25:35.07 alexei sayle Oh, me. Yeah, there you go.

00:25:38.95 Talal K yeah ah because The bit you did in the heat in The Young Ones was from your stand-up, wasn't it? About being mistaken for Mussolini in a nightclub, right?

00:25:46.31 alexei sayle Yeah, well, I used to, yeah, it was, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right.

00:25:50.04 Talal K And is that actually true?

00:25:51.79 alexei sayle No, I mean, it's true.

00:25:52.33 Talal K No one ever, obviously.

00:25:53.66 alexei sayle I mean, no, I just, it doesn't, yeah, well,

00:25:53.95 Talal K But did anyone ever say you looked like him?

00:25:59.93 alexei sayle I can't remember where it came from, but I i just realised that I did, I don't want the beard now, did I don't look like him necessarily anymore, but I looked a bit like Mussolini, so it was ah it was a range of bizarre impersonations that I used to do in

00:26:07.09 Talal K Hmm.

00:26:14.64 alexei sayle the end of my act, Bertolt Brecht was the other one, and Benito and Mussolini, you know, it's just the people happen to look like.

00:26:23.66 Talal K um Yeah, Brecht was one, yeah, that's it.

00:26:26.95 alexei sayle But I liked that it was so, you know, so absurd even then to be doing, even in the 80s, to be doing impersonations of Mussolini.

00:26:35.87 Talal K Iconic, man.

00:26:36.80 alexei sayle Yeah, it was, ah I liked the stupidity of it.

00:26:37.81 Talal K Iconic scene. That's that's when you're you're like a police constable, isn't it? And Neil comes in to get a job.

00:26:43.84 alexei sayle Yes, it's ten I think it's in Money, ah as ah where they're they're all broke and Neil wants to join the police.

00:26:49.70 Talal K Neil wants to get a job and it's got one of the funniest bits when he like smokes the bong and then instantly just shoots off into the sky and you walk off and sing Stupid Noises, which I want to adopt.

00:26:55.74 alexei sayle Yeah. Yeah.

00:27:01.97 alexei sayle yes Yeah, sure.

00:27:01.98 Talal K It is unofficially the name of my podcast production company, Stupid Noises Podcast.

00:27:06.42 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:27:08.99 Talal K um I'm working on a jingle.

00:27:09.96 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:27:10.75 Talal K We're going to hear that at the beginning or end of every episode.

00:27:14.06 alexei sayle Right.

00:27:14.14 Talal K um I want to, I'm going to kind of re... Me and my friend are going to recreate the song and make a jingle out of it.

00:27:20.62 alexei sayle I'm sorry, because I spend a lot of time thinking about what I will call my production company if I ever have a production company, which I never will. That's one of the things I spend the most time thinking about.

00:27:32.47 Talal K Well, why don't we be co-owners of this production company?

00:27:32.82 alexei sayle I don't

00:27:35.92 alexei sayle know. Well, yeah, all right. It says that kind of cost me money.

00:27:40.38 Talal K Oh, no, i'll I'll do it all on the cheap, don't worry.

00:27:43.69 alexei sayle All right. But yeah, stupid noises.

00:27:44.51 Talal K So yeah, we've got we got this podcast, we've got my brother's podcast, Arms House to Your Mom's House.

00:27:45.72 alexei sayle and

00:27:49.80 Talal K And soon, hopefully, me and Sami are working on, Sami Abawaradi are working on a podcast idea. I think I just, I kind of want to just call it, I want to call me and Sami's podcast, The Arabs.

00:27:59.24 alexei sayle Well, it's a good name, stupid noises.

00:28:03.86 Talal K Yeah, it's a good name for a podcast company, isn't it? Stupid Noises.

00:28:08.54 alexei sayle Yeah, it's very good. ah which I wish I'd thought, well, I did think of it in a sense, but then you stole it of me.

00:28:12.08 Talal K Yeah, you did. You did think of it.

00:28:16.16 alexei sayle ah But I do spend an awful lot of time thinking about my microcosm entertainment. Good morning, microcosm entertainment. How may I direct your call?

00:28:27.70 Talal K That's right.

00:28:28.13 alexei sayle and Mr. Taylor's on a Zoom at the moment, but he'll call you back in five minutes. Hello, microcosm entertainment.

00:28:38.47 alexei sayle Number 7595 La Brea Boulevard, Los Angeles, Hollywood, 7290. That'll be our headquarters.

00:28:51.38 Talal K What would he be producing?

00:28:53.15 alexei sayle Oh, um well, we have several divisions, obviously. Movie division, um

00:29:01.15 alexei sayle the Matt Damon story, the

00:29:05.36 alexei sayle We have a podcast division, obviously, because that's like, you know, and TV, a lot of different series for Netflix.

00:29:14.10 Talal K Yeah, constantly pitching. We've a pitch meeting every week.

00:29:16.38 alexei sayle Yeah. Netflix, we've got series where we're in discussion with Apple to do a series about, yeah, Lex.

00:29:24.18 Talal K series called Lex and it's a fictionalized version of you and it's just a very kind of grounded down-to-earth sitcom of you living your everyday life and all the funny

00:29:26.62 alexei sayle Yeah. Yeah.

00:29:36.20 alexei sayle And all my crazy friends and my crazy Adam friend, Talal will be played by somebody else, but not you.

00:29:41.90 Talal K Obviously, yeah.

00:29:42.70 alexei sayle but You play by an Italian guy.

00:29:44.14 Talal K I can't get a fucking break. Yeah, by an Italian guy.

00:29:46.02 alexei sayle but

00:29:48.52 Talal K Hey, listen.

00:29:48.56 alexei sayle And...

00:29:49.70 Talal K i Back in Syria, we know how to make a podcast.

00:29:55.43 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:29:55.73 Talal K um

00:29:57.42 alexei sayle um Yeah, what else have we got? The George Formby story. so It's a series about George Formby making that for Paramount+.

00:30:05.50 Talal K um There's a

00:30:09.37 Talal K an interview series. ah

00:30:11.79 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:30:12.67 Talal K strangers on a Palestine march and it's just marching and interviewing people at the march.

00:30:15.52 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:30:19.63 alexei sayle Good idea.

00:30:20.70 Talal K Good one, isn't it? You should expand strangers on a train and do it in change the word train to other things.

00:30:27.94 alexei sayle ah Yeah, it doesn't really work.

00:30:30.59 Talal K Strangers a taxi.

00:30:30.96 alexei sayle we've We've tried everything.

00:30:33.74 Talal K strangers in it taxi

00:30:35.59 alexei sayle and Yeah, it only works in a train.

00:30:38.00 Talal K so

00:30:40.35 Talal K We could do it. We could produce a ri a new Eurovision Song Conta test alternative for the for the progressive left-wing pro-Palestinian crowd.

00:30:49.64 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:30:52.33 alexei sayle Yeah. Yeah. It's highly just featuring kneecap.

00:31:00.90 alexei sayle represent yeah every song you cap yeah yeah

00:31:01.43 Talal K Yeah, they're every song. Every song is kneecap. They're just waving a different flag every time. And it's not a Hezbollah flag.

00:31:12.16 alexei sayle well no um but also um i should go you were tomorrow we're gonna try and film that that idea i had no not that but we're gonna film meet me me me

00:31:18.61 Talal K No, we're not going film We're not going film not going film it. um Oh, okay. Sorry.

00:31:24.20 alexei sayle We're going to do a TikTok video where I dance and then break off and explain the theory of Marxism.

00:31:24.57 Talal K Start again. Do that again.

00:31:29.04 Talal K Can you start this bit again? Sorry. Say that again.

00:31:30.73 alexei sayle All right. You're coming around tomorrow and we're going to film me. me dad We're going to film like a TikTok video where I dance and then break off and explain the theory of Marxism.

00:31:39.20 Talal K Yeah.

00:31:44.52 alexei sayle Economic and philosophical theory of Marxism.

00:31:48.03 Talal K yeah

00:31:48.03 alexei sayle Then I dance a bit more. i don't know what track we're going to dance to yet, but I've been thinking a lot about that.

00:31:51.72 Talal K I'll just, whatever the most trending song is.

00:31:54.21 alexei sayle All right.

00:31:54.88 Talal K Should we just do that? That's kind of got to be the bit, isn't it?

00:31:57.46 alexei sayle Is that you do it? Well, if you have to be able to dance, it has to inspire me to dance. But yes, I suppose so.

00:32:03.63 Talal K Well, yeah, because that's what also helps you get hits on these apps is that you're using a song that everyone wants to hear and everyone wants to see different people's take on.

00:32:07.96 alexei sayle All right. Okay.

00:32:13.55 alexei sayle And so that how do we do that how do we do the copyright with that? you just play it and then...

00:32:18.01 Talal K Oh, it's all in, it's all in intertwined into the, uh, the software it's, it's, they've all got the licenses sorted.

00:32:20.98 alexei sayle TikTok. so fine alright anyway we're going to do that tomorrow so I'll dance a bit and

00:32:25.66 Talal K Uh, so what you're, but so you're gonna like, You definitely want to do the dance, pause, say something, dance again. You don't want to

00:32:38.41 alexei sayle I think so that makes the most yeah yeah yeah it might be humiliating oh man

00:32:39.71 Talal K As you know what, it's a format you create. It's your thing. um' I'm cool with it. ah Let's not copy a different trend. Yeah. you not worried that people are you're pathetically grabbing at mean culture and trying to latch on to the youth zeitgeist?

00:32:53.83 alexei sayle Well, because I am

00:32:55.54 Talal K Yeah.

00:32:56.65 alexei sayle So they'd be right if they thought that.

00:33:01.22 alexei sayle But I'm doing it in a good course.

00:33:04.48 Talal K all right you need to pre-prepare you know you're the little chunks about marxism you want to do and you know what it's good idea well you we tried it on the stage and you only had one remember you ran out you didn't have a second thing to say so we were forced to end the show

00:33:08.18 alexei sayle Me bits, me chunks, yeah, yeah. Like, I can't do that, like, off the top of my head. Fuck off.

00:33:23.13 alexei sayle I did. You're right. Yeah. Yeah.

00:33:26.41 Talal K um and That was another thing.

00:33:28.74 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:33:29.31 Talal K That was the first show is that we had this big kind of physical moment that was perfect to end the show. Like you did the dance and I went, that's been our show, everyone. Thanks so much. And everyone went crazy. And then it's not a thing you can force though, is it Because I thought that's great way to end the show.

00:33:45.20 alexei sayle yeah

00:33:45.51 Talal K Hopefully the next one will have a big thing to finish on.

00:33:48.15 alexei sayle yeah

00:33:48.77 Talal K But I realized that you can just end the show without doing that. But

00:33:53.27 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:33:53.74 Talal K It was magical when that happens, I guess.

00:33:56.07 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:33:57.95 Talal K And i

00:33:58.10 alexei sayle ah Talking of videos, almost there's also a video just gone up, ah which I am part of. ah Don't buy apartheid. It's about know boycotting Israeli goods.

00:34:10.01 alexei sayle It went up, and then I think I got an email saying they've misspelled Juliet Stevenson's name, so it's gone off again. But it'll go back when they've got a name right.

00:34:19.51 Talal K I... Keep an eye out for that.

00:34:20.68 alexei sayle Oh, we've got Jenny Steeves' name wrong, good dear.

00:34:25.71 Talal K It might be a good idea to batch film a few of these.

00:34:27.44 alexei sayle Or Julia Sawala or something like that.

00:34:28.88 Talal K So think of, you know, one could be about Marxism and maybe think of two or three other topics.

00:34:29.38 alexei sayle is

00:34:33.85 alexei sayle Colonialism, yeah, colonialism. Yeah.

00:34:37.59 Talal K Yeah, and then we can slowly release them over a period of time.

00:34:40.15 alexei sayle yeah

00:34:41.66 Talal K um

00:34:41.77 alexei sayle ah And then, yeah. If they don't, but I'll tell you now. If it's not like, you know, if it doesn't trend, if it doesn't... I'm only doing it if it's dead popular.

00:34:53.63 Talal K Yes, sir.

00:34:53.81 alexei sayle If it just does look like a pathetic fat old man kind of wiggling about, saying incomprehensible things while dancing to a track from Teddy Swims.

00:35:01.53 Talal K I

00:35:05.75 alexei sayle Maybe I'll draw.

00:35:05.84 Talal K ah might see if my brother's available to come and help us film it because he's very good at all this.

00:35:06.40 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:35:09.12 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:35:11.56 alexei sayle Right.

00:35:11.89 Talal K um he's He's so good at um producing and editing videos. It blows my mind actually.

00:35:20.39 alexei sayle All right, let's do that.

00:35:20.57 Talal K um

00:35:24.00 Talal K ah Co-op, you mentioned ah Boycott.

00:35:27.62 alexei sayle Yeah, the co-op was the co-op general... bla i mean it was in I mean, it's also... we We are this morning during the night ah to... in Washington, D.C. The two... two American, I think, but people who worked at the Israeli league Embassy were shot dead by... ah suspect somebody's been driven mad by seeing... slaughter on...

00:35:57.08 Talal K Yeah.

00:35:57.64 alexei sayle their phone all the time, which is...

00:36:01.05 Talal K Yeah, he was...

00:36:01.05 alexei sayle ah ah But ah the the immediate, the despicable efforts by then Israeli foreign minister and their spokespeople to their blame, you know, Israel's enemies for this, creating this atmosphere rather than their own genocidal activities is...

00:36:28.32 alexei sayle you know it's repellent really um anyway so that i mean one of the things they've been getting out raised about is that the co-op has voted to stop stocking all i think israeli products and um i think that's a really good thing and hope that more stores you know there there was a i i mean i don't know it's you've sensed there is a certain

00:36:39.49 Talal K Yes.

00:36:47.15 Talal K We've yet...

00:36:50.94 Talal K We've yet to see if it will actually happen.

00:36:53.82 alexei sayle I don't know. I mean, I think that will happen. I think the people at the top of the co-op are decent people.

00:36:59.26 Talal K Okay, good.

00:37:00.15 alexei sayle That will happen, you know, you censor certain people. i mean I mean, that it has to get to this before the wind changes, that people see the true nature of Israel, the true genocidal fascist nature of Israel.

00:37:13.62 alexei sayle That has to murder, you know, probably hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians. Use starvation to see and to see the arrogance and the vile nature of Israel and its spokespeople.

00:37:23.57 Talal K yeah

00:37:29.35 alexei sayle um you know it's that that it has to this has to happen before people even start you know in parliament start issuing mild words but perhaps the but i don't know it's either i don't know if it's false dawn or if the wind is changing we will see is it yeah well that's yeah yeah yeah

00:37:46.16 Talal K Well, if P.S. Morgan is calling it a genocide, then, you know, things have gone upside down. you know But ah you're right, it's how far can they push us?

00:37:57.86 Talal K And I wrote last night, you know someone posted that,

00:37:58.87 alexei sayle yeah

00:38:06.94 Talal K someone posted, you know I just saw ah just saw a Palestinian child with a hollowed out head, the dead body of a toddler that looked so tiny on a stretcher, a little girl with her head cracked open.

00:38:19.01 Talal K Doctors removing shrapnel from a baby's face. My entire timeline is just an endless stream of horror. And I, it resonated with me because that's so fucking true every single day. So I responded every day, every single day.

00:38:33.34 Talal K I swear it's, it's probably traumatized me or us more than, more than a hundred pandemics and lockdowns that people were so,

00:38:38.57 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:38:43.92 Talal K traumatized by, him um you know, we can only wait and see what long-term effects this will have on our collective societal psyche, you know, like who can we ever trust again?

00:38:45.06 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:38:52.65 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:38:55.44 Talal K Who can we ever trust to lead us, to make decisions for us if this has gone this far?

00:38:58.83 alexei sayle Indeed.

00:39:00.76 Talal K um And then I i carried on. i so i nearly I nearly screened at my colleague the other day when they told me they were going to McDonald's for lunch.

00:39:09.39 alexei sayle Right.

00:39:09.55 Talal K And they invited me, they said, do I wanna come? And I ah just fucking shut down. I nearly screamed at their face in the work and a work environment and I just bit my tongue.

00:39:15.49 alexei sayle Yeah. Yeah.

00:39:18.66 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:39:19.69 Talal K I said, no, and I walked away from it.

00:39:21.89 alexei sayle man

00:39:22.24 Talal K ah So don't ever tell me you're going to McDonald's, please, if you're my friend. But like, you know, that um ah that kind of reaction, it's the first side I've been face-to-face with someone who like,

00:39:25.90 alexei sayle No.

00:39:33.03 Talal K I'm hoping they're just blissfully unaware of any Zionist connection with McDonald.

00:39:38.56 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:39:39.12 Talal K But um you know someone I consider a friend and a colleague, I nearly fucking screamed their head off. And that was a trigger. That was like I'd been triggered.

00:39:50.27 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:39:50.69 Talal K And this is from the trauma of seeing this every day. And how can anyone support this financially or politically?

00:39:55.09 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:39:56.22 Talal K and

00:39:56.75 alexei sayle Yeah, we are all.

00:39:57.52 Talal K What the fuck has it done to us?

00:39:58.09 alexei sayle um Yeah, true.

00:39:59.16 Talal K We don't know yet what this has done to us.

00:40:00.65 alexei sayle um Yeah, it's, you know, it's true. The trauma is ongoing and it's, you know, for anybody, anybody with any humanity, it's really deep and long lasting, really.

00:40:14.05 alexei sayle And again, that's another price they have made us pay, that they have destroyed our serenity. That country, that terrible country has destroyed our serenity.

00:40:25.44 Talal K It's just like we're surrounded by the fascists, racists, cunts. Suddenly, you know if ah you know, they're calling it, ah ah the racist idiots are calling it a white genocide in South Africa and yet ignoring Palestine.

00:40:41.30 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:40:41.69 Talal K People going up in arms and and crying, hearts bleeding for Ukraine and flags and windows everywhere, Ukrainian flags. And why have I reached a point where I resent that?

00:40:54.26 Talal K you know I should be you know supporting anyone who's fighting war or against war and killing. But I see a Ukrainian flag and i my instant thought is, where's your Palestine flag?

00:41:04.69 alexei sayle yeah yeah yeah my daughter that has made me think yeah guy set fire to himself you know yeah

00:41:04.78 Talal K you know it's It fucking destroying us, you know? And we've seen people burn themselves alive.

00:41:18.26 Talal K Like someone cracks and goes into an Israeli embassy with a gun, you know? It's like the the world is going fucking crazy.

00:41:25.60 alexei sayle no that is this I mean this is all all the price they've made us pay you know and they need to

00:41:33.41 Talal K And yet you still have like Jimmy Carr go to the British Museum and host the Israeli birthday party.

00:41:33.47 alexei sayle They need to change. so

00:41:37.62 alexei sayle Yeah. and and What's her name? with The other he had lesser of two Eagles. It was the mariah Maria Eagle. MP for God, I'm Garstin in Liverpool.

00:41:50.14 alexei sayle Vile human being.

00:41:50.62 Talal K What are you thinking? How much must they have paid him?

00:41:51.99 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:41:53.99 Talal K Because even if he supports Israel or not, he knows what that will do to his public image.

00:41:56.32 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:42:00.00 Talal K you're gonna instantly split your audience in half, or hopefully not half.

00:42:00.56 alexei sayle Well... Yeah, I don't think he cares.

00:42:05.09 Talal K Doesn't give a fuck, does he?

00:42:06.87 alexei sayle No, he probably, I don't know how let's just ah political or politicised he is, really. I don't know. But yeah.

00:42:16.27 Talal K How politicized it have to be to know that that's fucking ridiculous.

00:42:21.42 alexei sayle Yep.

00:42:21.72 Talal K So now we have to boycott the British Museum, as if we didn't have enough reasons to, but that they would host that event.

00:42:28.82 alexei sayle Yeah, it's tone deaf on their part, for the least.

00:42:36.72 Talal K can you know they were obviously paid buttload of money have you ever hosted an event you regret or done a gig and like stood there and go oh shit what have i done

00:42:40.44 alexei sayle Presumably.

00:42:45.37 alexei sayle Oh, I don't...

00:42:48.23 alexei sayle ah No, because Linda usually stops me. i I'm like, yeah, yeah.

00:42:52.86 Talal K you're so lucky to have her she's incredible

00:42:56.28 alexei sayle I'm like, oh, you're old, do you? she's No, no, no, you're not. I don't think, i don't think,

00:43:03.02 Talal K It's BP, Alexi. You're not doing a gig for BP.

00:43:06.69 alexei sayle yeah, I don't know. i think I think she's usually stopped me before I've been inveigled into supporting anything dodgy.

00:43:17.41 alexei sayle But yeah, you know, yeah.

00:43:18.97 Talal K Yeah. We all need a Linda in our lives, man.

00:43:22.07 alexei sayle Mm-hmm.

00:43:22.51 Talal K You're blessed.

00:43:25.67 Talal K ah I've made myself really sad. um Can I ask you for your advice?

00:43:34.15 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:43:36.34 Talal K Do you remember a few weeks ago, or maybe a month ago now, we said, we were talking about we need to create a hit Palestine song.

00:43:36.74 alexei sayle Yes.

00:43:46.73 alexei sayle Yes.

00:43:47.20 Talal K That will become incredibly catchy and everyone will fucking love it and it will help spread the message, you know.

00:43:52.48 alexei sayle yeah

00:43:54.32 Talal K So I've had this idea in my head for like a year and a half now, but I couldn't quite get the lyrics. um And with the help of Sami Abawaradi, I think I've kind of landed on something.

00:44:11.49 Talal K m By the way, big up, previous guest, Sami Abawaradi, he's got a big show coming up. His new hour is called Peace de Resistance on the 31st May.

00:44:22.73 alexei sayle We're going, where is it?

00:44:23.90 Talal K We're going, is that the Theatre Teatr...

00:44:23.90 alexei sayle Where is it on?

00:44:28.08 alexei sayle Theatro Technis.

00:44:29.20 Talal K Yeah, that's the one. Teatro Tecnis.

00:44:31.76 alexei sayle It's near my house, it's Andy.

00:44:33.77 Talal K Oh, good. um Here we go. Yeah. Teatro Tecnis, 31st of May.

00:44:39.00 alexei sayle It's nice space.

00:44:41.01 Talal K It's also on the 26th and 27th of May. Please support the dude. He's a Palestinian comedian who is out there, who has, I think, I can't wait for to see him.

00:44:51.65 Talal K This could be a complete failure. Like the last time I took, you'd see a Palestinian comic, but he has got, you're going see how it actually is done to do politics and anger and comedy all rolled together.

00:45:05.17 Talal K um to show you the amazing artwork of the flyer for the viewers, for the Patreon viewers.

00:45:09.58 alexei sayle All right.

00:45:11.53 Talal K and Look at his face.

00:45:11.76 alexei sayle Is that Ray Larabic?

00:45:13.53 Talal K Yeah. Maybe he'll get arrested for that.

00:45:17.40 alexei sayle I won't be surprised.

00:45:17.68 Talal K All right. 26, 27, 31st.

00:45:20.41 alexei sayle you You asking about song.

00:45:23.34 Talal K So yes.

00:45:23.47 alexei sayle Yes, I may have a other...

00:45:23.70 Talal K So my idea is a parody. And I don't know why ah no one's ever done it yet, but a parody of the most catchy viral song of all time.

00:45:33.04 alexei sayle Right.

00:45:33.71 Talal K It's sweet Caroline.

00:45:36.04 alexei sayle Right, I hate that song, yeah.

00:45:36.11 Talal K da ah But you say free Palestine.

00:45:40.99 alexei sayle All right, okay.

00:45:41.72 Talal K And then what we have so far, we will soon return for good, for good, for good, for good. You're out of time.

00:45:52.80 Talal K but but but We'll take back our neighborhood. So. We need to workshop this. People out there are making this an open forum now.

00:46:04.46 Talal K We need to rewrite the lyrics of Sweet Caroline, sing it at the marches, do it on your social medias, at the football stadiums, and make it go fucking massive.

00:46:04.48 alexei sayle Yes.

00:46:11.59 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:46:13.57 Talal K Make it Free Palestine.

00:46:13.63 alexei sayle Yeah. I don't know who the... I mean, when I did... without When I did... I'd play that funky music, Jewish Boy...

00:46:23.01 Talal K Yeah.

00:46:23.79 alexei sayle which I did on my album and studio album, I think, and then I did in Alexis Hirstoff. It turned out my top team of lawyers managed to arrange it so that I had to pay all royalties to a band called Wild Cherry, who originally recorded Play That Funky Music, ah White Boy.

00:46:42.89 alexei sayle And I got to keep none of them.

00:46:43.38 Talal K Oh no.

00:46:45.73 alexei sayle The...

00:46:47.91 alexei sayle you know, because I, you know, so I don't know how that works with, i mean, it's a Neil Diamond song, isn't it, originally?

00:46:53.13 Talal K It's a Neil Diamond song.

00:46:53.28 alexei sayle I don't know i don who wrote it.

00:46:54.26 Talal K Yeah. I wonder if, well, that's only if you release it and make money off of it. You can't control people in the streets, what they sing.

00:47:00.84 alexei sayle Singing it. No, that's true.

00:47:03.53 Talal K um

00:47:03.70 alexei sayle All right. Yeah.

00:47:05.17 Talal K ah ah Have you got any instant reaction to that? sweet Free Palestine, we will soon ah Me too, I fucking hate the song But it's so popular And if we made it Free Palestine Maybe we'd learn to love the song

00:47:09.47 alexei sayle I hate that song so much. Yeah.

00:47:17.11 alexei sayle Yeah, so you'd either, ah you'd either people with there other people stop singing it, which either way, it's a win-win really, isn't People at rugby matches might stop singing it if they're thought to be singing about Palestine, so that's a win.

00:47:32.53 alexei sayle Yes, I heartily approve this project. Well, I don't want to think of any of the words, but anybody wants to contribute to the lyrics, might.

00:47:41.39 Talal K Okay. I'm looking online for Neil Diamond, Palestine, to see if he's made any comments on Palestine. But I have seen that a couple people have obviously thought of this idea as well.

00:47:54.82 Talal K um I'm so...

00:47:54.83 alexei sayle All right.

00:47:55.66 Talal K um No one's... Nothing's... Nothing massive. So it's an obvious thing. Free Palestine, sweet Caroline.

00:48:01.43 alexei sayle Okay.

00:48:03.59 Talal K Let's make it happen, please.

00:48:05.15 alexei sayle Okay.

00:48:05.21 Talal K um I'm sick of hearing that song in pubs and... and football clubs and all that.

00:48:09.86 alexei sayle Oh, so much.

00:48:10.81 Talal K So let's make change the word to something we agree with. um Send in your suggestions, comment on the YouTube, ah write it in your Apple podcast review.

00:48:22.74 Talal K ah Send me a message on Patreon, put it in the Patreon chat rooms. If you want to support the show, help the show out. um keep me in a job, then go to patreon.com forward slash AlexisL podcast. That's patreon.com forward slash AlexisL podcast.

00:48:37.79 Talal K We have two ah chat rooms in there. There's a chat room where we can all just chat and build a little community. And there's another one with questions for you, direct questions to you. um which we'll get to in a second.

00:48:50.64 Talal K We also post video versions of every podcast episode on the Patreon. You can see the live shows we did at the Museum of Comedy um and any other bits that we come up with. we maybe I might put some behind-the-scenes stuff of this viral meme we're going to make tomorrow on our Patreon.

00:49:06.86 Talal K um And I need to let listeners know, do not sign up to our Patreon through the Apple podcast, ah through the Apple podcast. app if you have the patreon app on your iphone don't sign up to our patreon there because apple add a fucking fee and they take a they take that they add like three quid to it or something and that all just goes to apple so do not use the patreon app to support us i love you please use your web browser and go to patreon.com forward slash excel podcast

00:49:26.12 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:49:36.81 alexei sayle yeah

00:49:40.09 Talal K and sign up there and then use your app to log in and do whatever you want to, but don't use the app to sign up. I beg you, they take a cut. And anyone who has done it, I'm really sorry.

00:49:52.16 Talal K Cancel your membership and re-sign up on the website, because you'll pay less and you won't be giving money to Apple for no fucking reason.

00:49:54.22 alexei sayle yeah

00:49:59.49 alexei sayle No.

00:50:00.55 Talal K I'm glad I got that out. um ah came to my That came to my attention and fucking shook me to my core.

00:50:01.98 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:50:06.29 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:50:06.75 Talal K Selfish assholes, Apple.

00:50:10.08 Talal K um Patreon questions ah Michael Sellers asks I wonder if Alexi has ever seen John Carpenter's They Live possible film club watch film club we haven't done a film club in ages because we've been doing live shows

00:50:24.66 alexei sayle Yeah, we haven't done that for a while because we've been doing live shows. ah No, I haven't. um No, so... No.

00:50:33.96 Talal K The first hour of it is so slow.

00:50:34.98 alexei sayle I'll lock it up.

00:50:36.86 Talal K it sos It's an iconic film.

00:50:37.54 alexei sayle Is it?

00:50:38.88 Talal K It's the film where the guy gets the sunglasses and he can when he puts the sunglasses on, he sees the real world.

00:50:45.31 alexei sayle Oh, I have seen that, I think. Yeah, it's a really good film, actually.

00:50:48.04 Talal K And there's like demons everywhere.

00:50:49.02 alexei sayle I didn't know that was John Carpenter.

00:50:49.52 Talal K and Yeah.

00:50:51.78 alexei sayle That's really interesting.

00:50:53.19 Talal K What's your favorite John Carpenter film?

00:50:54.86 alexei sayle I don't know. what's that It was one of the space that John Carpenter one with this set in space.

00:51:03.32 Talal K In space.

00:51:04.99 alexei sayle Yeah, I think.

00:51:05.14 Talal K He did The Thing. He did Escape from New York. He did um Assault Precinct 13, which is stunning.

00:51:12.78 alexei sayle Iconic.

00:51:14.55 Talal K um A space one.

00:51:18.41 alexei sayle Maybe I'm thinking something else.

00:51:18.63 Talal K I love The Thing, I think.

00:51:20.27 alexei sayle I think it's set in space.

00:51:23.50 Talal K I'm looking, he did Halloween. The Fog, Big Trouble in Little China.

00:51:26.50 alexei sayle Don't like horror films, don't.

00:51:31.21 Talal K I can't see any space movies he's done.

00:51:33.20 alexei sayle Well, maybe I have to think of something else then, somebody else.

00:51:33.26 Talal K Forgive me.

00:51:37.17 Talal K Oh, there is a film called Dark Star.

00:51:39.02 alexei sayle Yeah, that's it. Yeah, that's really good. I really liked at the time.

00:51:43.38 Talal K Never seen this.

00:51:46.62 Talal K Sci-fi comedy. A satiric look at the problems experienced by a crew of bumbling astronauts on a mission to destroy rogue planets.

00:51:55.32 alexei sayle Yeah, I think it came before, you know, kind of steampunk and all that. it's ah I think it's very original film, you know, that you know either predated or influenced lot of other films, you know, Alien and what have you.

00:52:12.74 Talal K Wow.

00:52:13.67 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:52:16.74 alexei sayle Yes, it's very cheap.

00:52:21.13 Talal K was the budget.

00:52:22.43 alexei sayle Good God.

00:52:24.99 Talal K Fucking hell.

00:52:25.12 alexei sayle was a few years ago, but nevertheless.

00:52:28.11 Talal K 1974. That's no, that is, yeah, that's pennies. That's very, ah that must have been like his first movie or something.

00:52:29.99 alexei sayle Dark Star, it's right.

00:52:32.97 Talal K Do

00:52:33.25 alexei sayle I don't know, let's look into this. John Carpenter's Dark Star, though.

00:52:38.59 Talal K you want to make that our film club?

00:52:40.34 alexei sayle I don't know how think about it. It's a mighty responsibility.

00:52:44.74 Talal K It is, and...

00:52:45.15 alexei sayle But I'm not thinking about what name my production company has. So what was the other thing I think about all the time? I've forgotten now. um funny songs I think about what I'm going to film I'm going to choose for the film club weighs heavily on me

00:53:03.69 Talal K Well, we need to decide by next week because the week after that officially should be the film club.

00:53:05.59 alexei sayle no

00:53:10.38 Talal K Okay, any other thoughts on a movie?

00:53:14.01 alexei sayle no I haven't no not really

00:53:21.97 alexei sayle no

00:53:22.80 Talal K Okay, great. Let's not dwell on that. um Right. Okay, Dark Star. We'll do some research on that. I do have... Okay.

00:53:35.34 Talal K Hey, I saw something interesting, actually. This week, this very week, Alexi, marked the 46th birthday of the Comedy Store.

00:53:38.87 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:53:47.56 alexei sayle Oh yeah.

00:53:49.26 Talal K Did you know this?

00:53:50.84 alexei sayle No, I didn't.

00:53:53.47 Talal K they did a post.

00:53:53.50 alexei sayle there' There was events for like, I've evented attended events for, there was like the 30th and then the 40th. I don't know.

00:54:02.96 Talal K Yeah. It's not a milestone birthday.

00:54:03.46 alexei sayle Don Ward. Yeah, yeah. I mean, probably Don's still alive at the 50th.

00:54:10.38 Talal K Well, if you go on the comedy store, London, Oh yeah.

00:54:10.91 alexei sayle He'll have a party, which will be 2029, I suppose. Yeah, go

00:54:15.46 Talal K And for four years, um, if you go on the official comedy store, London, Instagram, They did a nice post about it and featuring.

00:54:29.69 Talal K Look at that.

00:54:29.81 alexei sayle Oh, there's a young Alexi with hair.

00:54:31.90 Talal K It's a young you with hair.

00:54:33.05 alexei sayle Yeah, and before I was wearing the suit as well.

00:54:35.57 Talal K Yeah, you were just wearing a jumper. Heaven forfend.

00:54:38.17 alexei sayle jumper. Good God.

00:54:40.13 Talal K And it says celebrating 46 years of laughter. In May 1979, Don Ward, founder, CEO and executive producer. Do you remember this person, Don Ward?

00:54:53.27 alexei sayle Yeah, no, Don, yeah.

00:54:54.96 Talal K Still a friend of yours?

00:54:56.80 alexei sayle He's always been very, yeah, I mean, yeah he's always been very, you know, he's always acknowledged my place in the, you know, my place in the founding of the comedy store. He wouldn't have he wouldn't have his house in the South of France if it wasn't for me.

00:55:10.91 Talal K Hmm.

00:55:10.95 alexei sayle So I kept i you know kept the place going. No, he's always said I was central to it, you know, the birth of, you know, the new British comedy, really. No, he's always been good. he's sorts of red He did have a partner, Peter Rosengard, who he's edited out.

00:55:26.86 Talal K In May 1979, Don Ward opened the Comedy Store and in the Old Gargoyle Nightclub in Dean Street, Soho.

00:55:28.19 alexei sayle But yes, that's that. Yeah.

00:55:35.56 Talal K He had been inspired by a trip the previous year to see the new comedy clubs in New York and LA. They were producing observational comedy and poking fun at the political scene and the and the establishment.

00:55:50.10 Talal K This was so refreshing and stimulating. His aim and dream was to recreate the same in London. As an ex-comedian and now a producer, owner, he wanted to present something different in his venue and a complete evening of alternative comedy seemed ideal.

00:56:11.66 Talal K 46 years later, the Comedy Store continues to be a hotbed of comic talent where you can see the stars of Today and Tomorrow perform as well as established circuit acts. We also give open spots and up-and-coming acts to help them develop their skills.

00:56:22.74 Talal K Happy birthday to us. Also in the imagery, so on the top left is this ah Gargoyle Club. On the top right, you've got Aidan Rick pulling funny faces.

00:56:34.89 Talal K And in the middle, in between all those pictures...

00:56:39.51 Talal K is the set list for the first opening night.

00:56:42.17 alexei sayle shut me again Show me again. That's

00:56:44.26 Talal K I'll read it to you, but look, there's the the original set list.

00:56:47.35 alexei sayle not my writing, but yeah. Yeah.

00:56:49.36 Talal K There's some scrawlings on it.

00:56:51.13 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:56:51.83 Talal K ah Running order, Saturday 19th of May, 1979. um The first compare for the first part of the first night is Alexei Sale.

00:57:06.67 Talal K um

00:57:06.74 alexei sayle Dude, here's...

00:57:07.87 Talal K first act up is someone called Lee Corns I want you to tell me if you remember these people and tell me a couple couple words about them yeah

00:57:11.95 alexei sayle Yeah. Lee Corn's still going, I think. Yeah.

00:57:19.86 Talal K and okay David English was second up

00:57:22.90 alexei sayle David English, yes. was He played played a lot of cricket. and So posh English guy. Very dubious material. Yeah, remember him.

00:57:35.83 Talal K um Tom, some some of the writing, some of the typing is smudged here. So Tom Tickle? Tom Tickle?

00:57:43.48 alexei sayle John Tickell, he was the financial correspondent for the ah like Times or something, and he was doing it kind of on a dare so he'd have something to write about.

00:57:55.44 alexei sayle Again, his material was not... I don't remember it being particularly good, but he wrote a quite interesting article, I think, on the opening night. it's hard to you know It's hard to imagine now how revolutionary this thing was, a comedy club, you know, in Britain.

00:58:09.32 Talal K Yeah. ah Were these just like five minute spots?

00:58:11.58 alexei sayle It was... Yeah, I doubt if they got through that long, really, because there was a gong. Everybody was lying drunk.

00:58:18.70 Talal K Oh, there was a gong night from the beginning.

00:58:20.41 alexei sayle it was Yeah, at the beginning, there was a huge gong. And had been, i think Peter Rosen, there was a guy called Billy the Kid. was very pretty with sort of cherubic blonde curls. And he was actually the lover of um a woman called Bubbles Rothermere, who I think he owned the Daily Mail or his family owned the Daily Mail. I can't remember now.

00:58:43.16 alexei sayle And he'd been sent out to get, like, I think a spotlight to get people off. you know like But he couldn't get it. He'd come back with this gigantic gong. I mean, massive gong. And so the audience would scream gong.

00:58:55.43 alexei sayle And then I would come on and bang this gong. And the actor would have to get off.

00:58:59.16 Talal K Fucking hell, that's amazing.

00:59:00.92 alexei sayle ah Oh, didn't you not know that? No, well, that's as if...

00:59:03.23 Talal K Because they do the King Gong Night, ah which is once a month, I think.

00:59:08.08 alexei sayle At the comedy store.

00:59:09.13 Talal K Yeah. Where you have to get up.

00:59:10.37 alexei sayle Yeah, well, it was there from the first night, and it just added. I mean, the atmosphere was fucking insane enough anyway, and the gong only made it worse, really.

00:59:14.82 Talal K Right.

00:59:19.15 Talal K So this Gong Night is part of the tradition of the comedy store.

00:59:23.58 alexei sayle Yes, yes.

00:59:24.49 Talal K Because obviously the average night there now, there's no gong. But the point of the gong night, for people who don't know, is on a Monday.

00:59:27.43 alexei sayle No.

00:59:30.01 Talal K So it's on a quiet night and they do this really exciting. But it gets fucking full every time um because of the gong show.

00:59:34.65 alexei sayle No. Right.

00:59:36.83 Talal K And you have all these comedians sign up. I've done it. ah did it in November, I think. um And you have to try and get to five minutes. And if you get to five minutes, you get through to the final.

00:59:49.71 Talal K And if the audience vote, they see some people in the audience have cards. And if they hold up a red card, if everyone holds a red card up, they gong you off. I was one of the, I'm one of the, I was the only person who's ever been begged by the crowd ah to bring him back on because I had the, I had the audience against me from the start because I had a guitar with me.

01:00:05.99 alexei sayle Yes.

01:00:10.82 Talal K And so that instantly divides the audience.

01:00:10.97 alexei sayle Yeah. yes

01:00:14.68 Talal K And I was like, a third of the way through ah song and I got gonged off and there was uproar and they were like, bring him back, let him finish.

01:00:25.52 Talal K let him They were chanting like that. And then Mick Ferry said, all right, fine, fucking we'll let him finish. And they brought me back on stage to finish my song.

01:00:33.14 alexei sayle yeah

01:00:34.38 Talal K And I got to four minutes, 58. I finished the song and then I got voted off two seconds before the ah fucking limit.

01:00:37.56 alexei sayle No!

01:00:41.24 alexei sayle No!

01:00:43.21 Talal K ah But what a way to fucking lose. Like that was so such an incredible night. All right. ah Back onto the lineup. So who was that?

01:00:50.42 alexei sayle Yeah.

01:00:51.65 Talal K Who was that we just mentioned? Was that Tom Tickell?

01:00:52.94 alexei sayle Tom Tickell.

01:00:54.05 Talal K All right, from from The Times.

01:00:54.35 alexei sayle Yeah.

01:00:55.54 Talal K Okay. Bill Beckett was fourth up.

01:00:58.44 alexei sayle No, no memory of him. Fuck that much, no.

01:01:02.00 Talal K Mickey Mills.

01:01:04.31 alexei sayle ah get some some

01:01:07.27 Talal K Okay.

01:01:07.92 alexei sayle Some Cockney, I think, you know, it was mistake it didn't last very long.

01:01:09.08 Talal K so

01:01:12.05 alexei sayle You know, racist materials.

01:01:12.19 Talal K ah

01:01:15.30 alexei sayle Can't remember.

01:01:16.76 Talal K um Someone called Alexi Sale was on sixth.

01:01:21.15 alexei sayle He was back. Yeah, well, I was on ah in between every act. I mean, i i mean it's the gong was interesting, actually, because it taught me something very early on, which was that... um that some people, you know, it's not question material.

01:01:36.06 alexei sayle It's just some people are hated by the audience from the, from the get go, really. It's just something that they emanate even before they speak that the audience doesn't like. And with other people, um there is, ah you know, um the audience takes them right away.

01:01:52.26 alexei sayle I think, you know, it's, you need that really to, that kind of, can yeah, that confidence really.

01:01:54.37 Talal K Yeah. And if you're on the back foot, you need to fucking material. All right, Paul.

01:02:02.13 alexei sayle And I think it's partly about commanding the space. I mean, there's that yeah there's that Leonardo da Vinci drawing of a man, the sort of circle of a man in a kind of bubble. And I think I often think of that as you have to command that space. It's true, both of martial arts, I think, and of being a performer, that you have to completely command that space, which is the extent of your arms, as it were. Within that, you have to be ah completely untouchable within that kind of circle.

01:02:33.64 alexei sayle You know what

01:02:33.84 Talal K Wow.

01:02:36.18 Talal K Wow. um

01:02:38.31 alexei sayle mean? Little tip there.

01:02:39.16 Talal K Yeah, lovely. That's very philosophical. All right, Adam Dates got crossed out. Maybe he was a no-show.

01:02:45.11 alexei sayle Or maybe.

01:02:45.28 Talal K ah Paul Goodman with a guitar, guitarist.

01:02:47.92 alexei sayle Oh, yeah. i think he was in a folk duo.

01:02:52.05 Talal K It says, comes on by himself, intros himself.

01:02:52.53 alexei sayle Yeah.

01:02:54.93 alexei sayle Oh, yeah.

01:02:55.75 Talal K Very demanding.

01:02:55.85 alexei sayle Oh, did he? Fuck you. All right.

01:02:57.61 Talal K And then Bob Payton comes on as the next compare.

01:03:01.04 alexei sayle Bob Payton owned ah own a a string of pizza, the Chicago Pizza Pie Company.

01:03:03.56 Talal K Oh, Peyton.

01:03:08.18 Talal K Hmm.

01:03:08.63 alexei sayle ah he ah And he he said i was he said to me, he took over the second half. It was about three in the morning by the time. He said, I was funny in high school. I wanted to find out if I still was, to which the answer was, no, you're not. um And I think his firm got into financial difficulties and he killed himself just to...

01:03:30.06 Talal K Oh.

01:03:30.66 alexei sayle bring everybody down, but he took over after I finished.

01:03:34.82 Talal K fucking hell. Alright, we've got we got a wrap up so we've got to fly through this list. Arnold Brown.

01:03:40.08 alexei sayle Arnold, well, we all know Arnold Brown. Why not?

01:03:42.28 Talal K Do we?

01:03:42.60 alexei sayle Still going. Don't you know Arnold Brown? Oh, we'll be going to Arnold Brown on another occasion then.

01:03:44.84 Talal K No.

01:03:48.29 Talal K ah Bob Flagg.

01:03:50.46 alexei sayle Bob Flagg, yeah he was ah he was yeah. He was a founder member of Alternative Cabaret.

01:03:56.26 Talal K ah Phil Monarch or Monarch.

01:03:58.03 alexei sayle Yeah, he was ah I think he was an advertising copywriter.

01:04:02.89 Talal K Simon McBurney and Sandy.

01:04:04.97 alexei sayle well so I think that's Sandy Toswin. Simon McBurney, of course, is a famous actor now.

01:04:11.16 Talal K So did they do like sketch or something?

01:04:12.96 alexei sayle I think so, yeah. don't know who that was.

01:04:14.77 Talal K Brian Beck.

01:04:16.46 alexei sayle don't know who that was. That's

01:04:17.84 Talal K And then something called The Review is crossed out and replaced with Jimmy and Clive.

01:04:22.86 alexei sayle Jimmy Mulville and Clive Anderson, I think.

01:04:26.23 Talal K Oh my God.

01:04:27.42 alexei sayle Stars of Cambridge, Fort Lights, or Oxford, or one of those.

01:04:32.59 Talal K Wow.

01:04:34.14 alexei sayle I think it is.

01:04:34.41 Talal K Clive Anderson is one of those guys who like, he's so unassuming and you wouldn't think Like why is he such a part of comedy history? And it's because of things like this, isn't it? um

01:04:44.60 alexei sayle Well, yeah, it was, you know, I think i think they were Fort Lights. I think they were Cambridge and that, you know.

01:04:50.05 Talal K ah Ed Sherman, Nina Feinberg, singer, John John Keefe, Harry Dickman, Brian, just as b Brian.

01:04:52.17 alexei sayle I can't remember you were. Oh, God, yeah. Yeah.

01:05:00.75 alexei sayle Nope.

01:05:02.95 alexei sayle Nope.

01:05:05.53 alexei sayle Brian, no.

01:05:08.31 Talal K And then it says L-C-D-E-A-S-B-B.

01:05:13.85 alexei sayle don't know what that means.

01:05:14.76 Talal K L-C-slash-D-E-slash-A-S, that might be you, slash-B-B.

01:05:18.42 alexei sayle Yeah, God knows.

01:05:21.04 Talal K And then the list gets cut off. That's at 22. And that there seems to be more after that. And I haven't seen a mention of Rick and Aid.

01:05:27.60 alexei sayle Yeah, I think Emma Thompson was on that night as well, as I recall.

01:05:31.50 Talal K What? And Rick and Aid, were they on that night?

01:05:34.28 alexei sayle No, they weren't there. They didn't turn up until a few months later.

01:05:37.41 Talal K Right.

01:05:40.45 Talal K So that's a bit of comedy history there with Alexi's live reaction to the list.

01:05:43.19 alexei sayle Yeah, that's quite interesting. Yeah.

01:05:46.66 Talal K um I'll post a picture of that on the Patreon or just go to Instagram and follow the Comedy Store London. Right.

01:05:55.69 alexei sayle It was, I don't know, we're over a time really, but it was um one of the things I said at one of the live podcasts was that, well, when I did, I've just done Mark Steele's podcast, the Mark was saying how he, before he got into it,

01:06:11.80 alexei sayle i um he thought that comedy was magic. He couldn't see how you did it until he studied it and found a way. It just seemed, you know, like a piece of magic that you could think of these things and then say these things.

01:06:26.20 alexei sayle And then I said, i watched i had the same feeling when I watched Robin Williams, that i I couldn't see how he was doing it.

01:06:33.21 Talal K Yeah, we spoke about this in the last episode.

01:06:34.42 alexei sayle and then i And then I watched him and finally I worked out what it was. But I never said what it was. And then Adam, the technician, came to me afterwards because he's interested in coming and said, how did he do it?

01:06:48.55 alexei sayle you know, what was the trick with Robin Williams? Because I hadn't said what it was. And what, I mean, what I figured out that what Robin did was that it seemed like that he he was just making this incredible ah material up on the spot.

01:06:52.38 Talal K yeah.

01:07:02.21 alexei sayle But what it what it was, was that he had about, I'll say three hours of material in his head, bits. And what he would do is he'd just swap them around. And so there was no formal...

01:07:15.47 alexei sayle beginning or end to his act, but he had all these bits of material and he would just it appeared that he was making this stuff up, but it wasn't.

01:07:20.67 Talal K Right.

01:07:23.11 alexei sayle It was all bits that had been worked out and he just put them in different order, really, which still was just impressed me even more in a way. but then and But then Adam also said that there's a guy called Abandon Man, Abandon...

01:07:33.69 Talal K Yeah.

01:07:38.92 Talal K Yeah, he's an improvised rapper.

01:07:40.52 alexei sayle Yeah, and he Adam said he does genuinely appear to make it all up.

01:07:40.66 Talal K He does improv rap.

01:07:44.86 alexei sayle He's very funny and make it all up on the spot, really, which I ah find hard to believe.

01:07:46.15 Talal K Yeah.

01:07:49.93 Talal K Yeah.

01:07:51.84 alexei sayle but um

01:07:54.03 Talal K I keep threatening you with doing an improv scene one of these days, if we ever run out of things to say.

01:07:54.12 alexei sayle butd like to So I'd like to know more about that.

01:07:58.08 alexei sayle Oh, Christ.

01:07:59.23 Talal K and you um

01:07:59.26 alexei sayle Yeah.

01:08:01.61 Talal K But that is, ah you know, after an improv show, you every time without fail, you'll have someone come up to you and come on, that was scripted. You didn't make that up.

01:08:10.29 alexei sayle But you do have bits, don't you? that you you know No, really, it's all entirely made up.

01:08:12.19 Talal K No. It's technique. It's technique. You know, you study the art of making shit up, but it's like, if this, then what, you know, and it's the art of like, just agreeing with conceits and premises and, and, you know, it's, it's your story, your story writing, your playwriting on the fly, but we all know how a story works.

01:08:23.20 alexei sayle Right.

01:08:32.81 alexei sayle Right.

01:08:34.27 Talal K We all know how a narrative arc should work. So if you're about halfway through your show, you should probably be about halfway through your story arc.

01:08:37.37 alexei sayle Right.

01:08:41.59 Talal K And, um, you know, the hero needs to be, having a bit of a crisis at this moment. You know, if if you're like near the end, you're like, okay, how do we climax this show? So there's a tech, you learn the techniques and you learn about how to agree with each other and you make shit up.

01:08:57.06 Talal K The impressive thing about abandoned man is he's on his own up there and he'll say, everyone pull something random out your bag and everyone will hold a thing up in the air.

01:09:00.68 alexei sayle Right.

01:09:05.78 Talal K And ah he'll walk around the room and do a rhyme for each item he sees. And he'll rap about all these different things.

01:09:10.10 alexei sayle Yeah.

01:09:11.66 Talal K But again, that's practice. Anyone can learn how to rhyme. Of course, he might have stored in his head a few little licks and riffs that he goes to to fill in gaps.

01:09:19.47 alexei sayle Yeah.

01:09:22.05 Talal K But it's easy to come up with a rhyme on the spot. You know, vapor, paper. Okay.

01:09:28.55 alexei sayle Right.

01:09:29.05 Talal K and Pen. um Sven.

01:09:31.68 alexei sayle Stan, gun.

01:09:33.01 Talal K Den. Yeah.

01:09:33.94 alexei sayle Nine millimeter. ah ah Yeah.

01:09:37.99 Talal K So, yeah, he does make it all up. Abandoned Man doesn't have pre-written verses and stuff, and it is very impressive.

01:09:42.32 alexei sayle Crikey.

01:09:45.28 Talal K and But you also have...

01:09:45.50 alexei sayle and

01:09:48.41 Talal K You know, if you build the structure, be in an improv band called Panicky Tack and you have a structure. We'd have songs written, but the lyrics weren't written. But we knew what the melody was.

01:09:57.05 alexei sayle Right.

01:09:58.74 Talal K We knew how many syllables we had to fit into that line or roughly. And so you it's it makes the job much easier when a lot of the legwork is done, like the structure, the scaffolding that goes ah underneath your song.

01:10:11.17 alexei sayle Right.

01:10:11.73 Talal K and And you just, some people just have natural talent, you know.

01:10:15.47 alexei sayle Right. I stopped listening to that about half an hour ago, but no, I didn't. That's ah that's unnecessarily good. I didn't. I was listening. I was listening, honestly.

01:10:25.10 Talal K No, no. It's time to go, Alexi.

01:10:26.97 alexei sayle ah and Yes, it is time to go. Well, we'll look more into this. i don't like the idea of people making funny stuff up on the spot. It's

01:10:36.80 Talal K I feel us getting closer to doing an improv scene together.

01:10:39.99 alexei sayle yeah It's coming people. It's coming.

01:10:43.99 Talal K a

01:10:45.12 alexei sayle All

01:10:45.54 Talal K I think of a film club movie for next week, if you can. ah to

01:10:48.92 alexei sayle right.

01:10:49.38 Talal K We'll announce it next week, not to watch it.

01:10:49.64 alexei sayle All right. I can hear Wilf in the background there.

01:10:51.77 Talal K um

01:10:53.18 alexei sayle He's getting very noisy.

01:10:54.25 Talal K Love you, Wilf. Hi, Wilf. Support us on Patreon. Follow us on the socials. Alexellpod. Email us at gmail. Alexellpodcast.gmail.com. That

01:11:02.78 alexei sayle Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for, if you've stuck through to the end of this particularly free flowing episode of, uh,

01:11:10.47 Talal K was a good one.

01:11:11.03 alexei sayle What is it? Next show podcast.

01:11:12.51 Talal K Yeah, that's the name of the show, mate.

01:11:13.97 alexei sayle Yeah.

01:11:14.01 Talal K Yeah.

01:11:14.88 alexei sayle Yeah. All right. Bye-bye.

01:11:17.13 Talal K Free Palestine.