0:01

This is a Global

0:04

Player Original Podcast. Warning!

0:07

The following podcast contains

0:09

strong language, bizarre theories,

0:11

unexplainable experiences, and a

0:13

simulation -proving seashell. It

0:15

may not be suitable for younger

0:17

weirdos. Listen,

0:20

Dan. If you ever meet your hero,

0:22

and your hero takes you to a

0:24

door and asks you, are you coming

0:26

in? Life is

0:29

trying to teach you a lesson

0:31

right there. Welcome

0:54

to another episode of We Can Be Weirdos.

0:56

My name is Dan Shriver. I am

0:58

coming to you today from my home at

1:00

Roughway by Sea. Today, we've

1:02

got a very exciting guest, a surrealist

1:04

comedian who is also a recipient

1:06

of the Malcolm Hardy Award for Comic

1:08

Originality. Now, this is an award

1:11

that takes place up in Edinburgh. It's

1:13

a very coveted award amongst comedians

1:15

because, as it says in the title,

1:18

it is awarded to comedians who are

1:20

doing things differently, doing things interestingly. There's

1:22

a few awards as part of

1:24

the ceremony. You've got comic originality.

1:27

There's the Malcolm Hardy Cunning Stunt

1:29

Award, which is great. And

1:31

that's been won by big comedians like

1:33

Stuart Lee. He got it for

1:35

successfully encouraging people to vote for the

1:37

little -known Japanese act, Frank Chickens, in

1:39

a poll for the best fringe

1:41

performer. 2014, it went to

1:43

Christian Talbot. for getting his 12 -year

1:45

-old daughter, Kate, to walk up to

1:47

strangers and say, have you seen

1:49

my daddy? And if they said no, she would

1:51

hand the flyer out to them. And then

1:53

in 2008, Gil Smith,

1:56

who retroactively got her

1:58

show, an award in 2009

2:00

when she nominated herself for a Malcolm

2:02

Hardy Award and put Malcolm Hardy Award

2:04

nominee on all of her posters. So

2:07

that's great. There's also awards like the act

2:09

that should make a million quid award, and

2:11

then there's a couple more. I really like

2:13

the first -minute award, which was given in

2:15

2016. That was the show with the funniest

2:17

first minute. Anyway, my guest

2:19

today won the award for

2:21

comic originality in 2015, and that

2:23

is the surrealist comedian Michael

2:25

Brunström. Michael is a publisher

2:27

by day and a performer by

2:30

night. I saw his show up

2:32

in Edinburgh called Copernicus Now. That

2:34

was last year at the Edinburgh

2:36

Fringe. And ever since 2014, he

2:38

has produced a new show. Titles

2:40

include The Golden Age of Steam, World

2:43

of Sports, Parsley, Umlaut,

2:45

A Colon Into Another

2:47

Dimension, 1000 New Ideas

2:50

Before Bedtime, Copernicus Now,

2:52

of course. And then his latest

2:54

show, which he is on

2:56

stage performing as of this month, is

2:58

called Michael Braunstrom sings 10 songs

3:00

about moths. It's a show that

3:02

has 10 songs about moths. But

3:04

if you know Michael's act, you

3:06

know that it's a whole experience

3:08

that goes into many different places.

3:11

So yeah, he's got a bunch of

3:13

London gigs coming up, April 25th, April

3:15

28th, April 29th, May 6th, May

3:18

8th. Go to his website, see

3:20

where they are in London, and do check

3:22

them out. It's a bit hard to find

3:24

Michael's stuff online if you want to see

3:26

his show, but if you do want to

3:28

see... One of his full shows online on

3:30

YouTube, you absolutely can. All

3:32

you need to do is get his

3:34

address and send him a postcard.

3:36

He will then send you a link.

3:39

You can do that by DMing

3:41

him on his Instagram account, which is

3:43

just at Michael Brunström, b -r -u -n

3:45

-s -t -r -o -m. and do check out

3:47

his website as well, michaelbrunström .co .uk. It

3:50

has all the links that you need. All

3:52

right, let's get into it. We begin the chat

3:54

by talking about the fact that like many

3:56

of the guests who appear on this show, Michael

3:58

has a connection to the great Ken Campbell,

4:01

that counterculture, monk -like comedian who

4:03

Michael was lucky enough to

4:05

have met in the final year

4:07

of Ken's life and became one of his

4:09

final protégés. So here we go, Michael

4:11

Brunström, and I will see you on

4:13

the other side. I

4:24

work because I work in book

4:26

publishing about 20 years ago

4:28

I was working on a book

4:30

about crop circles. Oh,

4:33

OK. They wanted to

4:35

work with Lucy Pringle, who

4:37

is one of the top crop

4:39

circle people. And she's written

4:41

quite extensively on this. She also

4:43

takes the photographs herself. She

4:45

hangs outside of a helicopter. Right.

4:48

And our take on it

4:50

as publishers was, these are remarkable

4:52

pieces of land art. And there

4:54

are theories about them. However, you

4:56

know, You know, but you know,

4:58

it's a photographic book with captions.

5:01

We want to just show off

5:03

the beautiful range of these without

5:05

getting too bogged down in the

5:07

in the theory. And me and

5:09

the designer, we went around Lucy

5:11

Pringle's house. Of course, it was

5:13

stacked with a whole massive library

5:15

of every, you know, mad thing

5:18

possibly. And she believed it every

5:20

ship. The wonderful thing about she

5:22

believed it all. She believed that

5:24

the aliens, definitely, it

5:26

was the ley lines. Yes,

5:28

it was obviously, you know,

5:30

energies from outer space. It

5:32

was everything except. two guys

5:34

called Doug and Dave. She would

5:36

not entertain this notion. Amazing.

5:40

I love it when you meet someone

5:42

who entertains it all because it's also

5:44

contradictory. Each theory almost shoves out a

5:46

different one and it doesn't matter. It

5:48

just is fine in that world. I'm

5:50

not doing down their intelligence by saying

5:52

that. It's just, it's compatible for some reason.

5:54

They don't seem to wipe out a different theory

5:56

and I don't know why. I've been in

5:58

many rooms like that. It's interesting as well because

6:00

there's, you know, They do

6:03

believe this stuff and they are

6:05

trying to get as much evidence

6:07

across and sometimes they do get

6:09

themselves pranked. So I've worked for

6:11

the TV show QI since I

6:13

was 19, like a very, very

6:15

long time. And there was one

6:17

point where a crop circle maker made the

6:19

QI logo, which is a big Q with

6:21

a little eye, magnifying glass. And

6:23

it was done for the show. And then

6:25

a few years later, And a

6:28

crop circle documentary came out where

6:30

you had this woman in a

6:32

field where the QI logo was with someone

6:34

else going, what is this? What is the message

6:36

that they're sending? You can tell this is

6:38

genuine. And it made it as a, it's now

6:40

as part of that documentary, a canon bit

6:42

of crop circle made by aliens who are sending

6:44

us a message. And it's, I guess if

6:46

you see a crop circle, how do you know

6:48

any different, right? So like that's our fault.

6:51

That's like leaving an April fools up on the

6:53

internet after April the 1st is gone. It's

6:55

like, you're just ruining the internet. Take it off.

6:57

What are you doing? Listen, I'm

6:59

very excited you're here. Thank you so much for

7:01

doing this. I got to see your show,

7:03

Copernicus Now, which was recommended to

7:05

me through an actor called

7:07

Oliver Senton, who I discovered you

7:09

do actually know from. Yeah,

7:11

he's been my hero, I think.

7:14

Really? I first saw him

7:16

in the production of The Warp.

7:19

near the warp

7:21

at the Albany

7:23

in Depthford which

7:25

is the 24

7:28

hour world's longest

7:30

play cycle and

7:33

just as a feat

7:36

of stamina and memory

7:38

and, you know, passion, you

7:40

know, he blew me away. Did

7:42

you see the, because it's, I

7:44

think it's 22 -ish hours in

7:46

its full length. Did you? And

7:49

is it right? So did Oliver play the main

7:51

role in it? And

7:53

so from what I was told by

7:55

Nina Conti, previous guest, who was part

7:57

of that, he only got, in that

7:59

22 hours, about five minutes off

8:01

stage. That's right, yeah. That's

8:03

crazy. He's told through the eyes of

8:05

the central character who is on stage.

8:08

And I think that, as I

8:10

understand it, the only audition for

8:12

playing film masters is learn

8:14

it. Learn the puzzle. Learn 22

8:16

hours of dialogue, yeah. If

8:18

you've learned it, ring

8:21

up Daisy and she'll put on

8:23

the play for you. Oh, wow. Yeah,

8:25

yeah. Oh, yeah, around you. Yeah,

8:27

so you show up and the rest will

8:29

happen around you. That will have to happen

8:31

because you've learnt it. Have you ever... OK,

8:33

so jumping back, you, like

8:35

a number of guests I've had over

8:37

the last two years, you've got

8:39

a big connection to Ken Campbell. I

8:41

was always a fan. Right. So

8:43

I got in, you know, as a

8:45

teenager, I started watching his one -man

8:47

shows. Oh, wow. As of, you

8:49

know, Pigsburton, the furtive nudist. Yeah. And

8:51

then I was following his doings.

8:53

as a kind of, you know, Iggy

8:55

Young fan in the background. Yeah.

8:57

And then a number of years went

8:59

past and I think it's in

9:01

2007, I bumped into him,

9:03

you know, just outside of pub

9:05

in Kentish town. And,

9:08

you know, I met my

9:10

hero. I met Mr. Campbell. I'm a fan.

9:12

He was like, oh, I'm a fan

9:14

of Fantastic. And

9:17

now I'm walking along the road because I'm going

9:19

on my way home, you see. I'm walking alongside

9:21

with my hero. And I don't

9:23

know if you've ever met your hero, it's

9:25

quite scary. It is really scary. You find

9:27

yourself, even if you can say random sentences

9:29

to everyone else, no matter how awkward, you

9:31

lose that ability, right? I'm stuttering

9:33

normally, but this I thought I've got to come

9:36

up with. I've got to impress him. So

9:38

I said, oh, Mr.

9:40

Campbell, have you read of

9:42

reaching into my... of impressive things.

9:45

Have you read

9:48

Francois Carradec's

9:50

biography of Joseph

9:52

Pouillot, the

9:54

Peterman? from reaching

9:56

for the most obscure book I could think of.

9:58

And he said, yeah, it's not very good, is it?

10:01

He batted that one right back at

10:03

me. I said, I found it in

10:05

a copy in that secondhand bookshop just

10:07

around the corner from where we're standing,

10:09

trying to reel him in on the

10:11

old weird coincidence bit. He

10:13

wasn't, you know, tried to get it

10:16

out. Then he crossed over Leighton Road

10:18

and going down Torre Arnau Avenue. I'm

10:20

supposed to... on way to the tube.

10:22

I'm supposed to turn left and go

10:24

down Leighton Road to Kenshi Town Tube.

10:26

But I find my legs aren't doing

10:28

that. My legs are following my hero.

10:30

And now my problem is, not how do

10:32

I get into a conversation with my hero,

10:34

but how do I get out of it? Yes,

10:37

yeah. A few yards

10:39

down Toriano, we come

10:41

to a door and Ken turns to me

10:43

and says, oh, are you coming in then?

10:46

And listen, Dan, if

10:48

you ever mean a hero. and your

10:50

hero takes you to a door and

10:52

asks you, are you coming in? Life

10:56

is trying to teach you a

10:58

lesson right there. You

11:00

say, yeah, I'm coming in.

11:02

So he opened the door

11:04

and he was running

11:06

a kind of improv

11:08

workshop with a bunch

11:10

of actors. you

11:13

know, Joss Darcy and Zoot Lyonam. And

11:15

I'd meet somebody, he was signing these on

11:17

a kind of weekly basis. And he

11:19

says, Michael, what's your thing?

11:21

I said, well, I work in

11:23

publishing. I do gardening books. He

11:25

was like, he's a gardener. So

11:28

I think the fact that I

11:30

wasn't an actor and had never

11:32

been on stage really tickled him. And

11:34

he was very, very kind to me. Everything

11:36

I did. I think Ken

11:38

has a slight reputation of being

11:40

aggressive. And he certainly, if

11:42

you had pretensions or if you

11:44

thought highly of yourself, he would

11:46

kind of cut you down to

11:49

size. But I had no such pretensions.

11:51

And so he would often

11:53

raise me up in order to,

11:55

he's not an actor, he's a

11:58

gardener. And then

12:00

that kind of opened up your

12:02

world of performance, right? I

12:04

guess. So

12:07

you know Showstopper? Yeah. This started

12:09

off as a Ken Campbell project, initially

12:11

called The Extemporized Musical. And I

12:13

was in the very first one of

12:15

those. Right. Because Ken was very

12:17

keen to have people in that who

12:19

had no skill. Yeah. No talent.

12:21

just to kind of muck things up

12:24

a bit to make sure it

12:26

got going on the right kind of

12:28

chaotic footing. Did you do... I

12:30

had a quite a lot of improv

12:32

at that time. Yeah, so one

12:34

of the previous guests, a

12:36

good friend of mine who came on the

12:38

show, Kariad Lloyd, did that as well.

12:40

I don't know if in the same time

12:42

that you did it. I knew Kariad

12:44

from back in the day. Yeah, right, okay.

12:46

So Kariad was telling me that there

12:48

was one point where Ken tried to emulate

12:51

this Canadian idea of a 24 -hour Improv

12:53

show and she did it and you

12:55

mean the 50 hour sorry the 50 and

12:57

it was I think she said it

12:59

was about the 22 24 hour bit where

13:01

you're supposedly you hit the warp which

13:03

is He uses separate to the play where

13:05

the fourth wall breaks down in your

13:07

reality and suddenly as a performer your and

13:09

she said she did it twice and

13:11

hit the warp twice Did you ever do

13:13

that 50 hour thing or? No,

13:15

I mean, it was on quite

13:18

recently at the, at the Pleasants. They

13:20

did the Laces 58. Oh my

13:22

God. I dropped in

13:24

for breakfast on the Sunday to

13:26

see how they were getting on.

13:28

I think they'd recently gone through

13:30

the warp. Oh God. Through that

13:32

war of war. And we're starting

13:34

to feel the after effects of

13:36

it. What size audience goes to

13:38

a thing like that? Probably about.

13:40

a couple of dozen doing the

13:42

whole thing with the sleeping bags

13:44

and the thermoses. Right. I

13:46

just want to bring up this. So

13:48

the reason that, as was saying before,

13:50

Oliver Senton was who introduced me to

13:52

you as a performer, saying, go to

13:54

see, go see Michael when you're up

13:57

in Edinburgh, go see his show. So

13:59

he said, PS, do you know the

14:01

work of Michael Brunström, one of Ken's

14:03

last alumni, a unique comedic mind, which

14:05

is a pretty cool thing if you're

14:07

saying that Senton's also one of your

14:09

heroes, but also To have

14:11

Ken do that, right? To

14:14

go from, I'm meeting my hero, to

14:16

have Ken take you under and

14:18

sort of train you up as well.

14:20

I mean, so that's a pretty

14:22

awesome, you're meant to be in that

14:24

world, right? Yeah, yeah. As

14:26

we'll see from this list, I

14:28

consider myself somehow a kind of

14:30

rational skeptic, I suppose. But

14:33

this really, it did feel like

14:35

the universe picking me almost, you

14:37

know, unwillingly and plonking me in

14:39

exactly where I needed to be.

14:42

In a manner which I can't really account

14:44

for. And if you're saying 2007, I'm

14:46

guessing that gave you either just

14:48

over or just under a year

14:50

of Ken's life because he died

14:52

in 2008, didn't he? I

14:55

always think about this when we

14:57

all exist at the same blip moment.

15:00

If you weren't walking there that day,

15:02

you only had one more year. before

15:04

he was gone. And then that's it.

15:06

You can never meet him. I never

15:08

got to meet him. I do remember

15:10

2007 as well it would have been.

15:12

I started a radio show on Radio

15:14

4 with my friend Rich Turner. It

15:16

was called Museum of Curiosity. It was

15:18

a really fun kind of impossible museum.

15:20

John Lloyd was the host of it,

15:22

the producer John Lloyd. And Rich said, We

15:25

should go to Camden. There's this thing

15:27

where this guy called Ken Campbell is

15:29

giving classes in, what is it? Esperanto,

15:32

I think it was. Pigeon. Pigeon,

15:35

yeah. He said, let's go and

15:37

do that. And I said, because he might

15:39

be a great guest for a museum. And we

15:41

said yes, and we missed it because of

15:43

a work thing. And I never got to meet

15:45

Ken as a result. And it's

15:47

just like, it's that kind of fork,

15:49

right? Where it's like, how cool you

15:51

got to meet him. He got to

15:53

see in you something special. And then

15:55

you went off and did it. Now

15:58

I got a question, which

16:00

is between 2008 and 2014.

16:03

2014 seems to be your first solo

16:05

show or at least listed solo show. So

16:07

what were you doing in between those years as a performer? I

16:10

was doing quite a lot of improvisation

16:12

at that point with various groups. I

16:14

was never a very good improviser. Really?

16:16

Not very good. Oh, God, I've read

16:18

in quite a few places that you were

16:20

amongst the best. Is that

16:22

a relative of yours? Improvisers are

16:25

famously very kind people. And

16:27

it's their job to make the other person

16:29

look good. Yeah, right. I think after a

16:31

while, I realised this wasn't for me. I

16:33

was way too much in my head and

16:35

wanting to do, get my own

16:37

ideas across. and not listening

16:39

and not communicating very well in

16:41

a kind of shared collaborative and

16:43

since then I've still never really

16:46

worked best in a team and

16:48

I think at that time I

16:50

was really desperate to do my

16:52

own stuff. So improv

16:54

was a magnificent training ground

16:56

and it taught me

16:58

a great deal about being

17:00

on stage and about

17:02

expressing myself and creativity. And

17:04

it's really informed the kind of

17:06

work that I want to be doing.

17:08

Yeah, but the actual improv world

17:10

I don't think I have a quite

17:12

Sad it's not really what I

17:14

wanted to be doing in the long

17:16

run. So yeah, yeah Well now

17:19

now that you said 2014 onwards. It's

17:21

been a new show every year.

17:23

You haven't missed a year so far

17:25

Yeah, I mean can I can

17:27

I get the concepts on just a

17:29

couple of the shows sure so

17:31

2017 parsley parsley. Yeah I

17:33

wanted to do, it was

17:35

my first really coherent theme show.

17:38

And in terms of creativity, I

17:40

wanted to prove that you

17:42

can get an hour's worth of

17:44

material out of the smallest, most

17:47

unassuming. subject

17:50

matter. So yeah, you can get an hour

17:52

out of parsley surely. So that was an

17:54

hour. It just skits really. It's

17:56

bits and pieces, but all parsley themed.

17:58

Yeah, right. Yeah. So different to you

18:00

were saying just before we properly started

18:02

recording that there's a guy of an

18:04

Edinburgh who would eat a kilo of

18:06

cheese. every show. So

18:08

not in that you weren't stuck in your

18:11

face with Parsley. It was... No, I

18:13

did make Parsley Sauce

18:15

on stage. I got a

18:17

little camping stove. I

18:19

made some Parsley Sauce. There was Parsley

18:21

and Coriander and Parsley. Well, that's what

18:23

I loved. So Copernicus now is the

18:25

one that I've seen. And

18:27

just that idea of

18:29

like that was... And it's

18:31

true. What an absolute

18:34

mind -shattering thing to have introduced

18:36

into your life that the earth is

18:38

not the one that everything is going around,

18:40

that it is going around the sun. And

18:42

that, I love the ideas that you

18:44

play with in that show. And there's a

18:46

version available online, but it's sort of

18:48

very secretive. And there's a whole process to

18:50

get your hands on it, which I don't

18:52

know if you want to reveal, but

18:54

it's, yeah, I love a

18:56

show that's full of packed with

18:58

ideas. Copernicus now absolutely had that,

19:00

but your new one sings 10

19:02

songs about moths. I

19:05

mean, I can see what the show is

19:07

going to be, having heard about Parsley now. It

19:09

is that. That's another one where I really

19:11

came up with the title first. Since

19:13

Copernicus now was a show

19:15

about hope. Yeah. And I

19:17

do worry that I may

19:20

have overreached myself slightly, especially

19:22

in the light of recent

19:24

events. It is harder

19:26

and harder to do shows

19:28

about hope. And

19:30

so just a slightly better backpedal

19:32

to rather than show a massive show

19:34

about hope and the entire universe,

19:36

I feel the need to get a

19:38

retreat into a show about something

19:41

very small and vulnerable and tiny. So

19:43

it basically is to hit the

19:45

opposite end of the conceptual spectrum. Yeah,

19:47

right. Just so I don't get

19:49

it wrong. Have you got all

19:51

ten songs? I've written ten songs about

19:54

moths. And it came

19:56

from a... I think it came from

19:58

a dream. Paul Corry did a show

20:00

recently called Stum. And I had a

20:02

dream in which I did a show

20:04

called Stom. Right. Do you

20:06

get it? No. It's a

20:08

show about moths, but backwards. Ah!

20:10

Right, okay. Maybe that's where it

20:12

came from? So you just saw...

20:14

Okay, you had that dream? I

20:16

thought that the... songs in Copernicus

20:19

now I had rather enjoyed putting

20:21

together and I wanted to rely

20:23

less on pre -recorded music and

20:25

make more of my, make

20:27

more, write more of the music

20:29

myself. And then it became a

20:31

show about, about a countdown. So

20:34

it's about, if you, you, if you, if

20:36

you call the show 10 songs about Moss,

20:38

the audience will be counting in their heads,

20:40

even if you don't number them when you're doing

20:42

it. So the

20:44

entire show takes place during

20:47

a boxing bout when the

20:49

boxer hits the canvas and

20:52

referee counts to 10. So

20:54

the entire length of the

20:56

show takes place within that

20:58

period in between the moment

21:00

he hits the canvas and

21:02

the moment he's knocked out.

21:05

That's such a unexpected element,

21:07

wasn't it? I couldn't

21:09

predict that. It sounds awesome, but

21:11

I've become a big fan since

21:13

seeing Copernicus, so I think that's

21:15

very excited to see it. And

21:17

you're obviously on the road doing

21:19

it. I'm going to try and

21:21

get to it. How come you

21:24

don't put any of these out?

21:26

It's partly practical in that I

21:28

have difficulty enough selling tickets without

21:30

people having watched it online thinking

21:32

that they've seen it. Yes, OK,

21:34

right. And I want to create

21:36

that sense of a live experience.

21:38

Yeah. I want to... it live.

21:40

That almost that improv situation of

21:43

this is a unique thing you

21:45

don't get to see unless you've

21:47

made it into this room today.

21:49

So I don't want people thinking

21:51

that they've seen the show when

21:53

they haven't. Yeah that's a good

21:55

point. There are issues of

21:57

access and people who would like

21:59

to come but they can't. And

22:02

so I've put this show out there, but

22:04

I asked it to people at least make the

22:06

effort of sending me a postcard. Because

22:09

the people who

22:11

came, they traveled halfway

22:13

across Leicester or

22:15

Nottingham. And they're not

22:17

allowed to stare at their phones well, so they

22:19

have to sit there in silence. And they might

22:21

not like it. That's

22:24

tough. It's easy for me

22:26

to do the show because I'm having fun. But

22:29

to sit there in silence and watch

22:31

it and wonder whether you like it or

22:33

not, that's hard work. And I think

22:35

that needs to be rewarded and celebrated if

22:37

people are putting in the effort. Yes,

22:39

absolutely. Yeah. So the least you can do

22:41

is send me a postcard. Yeah. Oh, good. Who

22:43

are your heroes in that kind? So you

22:46

clearly are someone who does have heroes like

22:48

Ken. You went to

22:50

go see Pigspurt, which that whole run

22:52

of shows that he did were pretty

22:54

spectacular. a nudist, what

22:56

else did he do? There were a bunch of them. There

22:58

was like five in total, whatever. For

23:00

you, who else sits in that kind

23:02

of territory of what you do

23:04

that you think are really interesting acts

23:06

to watch? At the moment, I

23:08

did... I can't remember whether we were

23:11

recording when I mentioned Mark Dean

23:13

Quinn with his cheese show. Yeah,

23:15

I quickly rebadged that. So he

23:17

did a show in Edinburgh, which was,

23:19

what was it called, the cheese

23:21

show? I think he calls it something

23:23

different each year. He's there every

23:25

year. It's the same show each year.

23:27

It's a slightly different show each

23:29

year, but he eats a kilo of

23:31

cheese over the course of the

23:33

hour. The show starts at 2 a

23:35

.m. at the Banshee

23:38

Labyrinth, and it's packed. Packed

23:41

into it, yeah. And

23:44

then what, he just gets on

23:46

and... He gets on and he

23:48

has bits. He has bits of

23:50

comedy. Yeah. But they're sort of

23:52

incidental to the main business. And

23:54

he certainly, you know, he'd be

23:56

the first to not really put

23:58

too much emphasis on the material.

24:01

You know, he's not a joke teller.

24:03

Right. And he'd rather, he'd rather it

24:05

went wrong. You know, he'd rather the

24:07

audience got belligerent or angry or disruptive. Yeah,

24:10

that's so funny. Oh,

24:12

does that happen much? Do you

24:14

think where people just go, hang

24:16

on, he is just eating cheese

24:18

largely here? It's largely, largely. At

24:20

2 a .m. you're going to get

24:23

boozed up. Yeah, people coming I

24:25

think they enjoy it. It's great.

24:27

Yeah, so who else?

24:29

He got the most magnificent right up

24:31

in the telegraph. Oh, yeah. uh the

24:33

telegraph gave him uh four or five

24:35

stars they gave him five stars a

24:37

telegraph uh with the quote with the

24:39

pull quote uh we do not recommend

24:41

you see this show Why

25:05

don't we get to your

25:07

batshit list now? Because you've got

25:09

a lot of ticks on

25:11

here. However, you do have the

25:13

qualification of having rewritten the

25:15

sentence, do you believe in to

25:17

will entertain? So there's

25:19

one, two, three, four, five, six, seven,

25:22

eight, nine. There's nine things you're

25:24

willing to entertain on the batshit list.

25:27

That's quite a lot. Ken

25:29

Campbell was always against belief.

25:32

some of which really

25:35

restricts your mindset. Yeah.

25:37

And he always said that one should

25:39

suppose. In fact,

25:41

you should believe nothing

25:43

but suppose everything. Yes.

25:45

I have difficulty supposing

25:47

everything. Because I think

25:49

the things on that list, which

25:52

I think there's sort of different

25:54

categories of the things which are

25:56

on that list, some things I

25:58

think if you believe them, you're

26:00

really restricting your I

26:02

believe in God. I

26:04

used to be an agnostic. I'm now

26:06

an atheist. I definitely, it's

26:08

an article of faith for me. I believe

26:10

there is no God. Because

26:13

I think to entertain

26:15

that notion is really, it's

26:17

a real get out

26:19

of jail free card for

26:21

dealing with. morality

26:23

and dealing with mortality and dealing

26:26

with your obligations to other, you

26:28

know, my imaginary friend, he'll see

26:30

me right. And he's, you know,

26:32

he's in my corner. You know,

26:34

I think that's a rather dangerous

26:36

idea. So I don't like

26:38

to suppose it in God. But

26:40

other things I'm absolutely prepared to entertain.

26:43

Yes. Yeah, you've actually, because as

26:45

well as ticks, you put crosses,

26:47

which are very stern disbelief or

26:49

unsupposing. I believe it's an article.

26:51

faith that I don't, you know.

26:53

Yeah. So God's one of them.

26:56

Destiny is one of them. The universe is a

26:59

video game. You don't. I

27:01

don't like, I don't really enjoy entertaining.

27:03

You've seen those films where it's

27:05

all a video game. Like Matrix and

27:07

stuff. Yeah. What happens when they

27:09

have kids? Yeah. Afterlife and reincarnation.

27:11

So that all is in that kind of

27:13

territory. But you have, you have tick ghosts.

27:15

Yeah, why not ghosts? Have

27:17

you ever had anything that could be

27:19

described as a ghostly encounter, even if

27:21

you don't believe in it? No. But

27:24

we all know, I

27:26

mean, you've had people who

27:28

you know that you've lost people in

27:30

your life, your parents or people

27:32

you know, but they don't, you know,

27:34

it'd be great if they just

27:36

went, wouldn't it? They don't go, do

27:38

they? They stick with

27:40

you, don't they? Yeah. And, you

27:43

know, talk about, you know,

27:45

running the other unfinished business. Yeah!

27:47

Damn right, they've got unfinished business. And

27:50

certainly after both my parents died,

27:52

so certainly I didn't see them,

27:54

but the vivid dreams you have

27:57

at night they come to, do

27:59

they not? And

28:01

is that a pleasurable thing

28:03

or a scary thing? Some were

28:05

somewhat scary, you know, because

28:07

I've spoken to other people who

28:09

have lost people and they

28:11

talk about the vividness of these

28:13

dreams, unlike Unlike the kind

28:15

of fun dreams you've had in the

28:17

you've had in the past. You know,

28:19

your dad walks up and bloody hell.

28:21

Yeah, it's larger. Larger

28:23

in the most vivid kind of

28:26

dream you've had. Yeah. And he's got

28:28

something to say for you. Yeah. Are

28:30

you from a family who would largely

28:32

have the same? ticks on here? Like,

28:34

I know you've got a sibling. I

28:36

know that because they wrote a blog

28:38

saying, don't see any crap

28:40

comedians at Edinburgh, go see my brother,

28:43

which came across a word press. Would

28:45

they have ticked similar to you? Were

28:47

you quite a rational family? I

28:49

think we're pretty rational. I've

28:54

probably got a greater tolerance

28:56

for bash history than perhaps

28:58

my siblings do. Okay, right.

29:00

Yeah. So ghosts then, why

29:02

is... So the tick is

29:04

because the presence remains after

29:06

someone passes, just not as

29:08

a spirit as a... I'm

29:10

happy to suppose that. And

29:12

anybody who says, you

29:14

know, they've had a ghost or they've

29:17

had a visitation, yeah, sure, why not?

29:19

Why doubt that? Yes, yeah, right. Because

29:21

that's the more open -ended

29:23

belief or the most more

29:25

open -ended supposition that can lead

29:28

to greater reflection or

29:30

greater understanding amongst people.

29:32

Yeah, yeah. Okay,

29:35

so the next one you've got here

29:37

is superstition. Superstition? Why

29:39

not? And do you have any of

29:41

your own? I used to. I

29:43

used to have a thing about foxes.

29:45

Oh, yeah. When I was much

29:47

younger, I had a somewhat detailed personal

29:49

mythology, you know, turning my

29:51

life into a series of diagrams. And

29:53

yeah, the fox was always a

29:56

deep symbol of unspecified

29:58

meaning, you know, come

30:00

across a fox, you

30:02

know, you lock eyes with it. The universe

30:05

is trying to send me a message. Ah,

30:07

interesting. Definitely. Right. Then, of

30:09

course, as I moved to North

30:11

London and the urban foxes became more

30:13

and more frequent, and you see

30:15

them on pretty much nightly basis, you

30:17

know, screaming their heads off at

30:19

night, you think, either this is bollocks,

30:21

or the world is really, really

30:24

trying to get something across to me.

30:26

Yeah, right. So what

30:28

does it mean to you then, if you

30:30

see a fox? Like, what does that

30:32

immediately mean to you? Does it make you more

30:34

wary of your day? It makes me, it's a

30:36

rebuke. It's

30:38

really, Michael. Yeah. Whatever

30:40

it is, whatever your current

30:42

enthusiasm, or current thing that you're

30:44

all complacent with, the

30:47

fox will always stare at you. Does

30:50

that extend to if you see a

30:52

fox in a movie or see a picture

30:54

of a fox or the... of a

30:56

book, like, is it just living foxes? It's

30:59

a living fox. It's

31:01

decided to infiltrate your life. Yeah, right.

31:03

And so how about stage? Do you

31:05

have superstitions that you take towards performance

31:07

or? On stage, I like

31:09

to see the audience. That is,

31:11

I like to say hello

31:14

to the audience before we start

31:16

or I like to get

31:18

in with them. Yeah. Other than,

31:20

you know, perform to inky

31:22

blackness. And that's important. Yeah,

31:24

it was quite... Because as I

31:26

say, people have made that effort.

31:28

Yes. And they've spent money. You

31:30

haven't spent money. You're sometimes even

31:32

getting paid to have fun. Yeah.

31:35

But these are people who are

31:37

taking a chance. Yeah. and they're

31:39

exploring something they might not know

31:41

about and they're willing to let

31:43

themselves be affected by something as

31:45

a work of art. That's to

31:47

be respected. I think as a

31:49

creative act, going to see something

31:51

or engaging in buying a book

31:53

or reading a book, that's to

31:55

my mind, at least as creative

31:57

as the guy who wrote the

31:59

book because you're making yourself vulnerable

32:01

to work of art. You are

32:03

exploring yourself. You are

32:05

coming up with a... willing

32:07

to be surprised by yourself or

32:09

to take yourself to a

32:11

place you didn't know you were

32:14

going to go, that

32:16

to be lauded. Yeah, that's great. I've

32:18

not ever thought of it in those terms

32:20

before. I mean, I do think of

32:22

a two -way street with the audience, but not

32:24

in the vulnerability. I haven't really considered

32:26

that. That immediately feels

32:28

exactly what it is. Yeah.

32:32

And when your audience is... been in

32:34

one but also I've seen it

32:36

now on the video that you had

32:38

and I hadn't considered the whole

32:40

lighting thing actually and that's what I

32:42

meant about the friendly atmosphere because

32:44

you know most comedians do have the

32:46

lights down we do hide the

32:48

audience and it's and a lot of

32:50

people don't like when an audience

32:52

interacts but having watched the video this

32:54

morning of Copernicus now there's a

32:56

lot of interaction that's not instigated by

32:59

you where the audience jump in

33:01

and make a point and every

33:03

single time you took in what they

33:05

said and responded to it, which can often

33:07

be quite dangerous because you don't know

33:09

what you're dealing with in an audience member.

33:11

I guess maybe you're lucky in that

33:13

you have an audience who come largely to

33:15

see you as opposed to taking a

33:17

punt. I mean, maybe in Edinburgh that's different,

33:20

but if you're going on tour, you

33:22

know, it's like -minded audience members. They're the

33:24

type of people, when you go to the

33:26

bar, you're as fascinated by them as they

33:28

are with you, right? I also like to

33:30

create that kind of atmosphere. up

33:32

front, where there's

33:35

no potential, there

33:38

is a freedom, and I do not

33:40

pick on people. Well, that's the other thing,

33:42

yeah, because the lights up for an

33:44

audience can be terrifying because it means everyone's

33:46

game for what is a slightly interactive

33:48

show. If you go and see someone like

33:50

Adam Richards, you sit there shitting

33:52

yourself because if he picks you, You're either

33:54

going to end up half naked on stage

33:56

in some boxes or something, and that's very

33:58

intimidating, and that has its own beauty to

34:00

it. That's a very, it's a very, you're

34:02

on the edge of your seat the whole

34:04

time. I used to do that in my

34:06

earlier shows. Did you? I would, you

34:09

know, you get, can I

34:11

have an audience volunteer, get them

34:13

up on stage, give them

34:15

something impossible to do. Right. Let's

34:18

have a good old laugh. Yeah.

34:20

And it did get laughs. Well,

34:22

you're still, but you're also saying, can I

34:24

get a volunteer? You're inviting it. You know, Adam

34:26

literally just grabbed someone off and it's great.

34:28

So it's one of my favorite shows to see

34:30

Adam live. But no, I mean, that's it's

34:32

very interesting that, yeah, the heckles are part of

34:34

your show effectively. And they're not heckles, they're

34:36

adding. It needs to be in different word to

34:38

heckle that I know has. no

34:40

one's coined yet, where it's a

34:42

heckle is a negative. What is this?

34:44

It's a positive where it's actively

34:47

adding to the show. And

34:49

partly why I don't put the

34:51

stuff online and also particularly on,

34:53

you know, social media and the,

34:55

you know, the TikTok, you know,

34:57

the reels and things is that

34:59

that immediately, A, you're not

35:01

really watching, you're staring at your phone and

35:03

you're doing the washing up. So you're already

35:06

not engaged. And secondly,

35:08

it's, It's the algorithm which is

35:10

suggesting me or suggesting it

35:12

based on your previous scrollings. So

35:14

you're not really finding it

35:16

out. You're just being fed back

35:19

your own preconceptions or your

35:21

own enthusiasm back at you. Yeah.

35:23

So that almost, it's almost

35:25

a negation of that creative act

35:27

of seeking something else and

35:29

taking a punt on it and

35:32

engaging with it. Yeah, yeah.

35:34

Yeah. No, I think it's a

35:36

much healthier way of of

35:38

doing performance. Let's jump back into

35:40

the list. Premonitions. Why not?

35:43

Yeah. Wouldn't it be not consistently?

35:45

I mean, have you had

35:47

premonitions? I haven't, no. I sometimes

35:49

the deja vu experience is a feeling

35:51

like you had a premonition in a

35:53

way. In that you go, I knew

35:55

that this was going to happen because

35:57

I've been here before, but that's having

35:59

the premonition after the event, which is

36:01

not very useful. Yeah. Post.

36:05

Post. We wouldn't stake any money

36:07

on me. Premonitions. But

36:09

why, why, why not suppose that would

36:11

be a useful, useful thing to

36:14

have. Yeah. Wouldn't necessarily make life any

36:16

easier for yourself. No. Has anyone

36:18

ever said anything in the terms of

36:20

like, quite a few people say,

36:22

so someone said this thing to me

36:24

and it did come to pass.

36:26

Like, have you ever experienced someone getting

36:28

something right that was in the

36:30

future that they'd said? I can't

36:32

think of any specific example, but

36:34

people are saying things all the

36:37

time. It would be surprising, statistically

36:39

speaking, if nothing ever came true.

36:41

In fact, that would make it

36:43

more interesting. I

36:46

do love Dan Schreiber. Nothing he

36:48

ever said came to pass his

36:50

entire life. That in itself is

36:52

remarkable to get it so wrong.

36:55

That's notable. I was speaking

36:57

earlier about being bombarded

36:59

by signals and meanings and

37:01

symbolism at all times

37:03

in our lives. We

37:06

couldn't possibly get to the bottom

37:08

of all that that's being rattled around.

37:11

our unconsciousness is at all times.

37:13

I'm barely in charge. I'm

37:15

barely keeping pulling the strings up

37:18

here. Podcast listeners, I'm

37:20

pointing to the top of my

37:22

head where I think I'm sitting.

37:25

Most of my brain I'm not

37:27

in charge of, obviously, because I'm

37:29

making you know, daily poor decisions

37:31

and feeling bad about it. So

37:33

I'm barely in control of everything

37:35

else. And I know that there's

37:37

a whole lifetimes of worth of

37:39

processing going on there without my

37:41

permission. Take

37:45

yourself to court. I did

37:47

not consent this processing. Yeah.

37:49

It's all being processed

37:52

at all times. Yeah.

37:55

So why not? Why not that's

37:57

happening? Yeah, it is

37:59

wild. When I, ages ago, when we

38:01

just started doing this podcast, I

38:03

was on the tube and I had

38:05

this sort of thought of the

38:07

speed at which I was going underground,

38:09

right above me, even in a

38:11

30 second trip on the tube. How

38:13

much consciousness, how much life is

38:15

going on of ideas of conversations of,

38:18

did someone just die above me? Did someone

38:20

just get born? Did someone having an affair?

38:23

Is someone in a fight? How

38:25

much life did I just pass through

38:27

within 30 seconds of going in the

38:29

underground of London directly above me on

38:31

the streets? It's wild when you start...

38:33

thinking, even in the carriage of one

38:35

tube, one carriage worth of people sitting

38:37

down, how much life is in there,

38:39

how many emotions, how many problems are

38:41

being fixed, how many ideas for new

38:43

stories, how many... That's just wild. It's

38:45

wild, the amount of... It's terrifying. I

38:47

think it's been most of our time

38:49

desperately trying to filter it out, trying

38:51

to narrow it down. Yeah, I think

38:53

we do in the same way that,

38:55

you know, scientists tell us that we

38:57

really should have our nose. in our

38:59

vision all the time, but the brain

39:01

has blocked it out. Do you know

39:03

that? Okay, so that should be there,

39:05

right? So yeah, we should just be

39:07

seeing it in front of us, but

39:09

our brain has just gone, no, that's

39:11

getting in the way, so I'm knocking

39:13

it out of the vision, but it's

39:15

there. It should be right there,

39:18

but we've literally knocked it out. I think

39:20

that's how we filter all that as well. It's

39:22

like a trillion, trillion noses. constantly

39:25

battling for our attention. Yeah,

39:28

exactly. Well, instead, every nose that's

39:30

ever existed is trying to, you

39:32

know, nose its way into our

39:34

consciousness. Yeah. We have to, you

39:36

know, we have to cope on

39:38

a day -to -day basis. Yes, exactly.

39:41

And the most beliefs are just coping mechanisms.

39:43

And that's why I don't, I don't,

39:45

I don't will them out. You know, you

39:47

want to, you want to believe in

39:49

ghosts in order to process

39:53

something, the parting of the death

39:55

of somebody you've known. If you

39:57

want to believe in a ghost,

39:59

you know, yeah, fair enough. Yes.

40:01

Use that. Yeah, exactly. We're all

40:03

grappling for stuff. We're all doing

40:05

irrational, weird things. Yeah. Just to

40:08

get, some people go to B

40:10

&Q every weekend because they think

40:12

that's going to make them happy.

40:14

Yeah. And I'm not going to knock

40:16

that. No, because it does. For some people, it

40:18

does make them happy. It's

40:20

such a weird ritual.

40:23

Do you have a weird

40:26

ritual like that? Have you

40:28

got your thing that helps

40:30

stabilize you from letting the

40:32

noses intrude? I think I

40:34

have to programitise my creativity

40:36

a bit. Otherwise, I have

40:39

these little rituals where I'll

40:41

do things like six new

40:43

ideas every day. discipline

40:47

of slowing my mind down enough

40:49

to write stuff down. At the

40:51

moment, I'm taking a photograph of

40:53

a tree every day. Yeah, I

40:55

saw that, yeah. And that's, is

40:58

that one idea that I'm going

41:00

to do that and you had

41:02

five more ideas a day or?

41:04

No, no, that's just my current

41:06

annual project. Yeah, right. I

41:08

did, last year I did a project, was

41:10

it last year, the year before? I did a

41:12

project where I'd make a collage out of

41:14

a clip art of a

41:17

pointing man. I did one of

41:19

those every day for a year. Yeah, right. Love

41:23

it. I've just

41:25

got a signal, by the way, from our producer

41:27

that we're going to have to wrap up fairly soon.

41:29

This is one of those chats I know can

41:31

get on for like two hours. Can I talk about

41:33

my... Let's do your soft rock. Is that what

41:35

you want to talk about? I do want to talk

41:37

about my soft rock. OK, your impossible moment, yeah. Because

41:40

it's good to have a thing

41:42

that happens to you. I mean, this

41:44

would definitely fall into my category

41:46

of things I don't really want to

41:48

believe that, thank you very much. A

41:51

bit like the world being

41:53

inside a computer game. I was

41:55

on holiday a few years

41:57

ago with my partner on Amrum,

41:59

which is one of the

42:01

North Friesian islands of the coast

42:03

of Germany. It's very near

42:05

where the Riddle of the Sands

42:07

is set, so it's big

42:09

old white beaches. And

42:11

when the tide goes out, you

42:13

can walk from one island to the

42:15

other. It's very, quite, quite bleak

42:17

and beautiful. And so it's

42:19

white beaches with shells and

42:22

those striamed corbids that you sit

42:24

in. And I picked

42:26

up a... I was, you

42:28

know, nosing around your feet.

42:30

I picked up a shell

42:32

and turned over, just an

42:34

ordinary shell, turned it over

42:36

and printed on the underside

42:38

of the shell. It was

42:40

small but... a 12 -digit

42:42

serial number. Okay. Okay.

42:50

And that broke

42:52

me. I

42:55

do not want to believe that. What

42:57

does that suggest to you? I mean what

42:59

to me that suggests is like the

43:01

moon landing where the hoax says that if

43:03

you look at certain rocks you can

43:05

see the letter C or B written on

43:07

them which suggests that it is made

43:09

in a studio and these that to me

43:11

what that suggests is someone bought that

43:13

at the shell shop to make a beach

43:15

look ready for you to arrive at

43:17

and it's all It's all the Matrix. It's

43:20

all the Truman Show style. Yeah, exactly.

43:22

How random. I did

43:24

not like that at all. Have you

43:26

ever got to the bottom of seashells

43:28

that have digits printed on the inside

43:30

of them or haven't looked into it

43:32

too scared? Too scary! Too

43:35

many implications.

43:39

Did you keep it? Did you keep it?

43:41

It wore off after a while. I

43:43

have no proof. I would have brought it

43:45

in. Oh my God. Yes,

43:48

so retreat, filter

43:50

out, filter out the noses, go

43:52

back to B &Q, go back to

43:54

my daily routine, calm your mind It

43:56

was too big, it was too

43:58

big a moment. What did your partner

44:00

say when you showed it? Well,

44:02

again... Yeah. It's like a

44:04

cursed object in that respect. I guess

44:06

that was a cursed object. That was

44:08

an object that you were scared of.

44:10

Definitely scared the living hell out of

44:12

me. Oh, that's amazing. Well, listeners, if

44:15

you know of any serial numbered shells

44:17

that would be on a beach. Why

44:19

is it on the beach? Like,

44:21

why? Why would you bring your

44:23

serial numbered shell to the beach and then

44:25

leave it there? I don't know, that's wild. We're

44:27

going to have to wrap up, but let's

44:29

just get a really quick suggestion for a weird

44:31

of the week, something that the listener can

44:33

go off and do that might just make them

44:36

look at the world a bit differently. I

44:38

don't suggest, because we're all coping.

44:41

What I mean by we're only merely coping. I

44:44

think it's worth remembering that. If

44:46

next time you want to be

44:48

judgy, we're

44:50

all just trying to

44:52

cope. Yeah,

44:55

well, just nobody's got it worked

44:58

out. I think I became a bit

45:00

happier when I realized that everybody

45:02

is merely coping and merely just trying

45:04

to come up with some sort

45:06

strategy from day to day. Nobody's got

45:08

it figured out. Nobody,

45:10

you know, it's the believers who think they've

45:12

got it reckoned out. And I used

45:14

to think that other people, particularly successful people,

45:16

you know, had kind of got

45:18

their lives together. going to be happy and they've

45:20

got it worked out. And I think it was

45:22

just nice to remember that. We're

45:25

all adrift in this ocean

45:27

of meaning and symbolism and there's

45:30

too much of it. There's

45:32

too many noses. And we

45:34

all just come up with strategies

45:36

to filter out enough of

45:38

the noses on a daily

45:40

basis to get food. So that's

45:42

my top tip for business. They

45:50

haven't worked it out, they're just

45:52

coping. And don't be so hard

45:54

on yourself for your own crazy

45:56

beliefs. You know, it's fine.

45:58

It's fine. Okay,

46:06

Michael Brunström, make sure to go see

46:08

his live show. As he says in the

46:10

show, it's all about the live experience. Michael

46:12

Brunström sings 10 songs about moths. He is

46:15

going to be performing that multiple places in

46:17

London over the next month or so. Go

46:19

to michaelbrunström .co .uk. You can find out more

46:21

there. If you want to see a full

46:23

show on YouTube, all you need to do

46:25

is send him a postcard. You can do

46:27

that by going to his Instagram account at

46:29

Michael Brunström, DMing him for his

46:31

address. then sending him the postcard, and then

46:33

once he receives it, he'll give you a

46:35

link in the DMs. It's a very simple

46:37

process. Anyway, what a great guy. Really enjoyed

46:39

that. Can't wait to see his

46:42

show about moths. Okay guys, better wrap things

46:44

up. I actually have to meet up now

46:46

with a previous guest of We Can Be

46:48

Weirdos, the author John Higgs. He's got a

46:50

new book out called Exterminate, which is about

46:52

the whole history of Doctor Who, and because

46:54

it's John Higgs, just... with extraordinary weird facts

46:56

about its history, its the people involved, and

46:58

so on. If you're a big Doctor Who

47:01

fan, I absolutely encourage you to get it.

47:03

And I'm gonna go interview him now, live,

47:05

for a book event in Margate. So I'll

47:07

do that, but we're gonna be back again

47:09

next week with another episode. I will see

47:11

you then, and until then, stay weird. We

47:19

Can Be Weirdos is a

47:22

global original podcast. The

47:24

senior producer is Ben Tuller, the

47:26

head of Factual Podcasts is Al Riddell,

47:28

and the head of comedy and entertainment

47:30

is Chris Lander, and we want

47:32

to give thanks to Nick Linnan and John Noll

47:34

Management. Special thanks also go

47:36

to the members of the Secret

47:39

Weirdo Committee, Mike Abel, Emma Govan,

47:41

and Mark Vett. Our

47:43

theme tune, called Cosmos, is

47:45

by Emperor Yes. This

48:11

is a Global

48:13

original podcast.