Peter Flanagan: Overcoming stage fright, Unification of Ireland and Irish Battle Horses.

In the eighteenth episode of Kidding, Reece Kidd interviews Peter Flanagan.

Peter Flanagan, has not just made a mark but etched himself into the world of comedy with his impeccable timing and cool, calm delivery. He's graced some of the world's most renowned comedy platforms, from London’s Comedy Store to Comedy Lounge in Australia and even the Laughter Factory in Dubai. Back home in Dublin, he's not just a regular at the Laughter Lounge, but his insights and wit have found their way onto national TV and radio programs, notably Virgin Media’s the Tonight Show and Newstalk’s the Hard Shoulder.

Known for his whip-smart and no-holds-barred approach, Peter's prowess isn't limited to the stage. He's penned articles for the Irish Times and the Irish Independent and has also written content for global giants like Sky, BBC, and Comedy Central UK.

In this enlightening episode, Peter takes us through the hardships of living frugally in London and delves into the universal dread every comedian has faced at some point - stage fright. Peter discuss the nuances of kickstarting a comedy career across different cities and reminisce about the early days of starting out in comedy.

Peter, with his characteristic wit, shares tales of 'Battle horses in Ireland' and provides invaluable insights into the persistence required in journalism. Peter discusses the unique challenges of juggling a day job with stand-up and the unmatched euphoria following a successful performance.

Peter offers a fresh perspective on MCing, the evolution of the comedy industry, and the art of building a loyal and creative audience. The conversation winds down with  hints about a future sitcom Peter has in the works.

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Transcript

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Peter Flanagan is one of the most in-demand comics in the Irish and British comedy circuits. He emcees and does weekends at top comedy clubs such as London's Comedy Store and Backyard. He's toured with Comedy Lounge in Australia and The Laughter Factor in Dubai. His writing has appeared on the Irish Times, Irish Independent, Sky, BBC and Comedy Central. He was a finalist in the Irish Comedian of the Year 2017 and one of the finalists in Laughing Horse 2015. His show Meditations is in August in the French. Did I get it? You nailed it. You got it right. Good man, Rhys. Well, thank you for coming. Thanks for having me, man. It's so nice here. It's nice, isn't it? There's artwork in the background. I don't know anything about art. He tells me about it all the time. Very classy. I like it. I think you'll be okay with the accent, which is a nice change. Yes, just a bit. Just a bit. To my shame, I have confused, and I've done this on stage where I've confused the Northern Irish accent with the Scottish accent. It's very rare that would happen, but I have done that. I think that's fair, to be honest. Some of the words are just like, you're just mumbling, you're not even trying. You're clearly Northern Irish, I would say. Your accent is quite, it's a soft Northern Irish accent. I was trying to gauge where you were from before we started recording here. So you've got quite a soft lilt, I would say. But some people, it can be quite harsh and it can sound Scottish. Yeah. You know. I think this has been trained just out of like going to prep and being asked, can I have a laugh now, please? How long you been in London? A year, but I was here before the pandemic as well. But during the pandemic, I was a scumbag and went across any country that was open, just spreading the disease. Wow. Good man. Being an evil man. What about you, Peter? When did you arrive in London? You arrived for comedy? Yeah, sort of. Like I first came here when I was 22 and I slept in a basement. We call it the Paddyhole. It was just like hostel, youth hostel in Pimlico. And we slept in this kind of darkened room underneath the hostel with no windows, bunk beds, basically a linen basement. And it was run by these dodgy Irish guys. They gave us a deal. And we thought we were getting the deal. We were 22, so we just didn't know that we were getting absolutely shafted. Oh, it was expensive then, was it? Well, no, it wasn't expensive, but it was like, I'm sure our human rights are being violated. You know what I mean? It was a good value, but you were like forgoing all human dignity. You know what I mean? So I lasted about three months down there and then I moved to Australia for a bit. And that's kind of where I started doing stand-up really properly. And then went back to Dublin for years and then came to London for about three years and then was doing comedy full time. And then the pandemic hit, moved back to Ireland. And then I came back here as things started to open up. International comedian from like Echo just... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just very, yeah, all over. So why did you start in Australia? What was like the motivation? Well, I kind of started in Dublin when I was in college, when I was in university. There was like a university comedy society and I kind of harassed the members in organizing one of these comedy courses. I got terrible. I didn't have like an acting background or debating background or anything like that, but I knew I wanted to do comedy. I wanted somebody to hold my hand and like show me how to do it. So I had ferocious stage fright. I did a couple of college gigs, campus gigs. They went okay, but I just, I remember booking an open mic night off campus in like the Hay Penny Inn, which is like a famous open mic night in Dublin. And like three months, like I think it's okay to have stage fright half an hour before you go on stage. Like I will still have that. I think that's healthy. But if you're getting stage fright three months out, you know, if you're waking up in your bed in Clodair with like, it's something like somebody sitting on your chest being like, fuck, I've got to go to Dublin and like make real people laugh. I couldn't do it. So I texted the guy I canceled. I didn't do it again for years. Three months out you canceled? Oh yeah. I was like, there's no way. I can't make the five minutes. I can't live like this. I just can't live like this. I think I had a particularly bad, the only person I've heard describe their stage fright in that way is Larry David. And it was Larry David made me want to do comedy because I wanted to, I loved sitcoms and I would read interviews with Larry David. And obviously I figured out he did stand up first and stand up was how we kind of got into comedy writing. I thought, oh, you have to do stand up. That's how I thought it worked. But he used to describe how he would book a gig and then his week was ruined. You know, he had to go do stand up. So I've slowly fallen in love with stand up over the years, but it took me a long time to get over that, the horror of it. You know, but that's your question. Australia kind of loosened up a little bit and did some open mic competitions and they went well. Yeah. So from, so have you got any sort of practical tips for anyone that has the ability to stage fright? I would say, like I went to see a hypnotist. I would say black magic, black magic, witches, witchcraft. I seriously, I went to see a hypnotist and I don't know if it worked, but I paid him enough money to work. I was like, this has to work. So what he, he kind of, what he did was he kind of put me under his spell. And then when I woke up, I watched him pull his pants back up and I could do comedy. I was really funny. Did you actually go under the trance? I don't remember losing consciousness, but there was definitely like a trance. I think it was quite, when I look back on it, I think it was quite meditative. And I'm as the show, as my show title would suggest, I've gotten big into my meditation. So what I will do now is before I go on stage, before I, before I'm nervous, if I'm nervous for a gig, I don't get nervous for every gig, but if I'm like feeling it in my chest, I will do maybe five deep breaths and I will like visualize it going well and then nine times out of 10 it does. So I would say if you are really struggling with stage fright, you don't necessarily need to go and go see a crackpot hypnotist. That's maybe not the right move, although that could also be helpful. But I would definitely say think about something like CBT or meditation or something practical. Yeah. So in Australia, what was the reason for like picking it up again? Just it seemed fun. Yeah. Yeah, I had some yearning to do it, I guess. They'd like be so I was in Perth, Western Australia, which is an amazing place to start comedy. I would say like London is like a great place to start comedy in one way insofar as you can do so much so quickly. I think the low point is, is that so many of the gigs will be bad. You know, whereas if you start comedy almost anywhere else, you might not be able to get up for like, you know, you don't want to be in a town where you do one gig every six months because that's not going to be enough. If you can be in a town where there's like three or four good rooms and a couple of dozen comedians, you'll get like decent stage time for real audiences much more quickly than you will in London, I think. For example, three nights here to four people in every room. Yeah, right. Exactly. Exactly. I think there's something to be said for performing to real people. You know? So Perth was great for that. Like Perth's like a weird, like Australians don't find Perth all the time because it's isolated and it's provincial, but population wise, it's about the same size as Dublin. It's over a million people. They've got loads of money. They've got loads of disposable income. They haven't been exposed to much. So they go to comedy shows and they go to open mic shows and I had like five minutes. I'd been generous in saying I had five minutes of material and my accent was exotic. Even in Australia? Even in Perth. In Perth, even though the city was awash with pink skins, ham-fisted Irishmen, yeah, the accent would like give you an extra 15, 20% on your shit punchlines. And it was great. It was great. Loved it. And then out there, were you just like, okay, I'm going to take comedy seriously or what we do? Well, I got a false sense of my own talent in Perth because as I say, you know, the standard wasn't, there were some great comedians in Perth and there's great comedians who come out of Perth, but I think when they do get really good, they tend to leave Perth. The accent is similar to Dublin that way. Although there's obviously still great comedians in Dublin. I need to be careful what I say. But often in a small city, you find a ceiling if you want to make a living doing it. So you'll often leave and Perth definitely fell into that category. So when I had five funny minutes, I started getting paid. I couldn't believe it. I remember my first paid gig, I got $50 for five minutes and I couldn't believe it. Free bar, 50 bucks. I was like, oh, I made it. Like, this is the start of my comedy career. And then when I left and when I left Perth after six months, I went to Melbourne thinking now's my chance to really start building it. And I was like, oh, I got such a hard landing. I like I was bad at comedy. I didn't know I was bad at comedy until I got to Melbourne. And the standard was much higher. And it was like you could you were so rare to perform to a full room. It was like kind of similar to here was open mics. You know, and it was it was a big reality check for sure. But I remember my first pay gig was amazing because I went out. They put me on first, which is ridiculous. Like, it's more of a reflection on the booker at that point. All the way from Perth. Yeah, it was it was in Fremantle in Perth. It was a little creatures brewery. And there's maybe 300 people. It's a big room, high ceiling, like hard, like hard room. And I've done 20 gigs and I've got five minutes of offbeat one liners. You know what I mean? I'm introduced like it can't go well. Yeah, it's crazy that you would put the open spot on first. It's crazy decision by the booker. And so I go out, obviously doesn't go well. Obviously doesn't go like I wasn't good. But like I shouldn't have been in that position. I walk off stage, I go to the bar. I'm like, oh, that wasn't good. And I, you know, I didn't have the experience to know. I think when you start out, you need just enough delusion to actually pursue it, because if you knew how bad you were, you'd quit. But you also need enough self-awareness to recognize when you've had a bad gig, you're like, I don't want to feel that. I want to be better. So I was at the bar and I was like, that wasn't good. You know, should I quit? Should I should I keep going? You know, and then out of the crowd emerges this kind of like celestial being. Is this man like a white linen shirt, linen shorts? He's bespeckled. And he kind of emerges in this white light. And I realize it's Ben Elton. And he lives six months of the year in Fremantle. His wife's an Australian jazz musician. And he just popped in that night to watch some comedy. And he came up and he shook my hand and he said, nice jokes. You could give Jimmy Carr run for his money. And then he kind of disappeared in a mist, you know, and I was like, fuck, that's Ben Elton. I don't even like Ben Elton. You know, I was like 23 at the time. I didn't even really know who he was. I've never seen the young ones. But I knew he knew what he was talking about. So the fact that he came over to shake my hand and say he saw something in the five minutes, he saw, OK, this kid can write a joke. He had a bad set. I thought it was very classy of him, actually. So that kind of gave me just enough to keep going, I think. That's very kind. Nice words. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And your hypnotist was like, I'm wake up. So in Australia, you were writing like from, sorry, from my understanding, you you write during the day and then comedy at night? Something like that. Yeah. I didn't really start writing professionally until I came to London. OK. So in Australia, I was mostly backpacking. So I was working on jobs. I was working on hostels. I was working in call centers. I was a pool boy for a period. I had a lot of strange, strange jobs. Yeah, that's fun, though. But is it it must be so stressful to have like journalism's a very like in-depth career and comedy is very like all consuming. So how do you not go mad? I am mad. If you come see my show at the Edinburgh French Festival, you will see that I am completely not managing it at all. It's a disaster. It's a total disaster. People, when I meet people, they say I'm a very calming presence. And then they speak to me for more than 10 minutes and they realize there's spiders crawling across my brain constantly. So it's a lot. You know, it is a lot. I think I see. So the journalism is a lot of freelance opinion writing, which I see as complementary to the standup. I first got in. I'd always been interested in writing first, probably before standup in a lot of ways. I love writing. I love writing stories. When I was a kid, I was kicked off the school newspaper for being offensive. Yeah, edge or journalism is my style. The school newspaper was not impressed at all. I can like to get kicked off the school newspaper. Like it's a bad reflection on the character. Have you got a premise or title you have back in the day? Can you remember any? I read a really scathing article. About the local equine division of the Irish military. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I I just I took issue with them. So I'm from Kenny Kildare, which is the horse racing capital of the country. And it's also where the Irish Army is based. And they have a equine division, a horse racing battle horses. We have battle horses in Ireland. That's why I'm and and because at any given moment, we will take back the six counties race when you least expect it. I will ride a horse. Do we actually have horses? There are horses like war horses. And I don't know from what I saw, they were not battle ready. From what I saw, you know, I wouldn't I wouldn't fancy their chances against the RAF. You know what I mean? So they're not jimmin like watching the videos like pump themselves like soldiers. No, they're just being lazy. No, they seem horny. They seem really horny. And it's like I wasn't ready for that. I wasn't ready for that. Like the stallions are very aroused a lot of the time. And I didn't like it. So I was there on work experience. We do like transition your work experience. So when you're in like, I don't know, I think you're like 15. You you're you're basically the side that the Irish education system like, you know, for a year, let's you should not learn any. You know, your peers internationally are learning geometry and English literature and a foreign language. You take a year out now at this key critical moment in your development, and you need to go and like slop out horses, stables. So I did that. And I wrote I was asked to write about the experience for the paper. But I didn't have a nice time. So I wrote about how weird it was. And like, there's like the soldiers, like three soldiers who work there. And they were weird. Like if you're the soldier, he's put in charge of the like. Erect penises of the stallions, if you're put in charge of the horses. You know, you're probably a weird soldier. Did you name them? I hope I did. I hope I did. I hope I did. And I guess it wasn't appropriate. I guess in reflection, it wasn't appropriate. So I was kicked off. I was kicked off the school paper. And then out of spite, I set up my own school paper called Paper X, and I wrote under a pseudonym. Could this be? Yeah. And I distributed into students' lockers. And so I would slide it into their lockers. And like, it was like a sensation. It was a sensation. And then I got called into the principal's office. Like, they figured out that I was Mr. X. And I refused to give up my sources. And I didn't get expelled. I didn't get expelled. But it was anyway. So I've always been interested in like bad journalism. I've always wanted to be a bad journalist. So so, yeah, I start what I was. I did stand up for years and then I what I noticed the Observer and the Guardian would publish these pieces by Frankie Boyle and Stuart Lee. I thought that was really funny. I didn't know comedians. Those are two comics I really admire. So I didn't know you could do that. So I became interested in doing it. And since then, there's lots of other kind of in Britain, there's the tradition of sketch writing in the broadsheet journalists. And I love that. So how did you actually go about getting that work? Did you just have to apply for do they have open spots for something? Well, it's interesting, isn't it? So, you know, I didn't study journalism. I'm not from that world. So it's a bit like you and I trying to figure out Instagram or trying to figure out podcasts. And you just start throwing darts at the dartboard and try to see what lands. So I just started pitching things. There's like small blog sites where I would cobble together 800 words. I hate it. You want to publish this? They would. I might share that on my social media, get feedback. I do that for years. And then, yeah, just kept pitching, kept pitching, kept getting ignored. It's like stand up. You just need to be relentless. And, you know, if it's decent, if you can, if you can. And it's like with stand up, if you can get somebody to open your email, like that's 50 percent of it. Hopefully what they read then is good. But, you know, we we take rejection so personally, but oftentimes we haven't been rejected. They just haven't even opened our email because they don't know who we are. I don't know about that. You know what I mean? Yeah, I do. They just they haven't even looked at your stand up clip. And I'm sure there's, you know, dozens and dozens of my articles that have never even been opened, that have never been read by an editor, you know. So, but I definitely see this complimentary. I think there's standard routines that have come from an article or vice versa. Sometimes you have a funny idea or a thought that doesn't fit in a stand up set. And it's like, OK, maybe this could be an article or a sketch or something else. Maybe it could be a line in a script, but it doesn't it doesn't fit my voice as a stat. This is a funny joke, but it doesn't work in my voice on stage. Maybe it could be a line in a sitcom. Maybe it could be an observation in a newspaper column, something like that. When you came back to London, were you able to survive off the journalism in the day and then stand up at night or did you have to do other jobs? No, I've I've I've worked in finance for years, so I worked in banking for for about five years and then I switched into. So I've been working in the media for about five years. So during the pandemic, I switched into content writing for financial services companies. So I would like I didn't knew I didn't want to go back into banking. I couldn't do comedy because of because of Covid. So I was like, how do I marry these two things? So that that saved me during the pandemic, actually, being able to just write really, really boring content for banks. Do you not get to just punch it up? Sometimes it really depends on the job. But I will I will do anything for it for money. No, thank you for discussing that, because I don't think a lot of people see like when they see you do stand up or anything, it's like, oh, well, obviously that's all he has to do full time. But people don't seem to understand the work that's going on just to do that. Yeah, I find doing stand up, you need to be doing like three or four different things just to make ends meet. So I do freelance content writing. I do freelance journalism. I do I do I do my stand up. I could I'm probably at a point now for the first time since the pandemic that I can do comedy full time. But it is tough. It is tough living in this city with my landlord put up my rent by 30 percent in January, 30 percent. So that's a lot of Berlin. Yeah, that's a lot of weekends. That's a that's a lot of weekends. MC gigs. That's a lot of you got to do a lot of 20s to make up that that extra 30 percent, you know, so I never turned down a right. So that's your question. I do think writing and stand up, it's complementary. And I think if you do have a day job and if you can do something that is maybe parallel to what you want to do, that's pretty good. But also, I think people have should should be to your point, should be more honest, because I think there's always been a bit of a shame in having a day job that musicians don't seem to have. Like I think in other industries, there's like an acceptance that it's really like there's like seven people who are billionaires or millionaires who are famous. And then there's dozens and dozens, hundreds of people grinding it out. And it is so hard to make a living. It is so hard. Actors don't have the shame at all. They they celebrate it in a way. Actors actors are martyrs for their craft. They they they weigh tables. They do what they need to do. Whereas comics are peculiar people. Comics don't like to admit when they've been influenced by another comedian. A director, a novelist will openly reference. I stole that from this writer. I was really influenced by this. This was my version of that. Comics are so protective over over everything. I think I think we are the most insecure, It's strange. We're the most neurotic of the artists. You know, I think we are. I think there's a debate. I think everyone's like, yeah, yeah, I think so. Well, bringing it back to the comedy, did you have any particularly weird gigs? Oh, sure. What's so weird? Well, what came to mind when I said weird there? Oh, man. I've been doing this a long time, so you have to be more specific. Horrific gigs. Maybe it's been blocked out of your mind, to be fair. Horrific. I did one once in Australia. On this island, it was like a festival, like a two night festival on this island, and I was really excited about it. Again, this was back when I was like getting paid gigs before I was ready. And like I invited friends to come see me. I was opening for this Australian comedian who'd like had TV credits and full room. And I went out and I bombed. My friends were there. And then I was like stuck on the island. You know what I mean? So I couldn't leave. You know, like what's great about comedy is however badly you bomb, as soon as you leave, it's over. Nobody remembers your face. And the opposite is true, too. If you kill, you know, you've got you've got a bit of a glow about you for maybe an hour after the gig. If you stay in the venue and sit at the bar, you're the guy you killed. But as soon as you walk out into the street, it's over. You're just you're just another prick at the bus stop. But when you're stuck on the island, when you're stuck, people seem to remember. It's like you're people. Someone's eating a sandwich hung over the next day. I was like, was that the guy? You're like, no, not me. I don't know. You're thinking of it. You shaved the head in the. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, for sure. And then with writing material, what's your sort of process for that? And I will. Used to be I would like have a few ideas, topics and then like writing down on a page and just stare at the page. So I'll use pen and paper and I'll just stare at the page and write until I have maybe, you know, two or three. Ideas, such as something on the page and then the next day I'll come back and I'll maybe flesh those out or start again with a new thing. As I'm kind of trying to finish the woodwork on this hour, and I'm mostly revisiting ideas. You know, there's there's a little bit, some pieces that feel unfinished or. I'll do it. I'll do it on an open mic night. It'll work or it won't. The next day, I'll change the punch line, change the setup a little bit, change a word and then try it again at the next open mic night and go from there. It's very systematic. Yeah. Very, very jealous. Yeah. And I had a conversation with the comic recently and he'll just go out with bullet points and kind of semi improvise it, which I think is great. I don't do that at all. I when I am performing it, I have a pretty much word perfect before I go on stage. And and I think that's me managing my anxiety. I think that other comic is managing his anxiety in a different sort of a way insofar as he's. He's allowing himself if he fails, but oh, well, you know, I didn't. That's exactly what I do. You know what I mean? You read me. Yeah, I was like, oh, well, you know, I didn't, you know, but I think both are valid and actually, I think the first way just allowing yourself to find the funny on stage, maybe that's the better way. And I and I don't know if either way is right or wrong, but I think we're both managing our anxieties and we're both trying to everybody has everybody's going to have their own process, you know. So but for me, I write it out. I always take the attitude like it's not Shakespeare. You wrote it. So you should know it like and I think I get more out of it for me because I don't think like I'm the most natural performer. You know, I do have it up on stage now when I feel it. I really go for it, but I need to know my lines. And I do I will I will improvise a lot with crowd work. I do I do improvise, but my my stand up is it's like, you know, it's word for word. It doesn't change much night to night. How do you keep it natural if it's script? Like script, I'm going to say scripted, but I know less. But how do you keep like the delivery natural? And that's the challenge. I have a couple of routines, one routine in particular in this show that I have to be very careful not to go into autopilot with. And if if I do. The routine doesn't work. Hmm. And and if I change a word or. Just change something to kind of light a fire underneath me. And it can it can still kill, but you have to perform it. And I've noticed that myself that sometimes the stage fright, the initial adrenaline is enough to carry you through your first five minutes and you're killing. And then sometimes I notice a dip and you're like, why aren't they laughing as hard as they did? Now, I think a standup set ebbs and flows naturally. People aren't going to be able to just hell with laughter consistently nonstop. Humans can't do that. But I do think when it falls off for me, it's because it's like you say, I've started performing the monologue and I've become too relaxed. So I need to kind of give myself a kick in the ass and do a little bit of crowd work. I think having a new bit. Like, even if it's just because it's been written, doesn't mean, you know, it's going to work. So I will write my routines out, but still. Most of them don't work. Most of them, even though on the page they read like a joke, most of my material doesn't work. And I'm just I'm just like, it's process of elimination. Let's see what works. So as long as you have something new that you're trying in your set and just keep it fresh for yourself, that will breathe life into the rest of the set. Well, you can help me. I'm very new and very, very new. So when I go from like when I talk to the crowd, I enjoy it. And then if I have material in my head, there's the hardest shift anyone's ever seen myself as well. And like, how do people like how do I get out of that? Because I feel a shift. I don't know if subconsciously or psychologically, but like I'll go, oh, we're all having fun. This is fun. Here's something I prepared. And then I'm like, oh, no, I'm going back to that. So I don't know if I'm just trying to be like a Russell Hicks. So explain that to me. So when you're improvising, you feel the electricity. Yeah. And then you move into a scripted routine and you feel a shift. Yeah. OK. It it might maybe you're maybe you're more natural style is doing that Russell Hicks style. And or maybe you can find a way. I Carl Span is an awesome Irish comic. And and he is an amazing joke writer. He also does amazing crowd work. And he had a great piece of advice that whatever set he does, he'll always start with some crowd work. And then when he slips into material. And the audience never see the switch. So they think the whole thing is improvised because, you know, when you're doing crowd work and then you switch into material, you don't announce, oh, I'm now doing some scripted material. So you want to find some maybe for you, it's a way of finding a smoother segue. Or if you are going to do crowd work. So when I when I started MCing, I was terrified of improvising. So I would find ways of crowbarring my material into the crowd work. So I would like. Oh, any any Americans in hoping they'll be American. So then I could do my routine about America or any Australians in. Oh, here's my routine about Australia. But I wouldn't announce a great I'm glad you're from Australia because I have a routine about Australia. I would pretend I've just improvised this two to three minutes about Australia. And when in fact, on our couples, all you guys are a couple. Well, I've got couples material. Most comics do, but it looked improvised. So that's a bit of a cheat. I don't do that anymore. But if I was under pressure, maybe I would. And I think that's a good skill to to have is to make it look like you are improvising, even if you're not. Well, you do a lot of MC and what sort of what are the main sort of lessons you've been learning from MC and over the years? And you just have to back yourself. And I'm a funny person. People are funny. It just you just can't go out there doubting yourself. You just have to like let it and let it not be funny. If it's not funny. I used to make the mistake of like if it was awkward, if it if it was if if the if it wasn't coming together. You're right. It's like pulling teeth. So you would just say something harsh. That's never it's always bad. It's always you're always a dickhead. It's never so it's like don't force it. Sometimes you think just something has to happen here. I better say something funny. It's like, oh, you're nice haircut, dickhead. You know what I mean? And people are like, because it's not funny. So sometimes it's OK to just like it, not be funny and just be like, all right. Well, look, give them a round of applause and just be amiable. You know, just wogon it up. Just be Terry Wogan. Thank God I'm the host. Yeah, exactly. Just say, hey, look, don't worry. We're going to get a comedian. Just be just it's not about you. I think hosting, you're not supposed to be the funniest person on. You're supposed to just keep it moving. And I think that's hard as a standup who is getting booked to host. I think it's hard to learn that because you want to. You still want to have a great set. And but actually, it's OK just to do a decent job. That's acceptable. And actually, the promoter will thank you for it. The other comics will thank you for it. And you don't want to be the comic who makes it all about themselves. And then the opening act in particular ends up having a dreadful set because. And this I've I've had this when I was starting out, the MC comes out. Does in fairness to him has great crowd work, has great moments with the audience. And then it's like, sorry, guys, got to bring a comedian. I'm not. Fun time's over. But don't worry, I'll be back in about 20 minutes. Brenda, Jimmy Stagg will pick this back up in about 20 minutes. But for right now, the laughter has to stop because I got to bring on a comedian. I once was introduced in Dublin by a Dublin comics. We'll probably know who I'm talking about. But this comic introduced me. He said, look, guys, when I'm out here, just having the crack. But the comedians, you know, they do more scripted material. So when they come up here, remember, listen to the jokes and listen, you know, and when I'm up here, we'll have just have a bit of fun. But the comedians scripted material, you know, so we a bit of a gear change. And I remember thinking, man, I'm down the back of the room like you are cutting my legs off. You know, you're cutting my legs off. So, yeah, don't be that MC. Do well. But like your job is to set up the room. I'm going to say tomorrow as these nerds have all scripted. Bunch of wannabe actors. So how did you get MC practice initially? Were you running nights or? No, I got asked to MC an open mic night in Black Rock in Dublin. I remember there was like four or five real audience members in comics. It was just the stakes were so low, I don't think I would have agreed to it. It's a very good London night now, Peter. Yeah, right, right, right. What if I feel people? Yeah, I but I look back on it because I for me, it wasn't even about MC experience. Like I used to just I used to have such bad stage fright. And I was so wooden on stage. I would just do kind of offbeat one liners, deadpan style, Jimmy Carr style. And I would stand on stage and by MCing those gigs, it forced me. To go off script and when you're off script, you're also being forced to be yourself. So it's very you can't do one line. You can't one liner your way through a crowd interaction. It's not going to work. You can't you can't do it in character. So you could do it in character, of course, but I didn't really have a clearly defined character. I just had these jokes that are in. So in in being forced to interact with the audience, even though I wasn't coming out with incredible improvisation, the fact that I was just talking to someone on stage in my real voice, risk reacting to people as I would off stage. And that totally changed my persona on stage. And then when I would move away from that open mic night and my my stand up persona changed. But where I think where I really learned how to MC was in the international bar. That was maybe maybe a few months after that. The the resident hosts, I think, just wanted to get high or drunk that night and texted me and said, can you host tonight? Have you ever hosted before? And I said, yes, but I'd only done a few of those little open mic nights. Whereas the international bar, if people don't know, it's a weekend comedy club in Dublin. It's one of the longest running comedy clubs in Ireland. I think it is the longest running comedy club in Ireland. So it's sold out room and you go out there and you're hosting. And that's when I really panicked. And I was like, crap, you know, I'm really going to have to improvise and, you know, make this work. And I remember my first one, I don't think went that well, but it didn't matter because I was only booked in the first place because the resident hosts wanted to get drunk or high. So it went it went well enough that I was asked to do it again and again and again. And I think that's where I started to learn how to host. And how did you end up emceeing the likes of the... Have you emceed in the comedy store? I have. You have? I've seen the clips, sorry. I have seen the clips. How did you end up doing that? It's asked to do it. You know, once you once you get in with a place, you're looking for slots. They'll ask you, do you emcee? Are you available to emcee? And you say yes or no. Some people don't want to emcee. A lot of people don't want to emcee. And I prefer doing a set, but emceeing is a different muscle. And it can be when it's going well, it's very exciting. It's in you're getting improvised laughs out of nowhere. It's it's awesome. And do you manage to do the material as well when you emcee? Sometimes. Yeah, sometimes. Sometimes it's a really good thing to do to especially before the opening act. Do some material so the audience gets used to the idea of a joke. Because what can happen is when you're opening, if the emcee just does. Crowd work. And like the example I gave earlier, you're just having the crack with Brenda's hen party and Dave's 40th birthday party. And then a comedian comes on stage and it's like he's delivering a monologue. People are like, well, who's he talking to? You know, we're having such fun. So I think it's useful for the emcee to do material. And sometimes, you know, the crowd is a little bit stiff and it's good to just belt out some some material. You know, hey, how you doing? Where are you from? Here's some material. Bring on the act. That's totally, totally a good thing to do. And what's some of the worst advice you've heard? About stand up in general or stand up or journalism? I guess. And worst advice. I don't know. I'm drawing a blank on that one. The worst advice I've got. Or heard given to someone else. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know what's. I think bad advice might have been. That you need to be gigging every night all the time. And I remember getting that advice, listening to American podcasts when I started. And I think there's there's validity to that. Especially when you start, you do need to learn how to do it. And I think you do need to be kind of a martyr to it. You know, your social life is going to take a hit. Your day job, you're not going to be as motivated in your day job. Relationships falling apart. Yeah. Yeah. You're going to miss things. And you kind of need to be a little bit of a martyr to it. But again, I think post pandemic people are being more honest about what they do for work, you know, how to make a living. And I think people should be more honest about like the toll that stand up can take in your mental health, actually. And sometimes it's OK to not go and do the open mic night because you're going to like go for dinner with someone you care about. I think that's actually really healthy. And I'm just laughing as I get these tones from just trying to do any open mic that'll have me. And it's just so dumb. Man, on the way here, I was texting somebody about a new material night tonight. It's the last thing I need to do. I've been I've been doing stand up every night for the last week. I yesterday morning, I met a director in the morning. We went through my show for three hours. I had a preview two hours later. I had to eat in between that. So I'm in itsu eating, eating, eating this dish, rewriting my show to perform an hour later, like the stress of that. Like I need a night off. But I'm even even like on my way and I'm recording this podcast now. I need I need to not do anything after this. I mean, well, actually, I've had a lot of life had meant to do. But even I was like, I kind of want to get up and do I want to go get up and bomb and like figure out some of these jokes, you know. But sometimes it's OK not to do that. So. The Witcher 3 just came out, the Witcher 3 just let you do that if you watch that. Take a break. No, I find it very hard because it's quite fun. Yeah, it is fun. It is fun. Very addictive personality as well. Bad mix. And then there we go. I think I'm doing a hostile after this. Great. Where's the hostile? That's hostile and tar bridge. I used to run it. No way. Yeah, very international. They won't understand anything I'm going to talk about. What am I going to talk about? Something about Catholics and Protestants as the hack that I am. Wonderful. Have Catholic, have Protestant. So that hopefully should be somewhat unique. OK, that'll be fun. OK. If you had to form a super comedian out of three comedians, what sort of people are you taking and what are you taking from them? I would take. I would take Anthony Jaslenik's joke writing. I would take. John Mulaney's. Performance. I would take. Catherine Ryan's attitude. And I would take. I would take maybe take some of. John Stewart's insight. I think that would be pretty great. That's a great show. John Mulaney's performance is wild. It's so mesmerizing. You just forget that any of it's ever been. Yeah. Wrote before. And honestly, John Mulaney's performance is wild. It's so mesmerizing. You just forget that any of it's ever been. And honestly, John Mulaney, I think, actually encompasses a lot of the things. His joke writing is as good as Jaslenik's, I would say. He's got plenty of star power. He's not he's not he doesn't seem interested in politics. And that's OK. And he's got plenty of insight, I think, into the human condition. And now he's got the darkness unleashed. So he's got a whole different gear that he wasn't even using before. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you know, when somebody seems squeaky clean. It's a red flag. I was working with the director for your show. What's that experience like? Interesting, yeah, very interesting. So he's not directing the show. It's kind of a one off session. I've never worked with the director before. I think it's useful because like. I'm quite charming. So people are really nice to me. I love your show. Yeah, people are really nice to me. All like most of my life. So and I'm quite good at stand up, so audiences usually clap and laugh along. So I could be forgiven for thinking, oh, my show's great. So I needed to pay someone to be like, I need you to be brutal because. You know, I'm sure there's problems here that people aren't telling me to my face. And sure enough, there were. And it was hard to listen to. But like he was right, you know, so when I did do the preview a couple of hours later, it was a better show, but it was very stressful. I didn't give myself enough time to apply the I wouldn't recommend meeting a director and then running the material like two hours later. That was not that was a booking error on my part. That speaks to my disorganization. I'm trying to do too many jobs at once, but very useful experience, very tough. But like very sad. Once once I did the preview, I preview was hard. There was a guy with learning disabilities in the front row sitting alone. And. Like it was hard. I was like, this this show is hard because I'm I've just rewritten it from scratch. I haven't rewritten the show from scratch, but I changed the structure from scratch and I'm reimagining the show. It's like, you know, it's top secret. It's three o'clock and the crowd were good. But there's this guy in the front row. God love him. You know, really good natured, but was just, you know, was kind of shedding out inappropriate times, getting involved or maybe it wasn't appropriate to do so. And so it was it was it was like the difficulty. It's like put the maximum, you know. But it was it felt great. It felt great. And once it was done and it like landing the plane, felt great. Yeah. Did they, so did you play the whole thing through and he went through it line by line or they went through it line by line? Exactly right. Oh, exactly right. Exactly right. Difficult process, difficult process. And you don't have to agree with everything. Like there was a couple of lines. He was like, I'm not sure about this. And I thought, well, actually. I know, you know, a lot of bad Edinburgh and directing shows, but I know a lot of bad gear. I know a lot of bad club comedy and that joke is a killer. You know, so there's a couple of moments where I was like, you know, I'm going to leave that joke alone. But then there was lots of other moments where I was like, he is so right. Someone needed to say that to me because we all have blind spots in our set for like bits that are hack or just don't sit right. Aren't credible. It's like, I don't believe you when you say that. Or that's not right in your voice. That's not for you. Or what the fuck is this about? Like what, especially when you're doing an hour of name the show Meditations, he was like, is this show about that? Like, you know, what are you, what are you talking about here? So how are you structuring this? A lot of questions that I knew I had to ask myself, but like I've been doing a lot of previews. I haven't, I know I have an hour of funny material, so I was just doing an hour of funny material, which is great. But I knew I was being a little bit lazy. I needed somebody to sit me down and be like, look, from a purely, from a purely critical standpoint, like this could be better, you know? Well, it's good for you for being willing to take the feedback, I guess, and ask for the feedback and even get it sorted. Yeah. Well, we'll see. We'll see. It's still a work in progress, but yeah, I would recommend it for anybody like looking to do an hour. Um, or even at any point in your career, if you're only going to get five minutes together, like getting feedback and getting honest criticism is like, I should have done this 10 years ago. You know what I mean? Like a good point about being charming and nice. So people are like, ah, I don't want Peter to be upset. Yeah. Yeah, it's true. It's true. It's true. People, people don't, people don't care enough about you to have an uncomfortable moment with you. You know, there's very few people in your life. If you're lucky, maybe you have a family member or a trusted friend who will like call you out, but a lot of people, if you do something they don't like, I'll just play, you know, I like nowhere and hopefully stops. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But all right, you know, so what is the plan with Edinburgh then? If you have the funny art, you have to make a story out of it or how do people approach Edinburgh? I think that I don't think there's any right or wrong way to approach it. Some people will just go up there with their funniest shit. And I think you, I think people used to have to play the game with Edinburgh and you'd go up there with your dad, dad Joe. And I think, well, it's true. I think, you know, in this country, um, I'm not quite sure how it happened, but Edinburgh got the industry in a stranglehold. So if you wanted to make it as a standup comedian, you had to go and partake in this month long, month long arts festival, a theatre festival and be reviewed as a standup comedian by theatre reviewers. So you are not even being judged on your ability as a standup. It's like, is this show a one man show? Um, does this show have an inciting incident? Does this show have a three act structure? No American standup would hold themselves to these arbitrary, uh, standards set by theatre producers and theatre critics, but somehow that became the thing in this country. And I think now we're seeing that implode a little bit. And I think with social media, you know, if you were starting at now and let's say, yeah, there's so many ways to do Edinburgh, but let's say the price point for Edinburgh is 10 grand, what's going to be a better investment in you spending 10 grand doing your hour for a month and trying to catch a break that way. Maybe, maybe it'd have been doing an hour for months. Going to make you better comedians. Maybe that is a good investment. Or taking 10 grand and hiring a social media manager or somebody can edit your clips, paid advertising, like what's actually going to get you a better return on investment. I don't know, but I would say that I would rather be a viral sensation on social media than have four stars from the skinny, whatever the fuck that is. If I'm trying to sell tickets, if I'm trying to sell tickets anywhere, you know, and nobody knows or cares what these trade mags or student mags have to say about your theatre show in Scotland in August. TV producers and comedy agents again have just fallen in line with this over the decades that they'll go there. If they want to discover new comedians, they don't pop into, well, sometimes they do, but it's rare. It's increasingly rare that an agent will pop in randomly to backyard comedy club on a Thursday night just to see who's on or pop into the comedy store on a Friday just to see who's on. They will have their short list. They'll go up to Edinburgh and that's usually when they check people out. Am I having a breakdown? Why are they not just looking at social media? I'm sure they are. I'm sure they are. I'm sure they are. I'm sure they are. But, you know, the business model for a lot of these agencies for years has been so Edinburgh oriented that somebody who's doing really well on social media, it's kind of hard for them to monetize a little bit because their business model is you send a bunch of acts to Edinburgh and they're like, well, you know, we're going to be you send a bunch of acts Edinburgh. Okay. Some of them might lose their hours financially, but then maybe one has really good Edinburgh. Maybe they book some TV work and you take your percentage of that TV work. If somebody has a social media following and they're booking their own live work, maybe they have a podcast that they've monetized. How does the agent get in, take their percentage on that? What's the business model? So I think that's, I think that's an evolving piece and I think there's a lot of head scratching going on. It's changing quick. It feels very quick and it feels cause I'm very, very new. I'd have no goods to provide, but I'm building at least from the clips that I got, like a little bit of an audience. Yeah. So I'm in this, I'm just like, okay, I'm going to go cause I'm from startups. So I've just applied this weird, I don't know if it's semi-autistic or something, something's going on. I'm like, well, all the Americans did it. So I'll do it that way. Yeah. And it's like, I clearly don't have the goods. Like I'm not going to be able to do a show and sell tickets, but maybe I can come be creative and be like, I'll do a crowd work show with someone else or something like that. I'm like, I'm just going to go this way. Yeah. I don't even know if I'll do the, I'll do competitions, I'll enter them, but I don't really ever do well. I think I'm just a bit weird. That's fine. And then I'll just do it that way and build up my audience. But I don't know if that's good or bad or if there is an answer. I don't, I don't think it's quite exciting. I think it's exciting. I think it's at a glance, your social media seems great. And you've got a following. So why not do that? Why not do that? Why try and impress people who don't give a damn about you in the first place? It feels like punk. This is the only way I could ever be punk. Yeah. It's like, yeah, well, that's what it is. That's what it is. You know, Instagram gave me a new lease on life as creatively. It's been able, it's allowed me to sell tickets to shows. Uh, you know, I was, I was resigned, not resigned, but I was focused certainly on the clubs and Instagram showed me that I was able to sell tickets. And it encouraged me to write this show that I'm now going to take to Edinburgh in a few weeks time. But my goal up there is really just to run this hour for a month and have fun and meet audience members and be like, follow me on Instagram. Let's do this again. Get some fans over followers. Yeah, absolutely. Meet people, meet other comedians, meet comedy agents. Sure. Meet comedy producers, meet comedians from all over the world network. It's like, it's like the world trade fair for comedy. I think you can be super negative about Edinburgh. And I was certainly negative about it for years. I was afraid about it for years, but I think if you can just get over yourself a little bit and start moaning about it, I think you can be super negative about it. Get over yourself a little bit and start moaning about what it isn't and accept it for what it is. It's actually a, it's a, it's a huge comedy festival. It's summer comfort for comedians. And if you're, if you're willing to pay the green fees, whatever those are to you, if you, you know, you, you set the parameters, you don't have to pay exorbitant venue fees if you don't want to. There's other ways to do it. You don't have to go up for a month if you don't want to, there's other ways to do it. So you decide what the parameters are for you. It's like you talked about your tech background, your startup background. I mean, it's like going to the web summit. You pay for your table. You're going to, it's going to be too expensive. Um, but maybe you get work out of it down the line. Maybe you get something out of it. Um, so that's the attitude I'm taking for it. I've, I've managed, I'm managing my expectations. Um, and I'm just, I'm just excited about this show. Yeah, I'm excited as well. I'm going to come see it. Oh, cool. Um, I'm just around it all up then we'll close it up, but is there a sitcom in the future? I would, I hope so. I've, I've, I'm always working on a script. Um, that's something I've been working, post pandemic. I've written two scripts, um, which I would love, uh, to get developed. So let's see. Well, that's very exciting. Well, what's the socials and everything else you'd like to share? Instagram is my main one. It's Peter Flanagan comedy. Nice and simple. I put up links to my journalism. I put up, uh, standup clips, which you've seen, uh, I'll put up an occasional, uh, thirst trap for United Ireland. Um, and, uh, I'm also on Twitter at Peter Flanagan. Um, but Instagram's my main, my main, uh, vehicle. Unreal. Well, everyone follow Peter and go see meditations in Edinburgh. And thank you for listening. If you've enjoyed it, give it a five star on Spotify and Apple podcasts. And I'll be posting clips on Kadeen podcasts soon. Whenever I get around to it, I'm falling behind Peter, but thank you so much for coming. That was really good. Thank you for all the advice. Thanks for the help. Thank you. Cheers brother.