Adam Bloom - You Should've Been Here Last Week

[00:00:00] You can count the punters on one hand But last week they were completely rammed

[00:00:12] They were filled up to the gun holes They were queuing down the street

[00:00:16] They said, you should have been here last week

[00:00:19] I swear, you should have been here last week

[00:00:23] Oh yeah, you should have been here last week a writer for lots of other comedians as well, broadcaster and star of stage screen and anyone else, radio indeed yes but this week he's appearing as the author of a brilliant book called Finding Your Comic Genius. It is the wonderful Mr Adam Bloom. Yes our guest today

[00:01:42] is Adam Bloom, esteemed comedian but we're going to be mainly talking about your book

[00:02:43] on how to do it. Because it seems to be all the other books how to do it. No one's written a book on how to do it better. So there was a gap in the market. And once I started and

[00:02:49] I just couldn't stop, couldn't stop. I mean, I most days I didn't get out of bed for two

[00:02:54] hours, because I opened my eyes and carried on writing before I left off. And it's such

[00:02:58] a rewarding thing. Like, you know, I worked out, if I if I broke even, I'd still be happy

[00:03:04] because it was eight months of joy. You know, words are powerful things, right? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, and he comes across to me, your absolute love for the form of comedy is just woven throughout the whole book. Not only is it, you know, it's interesting on a technical level,

[00:04:22] but you know, obviously, I love that bit where you say,

[00:04:25] and it happens to me sometimes as well, I was on Bill with him, then I went to watch him on the night off. And he did this joke and I just my brain was overloaded. I was like, this guy's amazing. But he was overloading my brain. And this thing, you know, you have these laborious setups with a half laugh and then more information than a half laugh. It's like there's a reason why some comedians are better than others,

[00:05:40] because they're cramming detail in all the way through.

[00:05:44] Yeah. So there's two questions based on your book.

[00:06:42] This is still your idea. I've just said that word there is wrong.

[00:06:44] And that's all it takes, like a mechanic,

[00:06:46] just change a little thing, change oil,

[00:06:49] and everything's working.

[00:06:51] I mean, you do cover that in the book as well,

[00:06:53] that you yourself have enjoyed people coming up to you

[00:06:56] and saying, have you ever thought of doing this?

[00:06:59] Or yet, because I mean, I love to,

[00:07:01] I actually like doing that to other people as well.

[00:07:04] If you can see, if you can help somebody

[00:07:06] by just making a strong potential. Then a massive laugh, you know, I'm a genius. No, you're not. It's hard to think. But isn't it, Sam? I find that interesting about, you know, saying that Sam, there are things that you can do to a joke to improve it, obviously. But do you ever get those times, and it's happened to all communities, I think,

[00:08:23] where you've got a joke which you think did it, I had this magic wand that could just go, fall about laughing. And something in the timing that expressed in my eye, something went. And it was like a late, you know, Carol Kingsong, something inside has died in there. It's horrible. You're saying to the joke, look, I'm sorry, mate.

[00:09:42] You're gonna have to go on the bench, you know.

[00:09:44] Nobody likes doing that.

[00:09:46] Steve Bennett reviewed it and he gave it four stars, that have a beautiful sound. Yeah, it's beautiful. I grew up on Dr. Zu's books. I was talking to a girl about a year ago and I misunderstood something. It was a voice message. She said, no, it wasn't that you silly baboon. And it just don't. It's lovely, isn't it?

[00:11:00] You silly baboon.

[00:11:00] That's a great insult, yeah.

[00:11:02] You silly baboon.

[00:11:03] But if it was your ignorant baboon,

[00:11:05] the word silly sets up It's about the detail. It's and it's about drawing. But the thing is, it was aimed comedians, as in semi professional and professional comedians, but I always wrote it acknowledging that you might not have been on stage or you might

[00:12:21] be very new. I'm talking to you one person all the way through.

[00:12:24] If you haven't been on stage yet, don't put so much pressure on that you said about what the comedians think that 60% of heckles are malevolence. Whereas you say it's the other way around. Yeah, well, I mean, I mean, I've seen American comedians crumble over here because in the States you generally only get heckled when someone thinks you suck, you know, and I said to an American comedian, I said, over here, they'll heckle you to see how you deal with

[00:13:43] it.

[00:13:44] They're chucking you a ball.

[00:13:45] Yeah, yeah. pandemic, there is a lot more aggression in the room. And I also think that everyone's been watching these reels of comics interacting with the audience. And the audience is now starting to think, wait a minute, this is what comedy is. Good point. I think both of us, Steve saying back in the early 90s, you started in the

[00:15:01] late 80s, right?

[00:15:03] I started in the mid 80s, actually, I got tunnel all the time. And he said, instead of going, someone was screaming at him, he goes, where'd you learn to whisper in an abattoir? Which was a lovely twist, like dark twist and got a huge laugh because everyone thought he was going to say, you know, in a helicopter. Well, no, you're assuming the whole audience knew the line.

[00:16:22] I think that, yeah, but, you put the deliberately style and persona as well, including status, like a three chapters close together, don't you? And to me, that's endlessly fascinating because do you think you've got a thing

[00:17:41] within the book where you say that audiences are,

[00:17:43] that whole thing about they me hearing you kind of, you know, because I've learnt from watching you. So it doesn't feel right you turn your book to this

[00:19:04] and that. But the fact of the matter is, you know, and it just like it was the same status persona, you yeah, that was great. It was a bit funny about the 23rd minute and everyone in the dressing room was just going, you forgot to say camping equipment. And then he was like, oh, Jesus, he just didn't set up. Yeah. So everyone thought he was a massive racist. How can you? No reason at all.

[00:21:40] Yes, I don't know.

[00:21:42] I don't know.

[00:21:43] You know,

[00:21:45] I love things like Neil Hamburger.

[00:22:42] But Paul, have you seen him in his character committee? Yes, yeah.

[00:22:43] Yeah.

[00:22:43] Right, right, right. I didn't make this clear. This is not me condoning someone

[00:22:46] calling Blackville Blacks. It's a character.

[00:22:49] Yes, it's a character act. Yeah, I know.

[00:22:51] I don't know if you know my story about the two Black kids from Devon in the front row of my gig,

[00:22:56] but I did a corporate once and I died. They couldn't hear me. The sound was awful.

[00:23:00] And I know they couldn't hear me because I just walked down the street, this bloke in a wheelchair was in my way. The audience have already decided that you're not woke. It's like, well, hang on a minute. And I did this and then this happened, then this happened. Okay. But you know, so I try and put my, my word bingo's on punchline, so it's too late. They've been

[00:24:24] hit in the face. It's the last word. Yeah, it's over. The joke's over. Oh God, don't bring up Covid because it's too late. It's that moment. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Paul, you had a question to us, didn't you before? Yes, it was the second part.

[00:25:40] It was of the title.

[00:25:44] Is comedy an art form?

[00:25:45] Because certain people would say that it isn't. yourself, you're doing a comedian, you're being a comedian, you know, because otherwise you just go on stage and just, you know, it just wouldn't be funny or whatever, you know, just see what I'm saying. Yeah, when you say you say I'm saying that start with you quoting me, then you've asked me if I know what you mean. Yeah, it's one of those days. First of all, you highlight the parts of

[00:27:00] yourself that are funny. So my intensity, my enthusiasm, you know, everyone's acting throughout their lives, you know. Yeah, that's very true. Yeah, in social situations, except even with your family, etc. You're acting. Paul, what did you want to ask? There was another question you wanted to ask as well, wasn't there? I guess it was about the title. No, it's not that I've done the title. It took me 20 minutes, but I've done the title.

[00:29:23] all, asking questions, you know, I'm a close up magician, my favorite magician is a guy called Brother Hammond, I pay a

[00:29:25] fortune to be able to pick his brains. Not everything can get

[00:29:29] across in a book, you're gonna have questions that I that's

[00:29:31] what I say. You might be thinking, because I was about

[00:29:36] 25 times I see you might be thinking because I'm trying to

[00:29:39] second guess myself, because when a book says this, this,

[00:29:42] this, you can give a what is that? What is that? And the book

[00:29:45] can't answer back. So. I said, you know, everyone's got a slightly racist grandmother. No, no, no. You know, everyone's got like a grandmother who says slightly racist things. Well, that's nothing compared to what I'm about to say.

[00:31:02] That's the use though.

[00:31:03] No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, but there's no joke. There is. It was just me taking the piss out of comedy because I'm going yeah but I'm worse. I'm flipping it basically. Yeah of course yeah yeah yeah. And you wondered Young Norwegians in Central London did not go with that. Well you shouldn't trust anything that Louis Shafer laughs at. I mean

[00:32:25] we've got very little left. I just want to talk speak. Think of the collective amount of money that's spent, and that's not just the tickets. That's the babysitters, that's the train fare. A lot of money's been parked with to hear you speak. You actually made two points that are merging with each other, and I want to put them separately. One is treat every single moment you're on stage as a moment you can be entertaining,

[00:33:42] like a setup, a little nice turn of phrase in the setup.

[00:33:45] The other one is be you because you wrote it. It's a sentence in a story.

[00:35:00] And when you finish that story,

[00:35:02] and so I told that story in Birmingham,

[00:35:04] then someone said this.

[00:35:05] Now, not only is the say in the book by the

[00:36:22] way that one of the cardinal errors that any comedian can make is to openly look at their watch

[00:37:25] what makes me look European because my grandfather on his deathbed sold me this watch.

[00:37:34] So my dad was a jazz pianist and my dad said he can't stand musicians looking at their watches on stage because it makes you think they've got someone they'd rather be.

[00:37:39] Yes, exactly. Yeah.

[00:37:42] Yeah. And so I'm guilty of it. I'm guilty of it because I catch underdog. I remember someone when I was starting out, I got 20 at a club and they were doing the 10. They were doing the guest spot. But they were ready for 20s. They were just doing what I've done previously. They were doing an open spot with a view to get a paid 20. And they did really well. At the end of his set, he went,

[00:39:00] anyway, it's just a short set for me tonight're getting a winner. You tell us how good you are, Bill Burr. You tell us how brilliant your ideas are before you even present them. They love winners. Apparently, Tommy Cooper was seen by some American PTV people, and they said, we want him on the show, but can you not do those tricks that go wrong? We don't understand why you would do a trick that went wrong. The very essence of his act, oh my God.

[00:41:27] I tell you what, Chris Rock did an early late show at the London store once, and he did badly at the early show.

[00:41:28] When he went back to his hotel, went through it with his writers and came back and had

[00:41:33] a great one at the late show, which is a consummate professional.

[00:41:36] A friend of mine met him and went, oh, I heard you.

[00:41:40] In London recently, how did it go?

[00:41:42] He went, well, it always goes well when you're me.

[00:41:45] And he's thinking, not wired.

[00:41:47] It's not wired. disappears. Like one of those ink pens with the girl with the beanie on. Well, I hope that technologically possible. I don't think so. You see, who knows? I mean, someone in China is going to be able to produce that for us. Yeah, if you can do that, send it to us, please. We'd like to see it.

[00:43:00] Anyway, thanks very much for watching and listening.

[00:43:02] Yeah. See you later.

[00:43:04] We love you. Bye bye.

[00:43:07] Does that say goodbye?