This week’s guest is writer, actor and comedian, Philip Simon.

Philip started out as an actor, attending the Guildford Theatre School before landing his first professional gig in a commercial. After a long run as Daddy Pig in a staged puppetry production of Peppa Pig, he decided it was time for a change and enrolled in a course at The Comedy School in London.

On the stage performing standup comedy is where Philip feels immense joy. We chat about his work and also the sudden impact of COVID lockdowns on performers. While unable to entertain audiences in person, the father of two acted as head teacher for his kids and also created “School’s Out Comedy Club”, an online comedy program for kids. Out of that came a kids’ comedy book and the opportunity to give back. Profits from book sales go to the charity FareShare which fights against hunger in the UK.

Philip also teaches sex education in Jewish schools and hosts the podcast “Jew Talkin’ To Me” with fellow stand up comic Rachel Creeger. He’ll be at Edinburgh Fringe this year with two shows so check out the details below. You’ll want to find out where to watch him after listening to this one!

Note from Rabiah (Host):

I have to admit, editing this one was not easy. Sometimes I spend a lot of time reflecting on what a guest said. Sometimes I even cry. In this case, I did a lot of laughing! I am always grateful to my guests for taking the time to share stories about themselves and to listeners for taking the time to hear them. For me, it was particularly important timing for me to listen to someone talk about loving comedy the way Philip does. It was also a lot of fun. Let me know what guests resonate with you or what joke you heard that you like best!

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Find Philip

Website: www.philipsimon.co.uk

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PhilipsComedy/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/PhilipsComedy/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilipsComedy/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@philipscomedy

Jew Talkin’ To Me: https://pod.link/1519680527

Kids’ Joke Book: philipsimon.co.uk/shop

School’s Out Comedy Club at Edinburgh Fringe: https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/school-s-out-comedy-club

Jew-o-Rama at Edinburgh Fringe: https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/jew-o-rama

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Mentioned in this episode:

The Comedy School (Camden): https://thecomedyschool.com/

Joe Bor: http://www.joebor.co.uk/

FareShare: https://fareshare.org.uk/

Rachel Creeger: https://www.rachelcreeger.com/

Marcus Rashford: https://www.instagram.com/marcusrashford

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More than Work Facebook, Instagram, Twitter: @morethanworkpod Please review and follow anywhere you get podcasts. Thank you for listening. Have feedback? Email morethanworkpod(at)gmail.com!

Mentioned in this episode:

Tragic SCOTUS Ruling on Roe v Wade

Help those impacted by the overturning of Roe v. Wade. https://www.podvoices.help/speak-up

This is More Than Work, the podcast reminding you that your self worth is

made up of more than your job title.

Each week I'll talk to a guest about how they discovered that for themselves.

You'll hear about what they did, what they're doing and who they are.

I'm your host, Rabiah.

I work in IT, perform standup comedy, write, volunteer and of course podcast.

Thank you for listening.

Hello, and welcome back to More Than Work this week.

I just, I'm going to get you to the episode pretty quickly, because it was a

lot of fun to record and a lot of fun to edit and kind of difficult to edit because

this guest and I kind of went off the tracks a few times, but I hope that you're

as entertained as we were by ourselves.

It's comedian, Philip Simon.

He's a pro comic here in London and in the UK and has done some really cool stuff.

But, it was kind of awesome to talk to someone- I've talked to comedians who

are like me, who have been doing it as a second job, or kind of a hobby,

that's eventually a goal for them to get to, to what Philip's doing, which

is actually doing this as his job.

So it was really interesting to talk to him about how he

got there and what he does.

He does some charity work too, which is awesome.

And that's one thing that really resonated with me when I thought

he'd be a good guest for the podcast.

So, um, just kind of forgive us a little bit, cause you're dealing with

two people who think they're funny.

One of them for sure gets paid to be funny.

The other one is, is me who isn't doing that yet, but, but still, you know,

makes people laugh every once in a while.

Um, and I just yeah, have fun with this one.

If you're listening and you're in the UK, he's going to be at Edinburgh Fringe

so he'll talk about that at the very end, but start looking and supporting

acts who are going to be there.

I'm going to be at Camden Fringe just for three dates with one of my friends

doing a double bill and just trying out a longer set just kind of like I

did last year, but a little better.

Let me know if you have any guest ideas or you have any feedback.

I'd love to hear it.

And I'm really excited.

I've got a couple guests similar to Philip who are really pros

in their areas coming up too.

Not all comedians, but an author coming up and a few others that

I'm really excited for you.

So stick with season six.

Don't forget to leave a review, rate, all that kind of stuff.

Thank you.

All right.

So my guest today is Philip Simon.

He's an award-winning comedian writer and actor.

So thanks for being on Philip.

Thanks for having me.

Yeah.

Glad you're here.

So where am I talking to you from?

I am in my front room at home, which started off life as was

meant to be a snug, a spare room, that kind of thing, and then lockdown hit,

and it became like an emergency study where everyone had to work when the

kids were being homeschooled elsewhere,

Yeah, a lot of people had that, that room transition, I think

the

during that time.

room transition and the mental breakdown, I think.

The two, the two very much went hand in hand.

Yeah, totally.

And, and by your accent, I mean, I think people listening can know that

you're somewhere in London, which is where I am, sans the accent.

I'm in the London Hartfordshire borders.

Is that what you meant when you said where, where are you?

You didn't mean the room I'm in?

No, but that's fine.

That shows how London-centric I am.

I'm like, well, of course, everyone knows I'm in London.

You want to know the exact place I'm in.

yeah,

So, yeah, I'm, I'm in London, Hartfordshire...

home.

Cool.

First of all, you're an award-winning comedian writer and actor.

That's what we went through.

So you started out in an actor though, right before you were the other things?

I did.

Yes.

When I was about 12, I realized I was terrible at everything at school.

And I went to quite an academic school and a rugby type school.

And I was awful all of that, but I was good at acting.

I was good at performing.

I enjoyed that.

And I was lucky the teachers there to nurture that and not just go, well,

there's nothing we can do for you.

So I joined youth theatre out of school and I did the school plays and I got an

agent and did a few small sort of TV jobs and commercials and things like that.

And then when I left school, I went to the drama school, became an actor, did

that for about 10 years, stopped liking it as much, started to stand up, which

I'd already started to think about.

And from the time I started being an actor, people were always

telling me I should be doing comedy.

I'm funny.

And I should be...

you make us laugh.

You sure you don't do stand up?

That kind of thing.

And I resisted it because I always wanted to be an actor.

But the thing about being an actor is you wait so long for somebody

to give you a job that when you finally get that opportunity, you

kind of go, "Oh, is what it is."

It doesn't maybe live up to the expectations.

I had some lovely jobs.

I really enjoyed a lot of what I did, but eventually I didn't want to do

it anymore so I started stand up.

And from the moment I performed stand up on stage that was

my happiest I've ever been.

That was just, I kind of came alive.

Yeah.

But 10 years of acting, I mean, that's quite a while to be doing that.

Did you have any time that you love?

Yeah, well, no, but did you like it at some point during that?

Or was it always just kind of not what you wanted, but you had...

No, I loved it.

I loved it.

I, I loved being at drama school.I went to the Guildford School of Acting, which

has quite a well established school.

It's got some famous people who went there as well.

So it's quite, quite well-respected.

I did the three-year course there and you leave, you do a showcase, get an agent.

My first job out of drama school was a TV commercial which is great because

it's sort of two days work, but you earn enough money to sit back for six months.

I did some theater and I absolutely loved that.

Some touring theater, where I did the acting ASM job.

The it's assistant stage manager where you you've got a few lines in the

play, but you're also having to move scenery and chip in with all that.

I, I loved that.

Absolutely loved it.

I worked at people I'm still friends with now, and that was over 20 years ago.

,And I I've lost touch with people I met five years ago.

So, you know, I I've made some really good friends doing that job.

Did some pantomimes, which is great British tradition

of silliness at Christmas.

Always kind of veering towards comedy, but not knowing that I

should be doing comedy really.

Did a

Yeah.

bits.

But you know, you're, you're at the studios for a week and you've

got three lines to perform.

There's a lot of time to sit and wait and do nothing.

When you're actually performing, I loved it.

I really enjoyed it.

When I wasn't acting, I was temping in offices, which is really easy,

know, I wasn't having to be a waiter.

I wasn't having to work wage cleaning, pots and pans and things.

I was able to have the flexibility of working in an office, which I was good at.

And they had contracts that lasted a day or contracts that lasted a few years.

And if I had an audition, I could just disappear.

I could go for a job audition or take a week off to do some work.

And there was no commitment.

Yeah.

Yeah.

at its peak, I loved it.

Uh, the big job I did was playing Daddy Pig in the Peppa Pig production.

And I need to make it clear it was a theater production because a lot of

people get very cross if I even hinted at the possibility was Daddy Pig on TV.

But, uh, but I did that for a year and a half.

It was puppetry.

I don't know if you've seen Avenue Q, but it was that kind of

puppetry where we're stood on stage

Okay.

is able to see us we work the puppets, but because they're kids,

they didn't see us, they saw puppets.

They saw the characters.

So we were kind of invisible to them, really.

But it was an incredible job that destroyed me physically and emotionally.

And when I came out of that after a year and a half, we did, we did the West End.

We, we toured the UK and Ireland, then we did the West End the Christmas period.

This was 2009 to 11.

When it came to the end of the run, they offered us the chance to stay on.

But I was like I dont want, wanna, I don't want to just do this by left

thinking, oh, I'll go into loads of other jobs and nothing really satisfied.

Nothing.

I didn't want, I didn't really want to do that anymore.

Yeah.

just carried on temping.

Did, did a stand up course.

Started stand up and here I am starring in a podcast.

Yeah, well, that's, that's, that's

a good trajectory, isn't it?

You know, I think you've, you've, might've peaked.

I hope not, but we'll see.

So with the comedy, I mean,, taking the course, and that was probably the first

time you'd been in any kind of course in a long time, how did you decide to

take a course versus just go do it?

Because there's a lot of debate, I think among comics about, do

you even need to do a course now?

I did one, um, because I felt like I liked to have courses.

I like to be bonafide in some way.

So how'd you decide to go about it that way?

I had been writing ideas, jokes and ideas for a long time anyway.

Just, not knowing what was going to do with them.

anytime a thought or something, it kind of went in the mental, um, kind of notebook.

And then I might write it down somewhere.

And I had been randomly to, uh, an afternoon open mic somewhere.

Can't remember where it was now.

And no one turned up.

There was no audience.

Only like three other comedians.

And I was so desperate for this not to happen.

I did cause I, I was like I don't know what I'm going to say.

I'm going to get up on stage.

I've got nothing to say because all the ideas in my head, they're not formulated.

They're not structured.

That was my very first introduction to stand up.

And I don't even remember when it was.

Like the timeframe between that and going to do this course.

when I left Peppa Pig, I knew already about this place in Camden called

The Comedy School because I had done a a sitcom conference, I guess.

Like a day's conference with casting directors there, writers there, and

you went from session to session.

And, so I knew about The Comedy School.

So I just looked on their website.

I was just temping one day.

Do you where I was?

I was it, temping in an office that re houses people when they are, uh, made

homeless through an insurance claim.

So the house floods was my job to either find them accommodation or

find furniture and stuff for their accommodation.

That, that was one of my temp jobs.

And I was just sat there one day, Googling And I thought, I'm going to see what

this, what this school could offer me.

And I did the course.

I signed up there and then.

It was eight weeks on a Sunday morning in Camden.

Which is, there's no way comedy is meant to work then.

There were about 14 of us on the course.

I think only about two or three of us performers.

The rest were doing it for different reasons.

Someone was doing it to win a bet.

Someone was doing it because their friend had done it before and they'd had fun.

I think there were only a couple of us.

And now from my course, I think I'm the only one still doing straight stand-up.

There's maybe two other performers I can think of.

But, I knew as soon as I got there, that's what I wanted my career to be.

I, I remember sitting in that room the first time and the guy who runs

it, Keith Palmer of went around the room and everyone was being a

bit coy when he, he was saying to them, do you think you're funny?

they're going, oh, I don't.

Well, I, I mean, people tell me I'm funny.

And, uh, and he got to me.

I was like, yes.

yeah.

I know I'm funny.

Um, I know, I don't know how to structure what I've got, yet.

I need the discipline but I also know, I don't want to be driving to gloves, go

for 20 quid to drive back from Glasgow.

You know?

Yeah.

knew that I wanted to think seriously about to, as a career.

And that course gave me the structure that I needed to take ideas and material.

See what I could do with it.

around with what I could do with it in a very safe space.

And I think without that course, I would have been kind of just lost

the open mic circuit for a long time.

And since then,

Yeah.

that course in 2011.

So are we now?

2022 is exactly over 11 years since I did it.

Since then, the opportunities that I've had in the standup world directly from

them have been amazing.

I've worked with them.

I still go back and talk to the current students and do a Q and A

and talk to them about the circuit.

And it's that involvement that I really, really like.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then, well, it created a different part of the community for you then

the broader one too, which is nice.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So do you remember the first joke you wrote that you properly wrote?

I remember the first joke I told.

So this I must've been, I don't know, five or six, seven, and I was, I was being

lippy to my dad, which wasn't like me.

Uh, um, think my, my brother who's four years older than

me was being a bit of a dick.

And I was winding him up to the reaction from my dad.

My, my dad said something like, um, it, Philip.

Don't stir.

And I said, can't stir, I haven't got a spoon.

And I was so proud of myself that this joke could kind of come and come off

because I could see he was impressed.

Cross, impressed.

Yeah.

so that was the first joke I remember.

I remember vividly performing.

Writing...

I've got one of my favorite jokes, which is what I call obituary,

which is where I read out the obituary from where my grandma died.

And by the end of it, actually become a lonely hearts advert for me.

Um, and I wrote that a long time before my grandma died.

Yeah.

used it, obviously it was just one of the ones I've written and just

have somewhere in the, in my brain file.

And then when she did die, I used it and it was very cathartic

because we were very close.

She was my only living grandparent.

So very close.

I still sometimes use it now.

And it's lovely to be able to say her name.

And that, that's the one, I think my oldest memory of a joke that I and put

together and I'm quite proud of as well.

Yeah.

I mean, I'm a much newer comic than you.

So I have, a few things I've written about my grandma and one

of them works pretty well so far.

I'm still cleaning it up.

But, um, and I told my mom, it's just, I like that I'm honoring her in that

way, even though it's kind of having to go at her a little bit, it's just fun.

Like,

Hmm.

sometimes fun to write jokes that kind of, you know,

poke at people that you love, but also, you know, you're spending your

time on stage talking about them.

So

And I get to say her name.

Like I get to share and actually, I did it recently at a gig and I said her name.

She was Daphne Benjamin.

And then afterwards, someone shouted out, "I think I know your mother."

And it was such a Jewish response.

I'm Jewish.

Obviously I should

yeah.

to any listeners who think he's about to go off on a rant.

I'm Jewish, um, to any rant I'm allowed to go on has been endorsed by my, my people.

Um, but it was such a Jewish...

He'd, he'd been a member of our synagogue hearing the name, Daphne

Benjamin had triggered in him, goodness.

I totally know who that person is."

location where we were made sense of.

And he just shouted out.

think I know your mother, which is a weird heckle to get, but great fun as well.

And it wasn't, it wasn't an easy gig.

So I was quite happy to chat to him for a few minutes.

Um, but yeah, it's, it's nice.

It's nice when you can do that.

And you know, our comedy really is personal.

It's about, it's about us, even if you're uh, writing jokes as a bit of

you in all of it, or if it's anecdotal.

So I like it.

Yeah, that's cool.

So do you have a favorite part of, of what you're doing now?

I mean, is it the writing is the performing, is it both?

Neither?

I now really love talking to the audience.

I compere a lot.

I host the shows quite often.

I run my own club where I live well.

And that's really nice to be able to host and compere.

But because lockdown, obviously we weren't allowed to do stand up in

the same way and the chance now to get back out there and talk to the

audience is really, really special.

it is a skill that I've got.

I can do it.

It's not flawless.

I don't, you know, I make mistakes.

I sometimes.

are definitely times I get halfway home and think, oh, I should've said that.

That would have been funnier.

But I'm quite good at thinking on my which the, the birth of my first

son was a skill that deteriorated very quickly because I was so tired.

But clearly I'm less tired now.

maybe don't tell my wife that.

Um, but, I'm traveling a lot comedy as well.

And being able to talk to the audience when you're abroad and you don't have

necessarily the same of being able to talk about London tube because they live in

London or house prices cause they live in.

Just talking to people, making them laugh, making them remember what it was

to be kind of out in a live entertainment scenario, which they weren't able to do.

So you know, we can moan about us not being able to do

it, but they weren't either.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, and so during lockdown, so many people in entertainment and this,

and definitely comics did lose like their ability to do their livelihood,

at least in the traditional way.

Like I, being new did Zoom comedy.

And it was fine for me, but I understand why some people didn't

want to do it, but you ended up doing your own thing using Zoom.

So want to talk a little bit about that?

Yeah, I mean, lockdown was awful.

Just, It came overnight.

My diary emptied It was March, 2020 the week lockdown hit.

I had a full diary for that just for that week.

The day after I was meant to fly to Switzerland, to film a commercial.

I was going to come back and do a corporate comedy set,

private party, a school PTA gig.

A lot of work went out the window overnight and we all just assumed,

oh, it just be a couple of weeks.

Be fine.

We're back in no time.

then it wasn't.

It was months.

And eventually much longer before comedy really came back.

People started doing the Zoom gigs and we all tried to do a few of those

mainly to try and stay some kind of relevant, um, and in people's minds.

And I think that was important.

was very lucky.

I didn't to get a job during lockdown.

I was able to earn enough from the bits that I was doing, Then, because I was

also homeschooling my children, I could see how bored and frustrated they were.

So they were how old must have been three and five at the time.

And I was a terrible teacher.

Because I'm not a teacher, I'm a dad and I'm not a brilliant dad,

but, um, no, I, I'm a very good dad, but I'm not a good teacher and

Um,

want to be a teacher either.

And they didn't want me to, you know, you're living through a pandemic.

You want to look after them.

So I was trying to think of ways I can entertain children and ways that I could

keep my comedy brain somehow active.

So I came up with a children's comedy show, which did nothing for

my comedy brain, but did keep me active and in the world of comedy.

So I created a kid's show called School's Out Comedy Club.

And the idea being originally, I was going to do a bit like Joe Wicks,

who was doing his daily workouts.

I was going to do a daily comedy show for five, just five minutes each day.

The kids were going to send in jokes and I would tell those jokes and say

goodbye kids, we'll see you tomorrow.

um,

It became a nightmare to put together so it never became daily.

It became sort of weekly, I think.

And eventually every other week, because I had to after my kids as well and the shows

together, you know, Joe Wicks would just go live at nine in the morning or whatever

it was and do 20 minutes of exercise.

I needed to prep a show and film it, edit it, put it out, plug it

everywhere, get the to send jokes in.

Some kids were doing videos of themselves telling their jokes.

was editing those into the videos.

So I did that.

I did some live shows with it on zoom as well so I was hosting it and getting

the kids to tell each other their jokes.

And I did throughout, I think the Easter holidays, it was part of the

Leicester Comedy Festival, I did a whole series of it for, I think

there's about 20 different shows.

all on YouTube.

So if anyone's and wants to entertain their children, go to

School's Out Comedy Club on YouTube.

Completely free.

The show was nominated for best kid show, Leicester Comedy

Festival, which was lovely.

it meant I could stay kind of in the world of comedy.

We printed a joke book as well so all the jokes that were submitted by the

kids, there's another comedian called Joe Bor, who did some cartoons for the book.

And I compiled it and we're selling that for charity.

It's raising money for FareShare, which is a charity

Um,

that raises money to feed families and vulnerable children.

I got a thousand books printed.

Uh, I sold out last week.

So that's exciting.

Um, that provides that 4,000 meals in total for the charity.

that said, I need to make the donation.

But when I make, when I make my last donation, which will be hopefully

this tomorrow, maybe, uh, this week, they'll, there'll be 4,000 meals

that they'll be getting, is lovely because the kids gave me the joke.

The kids gave the jokes.

I didn't really want to start monetizing that for myself, which is ridiculous.

I'd be kicked off The Apprentice on week one, but I didn't

want to monetize it for me.

I'm in the process of printing the next batch of books so we can keep selling

them cause I've been selling them at gigs and that's been really helpful.

And also I'm doing a live show, so I'm taking it to the Edinburgh Festival

to do it for two weeks in August.

So it's that, that kept me going.

That was, that was the main thing.

did also start a podcast with another comedian called Rachel Creeger.

Uh, so that was called Jew Talkin' To Me?.

And it's basically, uh,

um,

talking.

So you have couple of guests and we talk about their lives

and experiences growing up Jews.

Yeah.

So you got, got up to a lot, but, um, as far as the charity, I mean, I think not

everyone would think that way though, that they shouldn't profit for themselves.

How'd you choose FareShare versus something else?

I chose FareShare, mainly because of the work they're

doing to help feed children.

So quite famous during lockdown that our government stopped supporting

children who needed school meals.

Well, they weren't in school, so why were they going to get school meals?

But that meant that parents who were homeschooling them having

to find extra money they weren't expecting to have to find.

Um,

Rashford who's a very famous footballer, I'm told, uh, he started this

and really got on it with government.

And he's an ambassador for FareShare.

when I was looking for a charity I wanted something benefited children.

So they couldn't ring fence the money.

It can't just go for children, but they do assure me that the meals

that they provide statistically generally go to families and that

yeah.

you're benefiting children.

But I was just appalled at the way our government treated the children

who were, I would say some of the worst effected in a way that we won't

even know for half a generation.

Who knows, but just seeing my own three and five-year-old, and we

live in nice area, nice house.

Got a garden.

We got playing fields around the neighborhood.

Parks space.

So we can even at the height of lockdown, we could get out the house and we

could exercise and we could do all the things we were legally allowed to do...

Because we're not in the cabinet.

So, um,

yeah, no, parties.

Right?

So.

no, parties at all.

Um, w yeah, we, we, even, we had a children's entertainer come

to the house to be in the front garden for my son's birthday.

Hello?

of us.

My came as well.

She was in our bubble.

So this was five of us sat on the driveway watching this

children's entertainer, entertain.

People, walking past going, what the hell is going on?

So we stuck to the rules, Boris.

Anyway, not important, very important.

Um, so, yeah, I, I, I think for me, I, I wanted the charity to be about

children because the children were the ones that donated their jokes.

And I just, I just didn't feel that I could really monetize it for myself

because I'd done a, um, what's that crowdfund what's that thing is that

Yeah.

Like Crowdfunder.

Yeah.

I

Yeah.

to help get, get it off the ground and that helps.

And that money went towards some of the printing costs and paying for

the cartoons and everything else.

And, yeah, I think it was, it was important to me that I didn't look like

I was cashing in, on their goodwill.

Yeah.

What an idiot.

No.

It's with regret you're fired.

I, I don't know.

I I'm a lot of people who are on this podcast and I talk about a

lot about giving back, so I think it's great, but yeah, sometimes

it'd be nice to all keep our money,

you know, to.

thing is my wife was working throughout lockdown.

So, we had an income.

She's a key worker.

So there was money coming in.

Yes, I lost a stupid amount of money in terms of work, but I

was able to do other things.

I was able to do the Zoom things.

And we had, we had support, I had some government support as a

self-employed person, so it didn't really feel like I was on the bread

line in the way that loads of other people were and rightly or wrongly,

I decided.

You know, I'm benefiting from the shows now.

So when I do the live shows, people buy tickets and that comes to me I'd

go into schools and I do, I do some workshops with kids now where I do

some of these shows and we get the kids up telling jokes, and I've done

uh,

Zoom ones and I've done some live ones.

They pay for those, so I am monetizing it in that respect, but

the joke book just felt like it had to be almost like a pure project.

yeah.

And once it's there, can get it reprinted and

reprinted of any, if I need to.

And I can smoke as don't mind our living room being full of joke books again,

because they sell well at Christmas, you know, on the website, they sell very well.

Uh, philip simon dot co dot uk forward slash shop.

They sell incredibly well, but I'm taking them to gigs

now and people are supportive.

I talk about it at the end of my set, i, I allow sort of three to four minutes to

talk about the joke book and I tell some jokes from the book and there's a lovely

kind of bit that I'm able to do with it.

And the audiences are happy to support the arts.

They're happy to support a charity.

want to take something home for their kids.

I did Hot Water Comedy Club in Liverpool, which is one of the

best comedy clubs in the UK, but certainly say the best in Liverpool.

And then I think in one night there, I sold about a hundred books.

And that was because that was because, so nights there I

sold, I sold a hundred books.

And that was because the security guards were making people buy books.

were so but the people coming out were supportive as well.

They've all got kids or nieces or nephews or, and they're just really supportive.

So I'm really pleased I did it because it gave me a focus in lockdown and it's

Yeah.

to focus on now, when I do other shows.

I can now do my own grown-up comedy I can also invest in doing

some children's shows as well.

Yeah.

Well, and that is, I don't know if that's a challenge for you, but I know for me,

just some of my friends' kids and my niece, my nephew, my one nephew is 17 now

so he wants to hear some off jokes, right?

He he's longs for that but the little kids.

I have my one, my one friend that kids always like, right,

like tell me a joke.

And I go, tell me one of your jokes.

I'm like, I can't, you know, even if it's not dirty, you're not going to get it.

And so I'm definitely going to be buying one just because I need to

bring them some jokes back or just, just for me to have them on hand.

But I think it is cool because kids do have a sense of humor

and they do appreciate stuff.

They do.

And actually during lockdown, it was really important for kids to be laughing.

know some people were on their own during lockdown, they're only children

so have siblings to play with.

They didn't have friends to play with.

And I know quite a few of them were watching the shows on a

daily basis when we did the live.

I had jokes sent in from America, Germany.

You know, there people were sending in jokes from all over.

Some of them

Yeah.

the way.

Some of the jokes were awful, but, but mostly they were editable

into some form of coherent joke.

And the kids get credited as well so when I'm telling the

they all get their name and their age put up on the screen.

And in the joke book, it's got their name and their age as well.

And it's, it's lovely.

It's a really, it's a really nice kind of community feel to it.

Yeah.

So, yeah, it's, it's good.

I'm just not imagining you like watching a kid, tell

a joke and then just heckling the kid.

That's a terrible joke.

Well, my, I do get my son to workshop jokes

if he comes up with something.

So, we, a weekly joke contest that I enter.

And they, they always give you a theme.

Yesterday, the theme was mirrors.

And the joke I came up with was, um, I always use mirrors when I make

love, because sometimes you have to take a long, hard look at yourself.

And I showed that to my wife and she laughed and I submitted it.

I didn't win.

I now know.

Livid.

But son was like, what, what joke did you submit?

What joke did you say?

I said, I can't, I'm really sorry.

I can't tell you, but why didn't you see, you've got a

better joke that you can tell.

So he told me a joke.

I can't remember what it was now.

Otherwise this story would have been cracking, but I can't tell

you what, I can't remember what it was, it was sort of halfway there.

but instead of patronizing him and going, so good, well done, I was

like, I think that the premise, what you'll come up with is amazing.

That's really clever.

I maybe if we just tweak the ending.

You know, the five-year-old if he's telling me a joke, then I'll just laugh.

His was, why did the, I think it was like, why did the clock cross the road

get to the mirror on the other side?

That was his, that was his attempt.

So that's not, I'm not, I said, I said, you know what?

It's brilliant.

not going to submit it because it's not actually, actually but it's brilliant.

Um,

It's funny.

it's

stupid.

a five-year-old said it.

if

Yeah.

Well, if you would've said it.

me, 43 year old, they be like, what is this?

Like my, my favorite, I know this, isn't the point of the podcast.

My, my favorite one, um, is, uh, I, I teach them knock,

knock jokes, which is classic.

We all love a knock knock joke.

And, um, there's a, quite a well-known one I'm sure you must know.

Uh, we'll do it now.

See if it

Okay.

with the buffering.

I dunno what, but let's try, "Knock, knock."

"Who's there?"

"Interrupting cow."

"interrupting cow who?

Right?

So you know, that joke.

So I told my son loved it, really found it hysterical.

this was when he was about five or six, I guess.

refound is hysterical and he was telling it all over the place.

Absolutely loved it.

I said to him, why don't we try it with a different animal?

What do you think you went?

Yeah, we did this "knock, knock."

"Who's there?"

"Interrupting sheep."

Rabiah Coon (Host):

"interrupting shape who?