Your Mind Matters – Miles Crawford, Comedians Are Depressed? Myth Or Fact?

Isn't it bliss? Don't you approve? One who keeps tearing around and one who can't move. Where are the clowns? Send in the clowns. These are the words from A Little Night Music by Stephen Sondheim. At some point in our lives, we all make fools of ourselves, which causes pain, and sometimes deliberately to entertain. We are now in a culture which accepts comedians along with comedy as a part of our entertainment and social setting, our social interaction and communication. It's the quickest way to win friends and to create the glue of connection. But what does it take to be a comedian as a full-time occupation? What does it take psychologically and emotionally? I recall a famous comedian saying when he's invited to a dinner party, he's expected to make everyone happy. A surgeon isn't expected to take his scalpel along. It wasn't that he didn't want to entertain, as he's naturally funny, but he felt in some way the burden of having to entertain. That was his dilemma. We can only discuss certain aspects of comedy today, as the world and psyche of the comedian is as varied as the comedian himself. We will look at the individual comedian who has his own story to bring to his performance. My work as the founder of John Lewis Comedy Clubs gave me the opportunity to observe the rise of stand-up comedy since 1983. I have seen the greatest comedians of our time, and also as a psychologist, to understand, as C.G. Jung stated, that his life had been permeated and held together by one idea and one goal, namely to penetrate into the secret of of the personality. My work is to understand the psyche of a comedian in a psychological and social context. My PhD thesis and theory is that the work of a comedian is intrinsically interwoven with the comedian. Unlike the invaluable work of Freud, who focused on the joke as a sacra activity, the joke, that is, that is a singular concept which embodies the release of energy and permeates the clubs and social settings,, and various performers took that same joke and made it their own. But here we're talking about the comedian who is the embodiment of humour, which represents not only himself but also our society, which I have seen radically change since 1983. But Freud says something very valuable. He says the individual artist, who's grown from the creative concept of a god, has been sketched out no longer uses the collective ideology of religion to perpetuate himself, but the personal religion of genius, which is the precondition of any productions by the individualist artist type. Today's stand-up comedian expresses his comedy towards society and the audience according to his views, and they are totally interlinked. But why does a person become a comedian? Is it by design or default? The British comedian David Baddiel says, 'The reason I do this job is because I've got a deep confessional drive. My comedy seems to be all about confession. It's probably something to do with the fact that when my younger brother was born, he was much, very much my mum's favourite, and although I wasn't neglected, I feel that there was a time when I wasn't being noticed as me.' I remember as I was growing up I was desperate to tell people about myself and for them to notice me and who I was totally, and that seems to be what I'm still doing as a stand-up. It's interesting that Steve Coogan speaks of fighting for attention as a survival strategy in an environment in which attention is a resource and it's sparse. Woody Allen also talks about comedy as a way of getting attention and devising strategies to get it. We're focusing on the big question: does the comedian always, as Nip said, have tears behind the comedic mask? As those who've listened before to me will know, that I punctuate my work with song lyrics, as I have today, and these lyrics are classic: The tears of a clown. But don't let my glad expression give you the wrong impression, really I'm sad. Oh, sadder than sad. I cannot ignore the burden of being a comedian. On the suicide of Robin Williams, there were vast number of eulogies. The director Terry Gilliam insists that comedic talent is a miracle and a gift which does not come from nothing. When the gods gift you with the kind of talent Robin had, there's a price to pay. It comes from deep problems inside. It concerns all sorts of fears, yet he could always channel those things and turn them into gold. I think that comes with the territory. All comedians know, as the Queen's song says, I have to find the will to carry on, and that the show must go on. And today with my guest, who is a TV and film personality and an exceptionally talented stand-up comedian, he is not only gifted with a natural comedic ability, but also runs a number of comedy clubs, and this makes him an observer of the comedic style. I'm delighted to welcome Miles Crawford. Hello, Miles. Hello, Maria. So, Miles, you've got a vast, vast experience in the world of comedy, and before we move into your experiences, not only as a comedian but booking comedians, an observer of the comedic style and life. Tell me about your background. How did you get into the world of comedy? My, my, my, you know, people, um, it's interesting hearing all of the different stories of how each individual, uh, got into comedy. And, um, do you know, mine You know, you hear those comedians say, oh, it's a total accident, or, you know, whatever their, um, excuse for it is. But, um, my, mine was a kind of boomerang type effect thing where I thought I was going one way when one small thing happened, which then led me onto the path of comedy and entertainment. Because when I was, when I was young, I wanted— growing up, I always wanted to be a fireman. Yeah, always wanted to be a fireman. That's all I wanted to be, you know. I was, I was quite fit and active, did a lot of sports, and was in several teams. I even represented, uh, my, uh, county, uh, Surrey, for athletics and sports and things. So I had no problem with the physical part of being a fireman. Um, did all the exams, and a very close friend of mine, of the family, was a fire officer. He was an officer, so I knew everything about being a fireman. So I took all the tests when I, when I came of age, and everything like that. But one side of it that I actually failed at, and this was why I didn't get in, was because my eyes, uh, were not good enough. I failed the eye test right at the last thing. And at that time you did have to have, um, 20/20 vision. I think it's called 6/6 vision now, or it's all changed now. But you couldn't wear contact lenses, or there was no laser eye treatment then or anything. So I didn't get in, and, um, I was absolutely devastated, absolutely devastated. Uh, and I was still in touch with an old school teacher of mine, Mrs. Hubbard, her name was Sue Hubbard. And, um, she, she heard, you know, what happened and things like that, and she sort of said 'Why don't you try for drama school? You were very good at drama at school and the acting and that side. Why don't you take a different path, maybe go for your Equity card and get into acting?' Which meant 3 years of drama school. So Sue Hubbard coached me through the first set of auditions In Her Own Time, and I got recalls. I got recalls to LAMDA, the London School of Music and Dramatic Arts, Mountview up in London, and RADA. So it was 3 top schools, so of course The borough heard about it, you know, I couldn't go, I couldn't afford drama school, Maria. The borough said, if you get into those, any one of those schools, we'll back you. Yeah, excellent. So I thought, wow, this is, uh, no pressure. So Sue Hubbard said, um, no, you can do this. So what she did, what she did was she said, right, what you're going to need to do is to, uh, to get some practice in performing in front of people, okay, to, to do these auditions. Because now, you know, it wasn't one or two people in the room, be a panel, you know. So there was, um I was entered into as many, uh, talent competitions as she could find from the newspaper, you know. And one competition was a big, uh, a local talent competition at a club in Battersea called Jongleurs. I know it well. Oh, okay, you may have heard of that. Yeah. And, uh, I, I hadn't heard of it, you know. It was just a I knew Battersea, I didn't even know it existed. And we, we— where were you? Where did you live at that time? I, I was living in Tooting. Oh yeah, uh, in South London, SW17. So Battersea was, you know, just up the road. It wasn't that far. But I've never heard of this club and where it was situated, you know. You knew it was there if you knew it was there, you know. It's a big building and then you'd find that side door, walk up those stairs and, um, massive room, you know. Yeah, it's an old ballroom. Yeah, brilliant room. And I was in there, there's loads of weird and wonderful type acts and comedians and specialty acts and things like that that they were there on the day. And, um, I, I ended up winning the competition, which, which launched me onto the comedy circuit because part of was to come and perform on a normal comedy night, normal Jongleurs comedy night, but now I know that as being the open spot, the guest spot for the night, whereas in my head that was the top spot. So what did you do? Tell everybody what you did for your— Well, I actually improvised piece that I was doing for my drama audition. Yeah, um, Next Time I Sing to You by James Saunders or something like that. Yeah, yeah. And, um, so I just improvised that for the— but, but all I, all I entered the competition for was to practice that piece. So that's what all I was doing. I didn't expect to win. Yeah, um, but For whatever I did, the judges, you know, backed me. I think Arthur Smith was one of the judges. Yeah, uh, if I remember rightly. And, and so I was— I— yes, yourself and John, I think John Davey and someone from the newspaper, The Guardian newspaper, who did the report. And, um, yes, you were It's so interesting actually, Miles, you saying that, because the type of audition you did, because you have got that ability. So sort of just to give everybody who's listening to this the understanding of who you are as a performer, because it's always easier for the observer to give, contextualize a performer. You've got that sort of same ability that Graham Norton has, and there aren't many people that have this. That they get on stage, talk to the audience, and people feel good. Yeah. And you don't have to have amazing content, although you did have and you do have, but that is an addition because there's lots of comedians— we'll go into this— that have content over their personality. But you both have tremendous personality that as soon as you get on stage, everybody loves you. And in fact, it was a similar time that sort of Graham Norton made it at the club, because he found it really difficult to get on anywhere else because he was a personality. And you've got that total personality that people just warm to you, love you, want to listen to you. And I've seen you perform over and over again, and it's such a fabulous ability. So we'll go into how you came by that in a minute as you go along. So yes, amazing. So then you were Actually, and then you got an open spot, how did you get on from there? Well, you know, they say you never forget your first performance, don't they? And that was my first performance in front of a big audience, a big Saturday night at this new Jongleurs club, and I was part of this stunning lineup, and it just really didn't happen for me. It didn't happen for me. I didn't know the etiquette, the rules, the structure. I just went on and did what I did in the audition. But of course, now you've got a paying crowd of about 300, 400 people watching, you know. And in the end, I had to be taken off the stage because I didn't know how to kind of get off. It is, it really is. And I was devastated, absolutely devastated. I had friends and family downstairs and everything, and it didn't go well. And but there was a comedian upstairs who was the headliner that night, and he came up and he said, oh, um, 'You actually did pretty well tonight for your first performance.' And I really couldn't see it. I couldn't— he said, 'No.' He said, 'All you did, you stayed on too long.' Yeah, you know, of course he's got the trained eye, you know. Um, and I said, 'Really?' He said, 'Yeah, that's all up until this certain point,' and explained where it was. 'You were doing absolutely fine, but then you stayed on because you were a new act. You're not supposed to stay on that long. Yeah. And so, um, he said— I'll tell you, it wasn't— and he said, um, look, I liked what you were doing. Um, I belong to like a theatrical group, and, uh, I'll give you my number if you want to come along. Be good to see you. So through the tears, I took his number. And it was a comedian, a variety comedian at the time called Chris Lynham. Yes, of course I know Chris Lynham. He married one of the great sisters from Denise Blackmore's Sisters. Yes, and Chris Lynham, and, uh, I sort of hung about with him for a while. But then, you see, I was at another dilemma. Do I go to drama school and do these auditions? Exactly. Or I've got this offer from this guy who's gonna help me and train me and do whatever I had in my head at the time, or go with this Chris Lynham bloke, you know. So I asked everybody, family and friends, drama teacher, everybody, you know, everybody had their own ideas. And at that point I didn't take the auditions. I went, uh, and worked with Chris Lynham and his team that he had at the time because I figured I've got the opportunity now to do what I will possibly doing— possibly be doing in 3 years' time. I can always re-audition for drama and get my Equity card, right? Anyway, so I went along with Chris and never looked back. Yeah, because in those days, um, to get your Equity card, you had to be on stage, but they then introduced it for stand-up comedy. Yes, the Equity. Yeah, so, uh, you would— you wouldn't have known that. And in the early days of Shambles, because I worked as a theatre agent before Jean Blaise with Barry Brown Management, and he was an amazing, amazing agent with top, top flight actors. So I understood about Equity, and comedians were enthralled by the idea that they could do stand-up in order to get an Equity card. And so we were becoming flooded with performers who were trying to get their Equity card as well because they quite rightly, so they should. So you had to do so many shows in order to get an Equity card, but very smart. Yes, that's right, because you had— if I remember rightly, you had a blue Equity card and a red Equity card. Yeah. And you had to do so many shows to get your blue one, and then so many shows again to do— yeah, to get— but, uh, well, funny story about me getting my Equity card, Maria, was the fact that Um, my real name, yeah, my real name at the time, or is the same as a well-known British actor. Okay, so what was happening on the circuit, I was turning up to gigs which were packed out because the audience thought this well-known actor was turning up. Come on, give us the name. And then I'd walk on, and then, what, are you being funny? Is this, you know? So I had to change my name. And what was your name? So my name— you'll giggle, you'll giggle when I tell you this. I'm sure you'll see, you'll see straight away why I had to change it, right? Um, Michael Crawford. Oh, perfect. Yeah, that's hilarious. That is hilarious. So this is how, you know, this is how I understood the laws of equity, because you cannot have the same name. And it's interesting because exactly around that time Paul Merton had to change his name because he was, when he first came to me, because he gave me a tape that he had recorded when he was a student, you know, a cassette tape, and he came over to Jean-Claude's early, this was must be '83, '84, and he gave me a tape and he said 'Can you play this?' and let me, you know, 'Can I have an audition?' And, uh, his name was Paul Martin, and because exactly according to Equity rules you can have two people of the same name, he changed his name to where he lived, which was Merton, to Paul Merton. I know. Oh gosh. Wow. Yes. And so, but What, what actually happened was I, I didn't have— I didn't have enough shows under my belt in order to even get a blue Equity card or anything at that time. So we had to apply for a special temporary Equity card until I had enough, um, shows under my belt, because I was still new, I was still up and coming, you know. Yeah, yeah. And, um, so they managed, they gave me that and then I was able to perform. But then I had to then choose another name and that's where Miles Crawford came from because I didn't want to change my signature, you see. So we've got so much to talk about, Miles, but can we go back to now you are beginning to perform? Which is learning the skills and everything. But give me your background. Where, where you were brought up in tutoring? I know tutoring. I did my teacher's training in, uh, tutoring in Ensham School for Girls, actually. Yeah, so I know what it was like. Um, I know Ensham very, very well, but where I lived, where I lived was right on the border of, um, the boroughs. So although I lived in Tooting, although my address was Tooting, I went to school in Merton. Ah, so you're Paul Merchant then? Yes, small world. So I went to school over the other side and not side where I lived. So, um, yes, we, we— I went to 3 different schools at the time. Primary school called Lynx Primary School, which is still there, uh, good old Lynx. And then I went over to Colliers Wood. There was a school over there, Alfia, and I went there for 3 or 4 years as my middle school. It's not there anymore, they've knocked it now there's flats now because you're not there anymore. Uh, and then I went to, um, a school in Mitcham called Tamworth Manor. Okay, now it's now been renovated into a Harris Academy, Merton Harris Academy, now. Lovely, lovely site actually, gotta say. But, um, and that's where I went to high school, but School was tough in those days, Maria, because those were the days of the height of the skinhead movement. Yeah. And school, Tamworth Manor, was right on the estate of where the skinheads lived. Right, okay. But the reason why I went to Tamworth was because most of the high schools around where we lived were boys only, and I didn't want to go to a boys-only school. I wanted to go to a mix. So my brother went to Tamworth— one of my older brothers went to Tamworth Manor— and so I went along knowing the hazards were there. So before we get into the hazards and how you overcame those, your parents— tell us a little bit about your parents, how they came here. Oh, they were lovely, lovely people. They're not with us anymore. No, it's always sad. The same year, yeah, that was a really tough year, and especially as a performer because you have to still the show must go on. Yeah, totally. So we'll come to that because I know that's such a big part of life. Yeah, but they, they came, they come over with the Windrush, which people are really familiar with now. And, um, when my mother came over, she was a nurse, came over as a nurse. My dad worked in a metal factory, Fry's Metal, in Mitcham. It's not there anymore, but Fry's Methodist Mission. So he came over, and over the years my mother became a housewife. So she was a nurse, wasn't she? She was, yes. We slightly lost you, Miles. My mother was a nurse, she became a housewife, and my father became a taxi driver. So that's how we grew up, and we grew up in Tooting. Yes, so how many— in which road? Amen Corner. Oh yeah, that's very famous. Eastbourne Road, yeah, it is. Because there was a band called Gay Men Corner, wasn't there? Absolutely. Wow, you're, you're going back. I have a very good old history. But Miles, so in your family, how many children? I want to follow the sort of Alfred Adler school of thinking, which is, you know, does the position of where you're born in your childhood, you know, what number of child are you? Does that affect your upbringing? So how many in your family and which number were you? So I was one of seven, um, four brothers, two sisters, and, uh, I was the youngest. I was the baby in the family. Do you feel that affected your life? Do you feel that, um, you know, you were mollycoddled a little bit? You've got sisters as well. Did they sort of look after you? I did get— you know, you do get away with a lot. You do get away with a lot. But, um, you see, the interesting thing about our family was my, my three eldest brothers were born in Jamaica. Ah. And they came over to England, to Britain. Uh, the rest of us were born over here. So did they live with you when you were growing up? Yes, we all lived in the same house, but our outlooks were different, and obviously our accents were different as well. But that was the norm. It was just the norm. That's what you kind of grew up with. It's only when you get older you realize your accent's a bit different. So your brothers, who raised them in Jamaica? They were raised by family, so it's always all the families always sort of lived together. Yeah, yeah, you know, so they were raised in like a Crawford family house, and you know, all the aunts and uncles were there. And my, my granddad, my dad's dad, owned a lot of land over there, so you'd have your own patch on that land, but you'd all kind of grow up together. So they were all raised by you know, uncles and aunts and things like that, until such time when my parents had found somewhere to live over here, and they then, you know, came over, and then we all grew up in the same house. Yeah, was it a good move? Were they happy with the move? Oh, absolutely, absolutely. I mean, when I found that out was when I actually went to my Grandad was on his last legs and I'd never met him and I wanted to, to meet him. I've never met any of my extended family, so to speak, you know, and he was the only grandparents still alive. So I went over to Jamaica specifically to meet him and to see where my dad grew up and things like that. And then you realize when you're there, you realize my Goodness, how, how did they survive? How did the— you could see why they moved for the better life. Yeah, where they were. Quick idea on what I did was I wanted to go to the toilet, so I said, 'Where's the toilet, please?' 'Yeah, you go outside, just walk along a bit, and then you'll see a little shed.' Yeah. And it was— anyone who's been to Glastonbury will know what I'm talking about. It literally is a shed with a hole in the ground. You do your business. That's the toilet. In whatever year it was, in the '90s I think I went over. And you think, wow! And you know, you want to help. 'Can't you build a toilet?' or 'Can't you do something?' You know, but that's all they know. Yeah, and they don't have the infrastructure, do they? No, no, because they lived out in the country, the country area, and that's how it was. And I thought, my goodness, and you can't take it on board, you know, can't. That's just how it is. So I learned a lot. I learned a lot from, from that trip. So, um, coming back to you being the youngest in the family, but also, you know, having a different background. So the first question is, uh, were you like David Deal and Steve Coogan? Did you have to fight for attention, or are you just that type that gets it naturally? Yeah, we, we all got on really well. You know, there was no, there was no fighting for attention or, or anything because you, in any Caribbean family, you do have a level of respect. You have to respect your elders. Yeah. And that's it. So the youngest has to respect, you know, the brother or the sibling above them. And so, and so if your brother tells you to sit down, you have to sit down. It's as simple as that. And what do you feel about that? Is that a good system? Yeah, I mean, if it's used properly, as anything. Yeah, yeah. But we always had that level of respect, and that came down from our parents anyway. You know, they were, you know, they had a Christian outlook, you know, so they were very helpful we, we regularly had people coming around for dinner. It was a gentleman who, he was an ex, ex-Army, um, officer, and he, he lost his wife and he went to, uh, the church that we all grew up in. And Mum used to have him over for dinner every Sunday, you know. So he, he was like a part of the family, a white, um, a white gentleman, and, um, he always came over. Mr. Griffin, his name was, and, uh, he was just a part of the furniture. Mr. Griffin would be over on Sunday. Well, of course, we used to joke and take the mick out of him and everything like that you do as kids. But, uh, you know, he, he became a close part of the family. How it was then. But you learned to respect any elder. So what happened at school? So let's go back to your school years. You were there with the skinheads, and people today wouldn't ever begin to understand unless you understand that time, because there were mods and rockers and the skinheads were really fierce on the streets. But there they were in their sort of bopper boots, the turned-up jeans that kids wear today actually, when you see them walking down the road, and the close-shaved heads. But they were, you know, tattooed and they were fit. They were out there and ready to rumble, weren't they? They were, yeah. Every day, every day, every single day. We used to have to take a bus. We used to— after, I used to have to take two buses to school, and one of the buses, where we changed buses, yeah, was right opposite the main bandstand in Mitcham. Anybody who knows Mitcham of yesteryear will never forget the bandstand. And, um, the bandstand was as it sounded. It was a stand that you'd normally get a brass band playing on, one of those old sort of fixtures in any village. You'll see a bandstand, but that's where all the skinheads used to hang out. They made that their base. So what we'd have to literally do every morning and every evening is get off one bus and run round to the other bus stop to catch the bus from there because if we stood at that same bus stop they'll come over, start talking. And what would happen? There'd be fights, you'd be fighting. Yeah, it was just standard then, you know, so you kind of preempt it by getting off that bus and running round to the other stop. It was just the norm, you know. And what was school like? School was tough as well. There was a lot of bullying at school. You kept in your groups for safety. You kind of got your own back on the sports field. Now, yeah, so you said at the beginning you were, you know, well driven, you were fit. So did the sport and being in a sport sports team, did that give you the drive to stay on the comedy circuit? Because people who've never done comedy or people who've never seen the comedy circuit, they would never understand, and this is an introduction to that, a comedian has to have drive to stay on the— personal drive to stay on the circuit. You have to keep going, you have to get up from one place, do a gig there, you might go to another and sometimes 3 gigs in a night, and you have to drive around so you have to have that self-determinative aspect to your personality. Yeah. You know, it's not going to happen for you until you become a star or until you've got a partner that would take you around, but overall you are the one that has to make this happen. Yes. Do you think that sport, that ability to do sport and being good at sport, gave you that? Do you know, that's interesting. I would say it did, actually. It does help because that's the, the side of the entertainment of being a comedian that people don't see. Yeah, it's the traveling. There's a lot of traveling. There's a lot of staying in places, some desirable, some less desirable, by yourself. You have to make your own way there. And if you, if you travel miles to get to a show and you don't go down very well, it's a long way back. It's a long way back, that journey back. But every comedian— let's just interject here— every single comedian bar none, no matter how great they are today, has failed at some point. Yeah, as we say in the trade, they died. They died, yeah, yeah. And you know, I'll be honest, I died hundreds of times. I did. You know, with everybody else. Yeah, yeah, I mean, along with everybody else. And you have to, you have to find your own way of picking yourself back up and learning from it. And that's what then establishes you as a comedian. Yeah, so let's talk about this because I think this is pivotal. When I did my PhD, I did talk about the comedian and why people always say, you know, tears of a clown. What is— and everybody says, lots of people say, oh, comedians, and especially before the boom in comedy happened, all comedians are depressive. So I had this thought that comedians are so close to their material. They don't hide behind words that somebody else has written. It's their own words. They expose a part of themselves. It might be a part of their own trauma, their own personality, their lives. Everything about them goes on stage, whether it's done before or it's still a part of them. It's not somebody else who's given them the material most of the time, unless you're Michael McIntyre on television, you know, and then you have to use other people's material. Yeah, but you know, so here we are, you are talking purely and simply and exposing, giving the world a deep insight into yourself. So, and if people don't like that, that must be really depressing. But I presume— we'll talk about your parents dying because that has a major impact as well— but I presume those people who use their material but don't put that— actually, the material is the most important rather than the personality— must fall into the trap that when they expose that deep part of themselves, sometimes the traumatic part of themselves, which they've now turned into something funny and nobody likes it. That must be really depressing because that's so personal, and they get off stage and they think, oh my God, I've just revealed something so deep and so intense about myself, something that perhaps I'm ashamed of, and now I'm doubly ashamed because nobody thought it was funny. Do you think that's true? Yes, you know, you see it a lot, you know, over the years you see a lot of comedians come and go, you know. I mean, taking Jongleurs, for example, you, you personally birthed 95%, 98% of the stars we know today, you know, from yourself, Maria Kempinster, giving us opportunities to come back and perform again when we haven't done so well, and that's— that was important because you have to learn from your mistakes. And you're right, some of the comedians, their style of performance is material-based, and sometimes what they're saying doesn't click with the audience that are watching on that particular night and then they die on stage, right? They don't go down very well, whereas the night before they've used exactly the same material and ripped the roof off. Some comedians can deal with that mentally, a lot of them can't, and then that's when you learn who you are and who you are on stage Do you then troop forward and try again or change your material about for the next crowd? Or do you— sometimes you get booed off. Back in the day, you used to get people throw stuff at you. There was a club, a notorious club called the Tunnel Club years ago, Greenwich. And you'll know if you went down well Wow, you, you, you would think you're at the Notting Hill Carnival, you know. If you didn't go down well, you would get glass, chairs thrown at you, anything, drink, the lot. And that, you know, that if you, if you said, no, I lasted out at the Tunnel Club, you'd get so much work. Yeah, quite. It was notorious. And Malcolm Harding wasn't notorious, wasn't he? He used to come into John McCain. And his line was, "Oh, mutton dresses mutton." I got on super well with Malcolm. We were really— he was, uh, great. We— and he performed obviously as the Great Shyamalan as well. So that was a great gig. But you're absolutely right. And so when it comes to somebody like— we're talking about Robin Williams, who eventually committed suicide. Yeah, his whole world was about entertainment, but Something very interesting about his childhood, and not many people know this, as they say in the trade, um, his mother was not negligent, but she was absent quite often. And with a number of comedians, you do read that it was their mother they were trying to entertain. So they're either trying to entertain the mother because she's fed up with life or depressed herself, or for some reason something terrible has happened to her, so they cheer her up. Or in his case, he was trying to get her attention because it was through the humour she paid more attention to him, because she was travelling a lot with his father and he was an only child. So it gave him quick access to that attention. And how much of that do you think plays a role for the comedian on stage? Well, the fact that they want attention. Yeah, yeah, a lot, a lot. You know, you do get comedians who are show-offs, they want that attention, they want, you know, they want all of that. And then you kind of, you actually don't see that so much on stage, you see that when they're off stage after their performance if they've gone down well. How do you see that? That's in the green room, the dressing room? Yeah, the dressing rooms, or in the bar talking to the punters and things like that. You do get, you do, yeah, you do get that element, you know. It interests me why the comedians are doing the comedy, you know. A lot, you know, I would say many of them, the majority of them, obviously want to be famous and do shows go down well. I mean, going back to Robin Williams, he was an actor and a comedian, but he started in improv. Yeah, he had great improvisational skills. Well, he's so fast, right? All sorts of stuff. And he intertwined that into his acting. Um, a bit like Steve Coogan, really, you know. Yeah, Steve wasn't quite as fast. As Robin Williams. Robin Williams was super fast on his ad-libs and so on, but you know Steve Coogan wasn't quite as fast. He performed in the early days of genres as well. So I do think, you know, my favourite time, I must say, my personal favourite time was at the beginning, you know, '80s, '90s, but particularly the '80s, because nobody knew where you were going. You didn't have the promise of television then, at that time. It was only occasional, you know, occasionally. And we had Saturday Night Live that came around, and, uh, also then we had Cabaret from Jean-Luc, and then, you know, Jean-Luc's Live. But the big talent which they have today was just— wasn't around. So the comedians are really lucky today. They get opportunities where they're seen all the time. Lucky, and also they have to vie for that attention and be super funny. But coming back to that time, you really had to fight for the audience's attention. And what does it take to do that? How do you know when you're on stage that you're losing them? How do you know? Do you have an idea? When you're sort of— when I did my 10-minute stand-up, which you saw, I think, We're losing you a bit, Miles, by the way. When I did my stand-up, it was quite interesting that you just get this sense that if there's no laughter, it's such a vast gap. Sure. But I'm sure you— Yes. And does it feel like that, that everything's rolling along and then suddenly you feel, where's everybody gone? Yes. Absolutely. And that's where you can tell an established comedian from, uh, you know, an up-and-coming. Because when you're up-and-coming, you panic, and you can see the panicking. But sometimes, you know, when you're established, you think, okay, let me just change my material, this material is not working. Or you change your approach, or you change your delivery. And you win the audience back. And sometimes you see it with some comedians who fight for the gig, they fight, literally are fighting on stage with their material, their performance, and they win the crowd back. You know, you know when you're not going down well if that crowd's just quiet laughing, or mainly when they start to talk. Yeah, you've lost them, you know, and then you've got various decisions to make. You know, you can find antidotes to try and get them back or get their attention, come away from your material, get them back, and then go back to your material, or thank you very much, good night, you know. And then come off stage where she's totally lost them. And then get off stage. And I think, yeah, it's having that ability. A lot of performers now understand that, they're seasoned, they know their experience, they know how much time they've got. But just a quick revert back to depression. Yes. How many comedians do you feel are actually covering their depression by going on stage, or do you think it's most of the comedians now do it as a job, or do you think depression is part of it because they get such a high? Because being on stage is an enormous high, isn't it? It is, it is, and I would say a large majority of comedians do it to cover depression or whatever the mental state that they're in, because it takes you away, it really does take you away, and you know, when you are, you know, you sat down, you've written all the material, you've rehearsed, you've had these thoughts, and then you go on in front of a group of people who you've never seen, you've never met, you don't know, and you make them laugh, the high you get from that is tremendous, especially the bigger, the bigger the show. Yeah. Um, and oh my goodness, yeah, I did, um, a lot of audience warm-ups, TV audience warm-ups. Still do today, you know, done many of the, the big shows. And I had to learn how to go on to a dead crowd, right, and warm them up in minutes, depending on the particular show. And this helped my stage performance because, you know, if I was hosting or comparing, or I was the first act on, I'd know how to get that audience onto my side very quickly. But back in the day, the audience warm-ups were one of the parts to getting your own TV show. Yeah. Um, so I thought I was on the right road at the time doing those shows, but, um, again, sometimes you get it wrong, and that's a, that's a lot of people to get it wrong in front of. Yeah, but that's what happens. And coming back to the world of stand-up, which people don't know about, is that how hard it is to hold 20 minutes on stage, let alone a 2-hour gig. So to constantly be on stage, constantly entertained, constantly change your material and to remember it and to know which piece, because you're editing as you go along. I mean, I just did my 10 minutes once and I'm working up towards that. I know what it takes to juggle around your material and deliver something that's appropriate at that given time, or as you say, you're losing them, so you've got to bring something else out of the box. Sure. And how much energy does it take? You must be totally exhausted by the end of it. Yes, it takes a little— you know, 20 minutes is a long time. They can't pick up a remote control and turn you over. When the ads come, there are no ads. And so yes, you do have to keep their attention. It does drain your energy. There's a lot of energy in it, especially if you're someone like Lee Evans, who is just super hyper, and you can see the sweat dripping off his body. He used to leave a pool of sweat on the stage. He's the only one that's ever done that, but yeah, he was like that. But it does, it drains you. You have to suck in all the energy that's in that room to keep it going, keep it alive, and 20 minutes is a long time to keep it up. So how did you cope when your parents had died and you had to go on stage? How do you deal with that moment? Because when my mother died, for example, I was then in— she died, say, on the Sunday or Monday, I can't remember which day it was, and she hadn't been buried, but I was doing a show on the Friday and thinking— and I found myself laughing at somebody that was on stage and thinking— suddenly I caught myself out and thought, oh my gosh, I felt a bit guilty. Yeah, about laughing. What was it like for you to actually get on stage and perform? Well, to be honest, uh, at that time I had to make a decision. Do I let it get to me, or does the show go on? You know, that's where, you know, you hear the words 'the show must go on,' 'start the car,' all those little phrases. Yeah, uh, and there are reasons for those phrases, because at some point that's what will happen. Yeah, and it has to happen. And it has to happen. And then, so what I had to do was to put my thoughts, uh, and feelings about my parents' passing on hold. I had to put it to the side. It was very difficult. And deal with the, the show. I had a big show, I remember, at the time, um, and I had to put it to the side because those people don't know my parents, or they don't know— they're there for the actual show in that moment. So you have to retrain your mind, retrain all your energies into that moment, and put your personal thoughts and feelings aside. It's very difficult. And did you have a— so it was the comedown worse after that? Did you feel even worse, or did it help? It actually helped. It helped me, uh, because I know my mum would have said, go on, knock them, you know, knock them dead, go and do it. I'm really proud of you to get this particular show. And this, the other— so you've done some major shows. So let's see, you know, for anybody listening, you, you've also been in films and television, and you've done very big, big shows. So, you know, you have a really wonderful stage presence and a magnetic stage presence. So to overcome depression, do you recommend doing comedy to overcome depression? I think comedy would help. I do. Comedy is a good remedy, you know, they say— what do they say about laughter? Laughter is the best medicine. And it's true. Especially we've seen it coming out of the pandemic and lockdown and everything, all the shows that we've been doing recently, people want to laugh, you know, they've come out of these hard times and they can all tell you a story and they're out, you know, just having fun. I did two contrasting shows recently, one up in Great Yarmouth in the Pavilion Theatre and another one in Dover, just gone, a working men's club. Yes, lovely. Two very different, very different crowds, but the thing that linked them together was they all wanted to laugh, they all wanted to have a good time, and so many people just came up and said, look, thank you, thank you for making laugh and just having a good time. So, you know, it's so important because it is the glue, and an audience comes together in that moment. There aren't 3, 4, 5, you know, 100 people or 1,000 or 10. They're all one together, one— I don't want to use the word mass, but it is one group, it's one entity. They become one person when they're all together, aren't they? Yes. It's such a magnificent feeling when everybody's laughing together. It is, and they just forget about what's happening in the world outside, you know, they're all in unity at that time, you know, that moment. And the laughter is so powerful and it just must drive you on and on to becoming and performing even more for them. It is a mammoth feeling when you, you know, you do a joke and especially if you're being spontaneous and you get laughter and reactions from that which are positive as well, so that's a really good feeling, you know, so you feel that you've done your job. Yeah, so coming back to what Freud said about jokes and the purveyor of anybody who's creative, so all comedians are creative, they find their own creativity, they are creative either in the delivery or in the writing or in the performance, and some people have got the gift gift of doing all of it, and some are what I call super comedians that actually make a difference. We've seen recently with Dave Chappelle, who's actually used his moment to affect change, which I think is the greatest gift of any performer, any human being, to do that. And I'm sure you've done that yourself. So my question is, are you— are comedians gods? Are they the geniuses? Now they do say when they've done the test the, um, Mansur test, that all comedians have a high IQ, or most comedians have a high IQ. And of course we know that Stephen Fry has that high IQ, but he doesn't do stand-up anymore, although he did perform for me, um, as well. So he's a gifted comedian. But are they gods? Are you— do you ever feel like that? Do you ever get into that realm? As being a god. Yeah, so you come off and you think, wow, that's taken me to the heady heights of not just, not just fame, but the performance, the fact that you are there on that level that is above other people. Because not only is the stage obviously higher, as you do in a performance, but you've got a stage, but also you've unusually— because most people don't do this, you don't do it in acting, you don't do it as a You don't do it as a musician, but you do have this as a comedian. You come to the audience and you interact with the audience, so it's very different. But do you feel godlike? Do you know what I do feel is that I know not anybody can do it, right? Not anybody can do it. It's very difficult. A lot of comedians make it look easy. They make it look so easy, people think, 'I could do that,' you know. You do, you do feel really good. You do feel, have that feeling, 'I am king of comedy.' You do get a feeling when you're ripping the roof off, that's what you feel. But I, I often think that not anybody can do this, you know. Your geniuses like Chappelle, who, well, his vision and creativity is tremendous. I remember paying to see Chris Rock. Now remember, I've seen practically everybody, but I had to see, go and see Rock. And again, somebody that is so amazing. Now sadly, Miles, we're coming to the end, and I cannot thank you enough. There's so much more we should be able to talk about, We need to talk some more, that's gone so quick. I know, there's so much more to ask you, but is there anything you want to tell people to do more of? You've got 10 seconds, 5, 4, 3— Just smile, be friendly to people, say hi. Great, thank you Miles Crawford for a brilliant interview, thank you so much. Thank you, Maria. This is Your Mind Matters.