INTRO Welcome to Mischief Makers. Your one-stop shop for all things mischief. Join your host, Dave Hearn, as he finds out what makes mischief…well, Mischief!

Dave Hearn: Hello and welcome back to Mischief Makers. I say welcome back, we've not gone anywhere, this is the start of the episode, so hello! On today with me, I have the company director of Mischief, and one of the kindest people I've ever known, that's Mr. Jonathan Sayer. Hello, Jono.

Jonathan Sayer: Hello! How are you?

DH: I'm very well, thank you. How are you?

JS: Yeah, I'm all right. Yeah. I'm not bad.

DH: So I sort of say this at the top of every episode because I think it's important. I have no technical ability. So this is all going to be one take, nothing's going to get cut out, so anything you say is on record.

JS: Then that's in there now.

DH: Yeah. It's all in there, you can't take that out, can’t take anything out.

JS: Well, I've gone in early with a curse word.

DH: No that's fine. That's fine. Fuck. There's one. Apologies to anyone who's played this to their kids.

JS: Yeah, sorry everyone.

DH: ] So as you know, because we've had a quick chat about this, this designed to kind of help people get to know Mischief and also to kind of talk about, you know, your approach to acting, writing and comedy and all those sorts of things. And so the first section we've got is the Getting to Know You section. And as we were talking before, I don't have any jingles prepared. So I'm asking everyone to do a little jingle. So could you improvise for me a kind of getting to know you jingle?

JS: [singing upbeatedly] Getting to know you! Ow!

DH: That was very good. Very, very good.

JS: Thank you.

DH: Because the only two people I've interviewed before this are Henry Shields and Henry Lewis, so by far the most musical.

JS: How was it? Cause Shields can play the piano.

DH: Yeah, he did play the piano in his, but because he had his headphones on, he couldn't hear the piano so he couldn't pitch it.

JS: So I thought what he played, not to critique, I thought it wasn't very jingle-like, it was quite slow and very melodic. But it wasn’t an earworm, and a jingle needs to be an earworm.

DH: Yeah, that's very true. Do you believe that yours was an earworm?

JS: I don't think you'll ever forget [he sings it again]. You can’t forget that.

DH: That is very true, it’s good, I like it. That actually leads us into our first question actually, your musical ability. So some people might not know this, but you were a child star. Could you tell us a bit about that?

JS: I did musicals when I was a kid. So I toured with Oliver! and Les Mis and Whistle Down The Wind and Doctor Dolittle. So from the age of around eleven to twelve, I worked professionally touring the country doing shows. You’d do kind of two weeks home in school, and then you'd go away for two weeks and do the show and kind of be schooled where you’d take your homework with you, so that's how I grew up. I kind of stopped doing it when I was about 14/15 because like now I look quite young and I’m small, back then, I looked like a baby when I was kind of 12/13. So I think in theory, you got someone who could play little kids who had an added maturity.

DH: Yeah, that's pretty handy skillset, to have that. And did you learn anything from your work as a child star?

JS: On the whole, I think it's a really great thing. I think it makes you grow up quite quick because you're just… I spent a lot of my childhood, my teen years and my pre-teen years, in fully adult company. So I think it gives you a lot of independence I think, it makes you quite resilient I think. I think it makes you quite disciplined because you're in an environment where the expectations are that you will behave like a small adult rather than like a child, which is what you are.

DH: Yeah.

JS: And I think that’s really good, it makes you quite good with your own company, I think. I really like reading and things like that, and I think that's because you’d be on your own quite a lot in digs and BNBs and stuff like that. It's a wonderful, wonderful experience.

DH: And, this is slightly cheeky because this is insider knowledge, but you had quite a bad accident didn't you, was it on Les Mis?

JS: Yeah, I got my hair caught in the revolve! Gavroche dies and I flopped forward onto the bodies and I misjudged the flop. So I flew forward with an extra little bit of a oomph and my hair got caught in the revolve and kind of a big chunk of it got pulled out. And I never really mentioned it when it happened because I didn't want to kick up a fuss, but yeah, it was very painful I remember. And obviously I was dead, so I just lay there as my hair got yanked out of my head as the song turning began to play.

DH: The irony of that, plus your sort of first Goes Wrong experience, I guess.

JS: Yeah, probably. Yeah, probably up there. Although there's probably other stuff before that. I remember there was a part in a show where I had to pick up like a cat that had passed away, and the cat was essentially a beanie baby kind of thing. And as I picked up the cat, all the beans fell out of it.

[DH and JS laughs]

JS: That was very funny. That could be in one of the shows because it was very amusing. I remember my reaction time to it I remember being quite slow, so I just kind of let it slowly void itself of all these little white things.

[DH laughs]

JS: Until it became a floppy sock. I remember that happening, I can’t even remember what show that was now, but I remember that happening.

DH: That's really bleak.

JS: Yeah. Yeah.

DH: And so when you were doing your tours and stuff, because you’re not native to London are you?

JS: No.

DH: Were you doing them mostly in the North?

JS: No. You're touring all over the shops. You don't go into London, well, I didn't, because I wasn't in the West End, I was on the tour. But you’d go down to like, Southampton and, you know, Portsmouth and all that kind of stuff, you’d play right up at the top. I remember performing near Aberdeen and in Glasgow. Also Les Mis I predominantly did in the North. I did that in Sheffield and Manchester. But like some of the other shows, Whistle Down The Wind and stuff like that was literally just all over the country.

DH: Wow. That's super crazy. And so, tell us a bit about where you're from originally.

JS: I don't sound like it anymore, just because I suppose from a young age I've just travelled around quite a lot, and also, I spend all my time with Henry [Lewis] and Henry [Shields], who are posher than me. Well, more arcie in speech. I’m from a little place called Ashton-under-Lyne, which is just outside of Manchester, so it’s in the borough of Greater Manchester. That's where I'm from. So I'm a proud Mancunian.

DH: Yes. Yes, you are. And you have showed your pride. Tell us a bit about the football club.

JS: Right. So, I come from a very sporty family. So, me being involved in the arts is a bit of an anomaly really. My dad was a semi-professional footballer for a team called Curzon Ashton, and my granddad, he was a really quite successful part-time footballer. He played for Ashton United and has the record for most appearances for that club. And they currently play in, I suppose it would be division seven of the Football League, and last year they ended up in a spot of bother, in that they just needed more people to be involved and they sent out a bit of a Twitter SOS. And I got in touch and said, I have this family linked to the club and I used to go and watch when I was a kid and all that, and sadly, I'm not very good at football, but I would love to be involved behind the scenes, if that was permissible. And I ended up joining the board, and through a few different things that happened, I've now become the co-chairman of the club with my dad, which has been very fun. But yeah, I have this other kind of second job now of running this semi-professional football club.

DH: That's really cool. How do you find running Mischief and a football club?

JS: I think the football club is weirdly more stressful.

[DH laughs]

Just because Mischief by this point, we've got lots of infrastructure and loads of people involved. Whereas, you know, with the football club everything is just done by totally amazing volunteers and people with just absolute passion for the club. It’s very different the world of non-league football because we have a crowd of around 220 on average, and that's the main thing that kind of funds the place, the gate receipts and the money that you get from selling burgers on the day and selling pints of lager and cans of coke and things. So it's a different thing, but it's a hugely enjoyable and it’s just brilliant to be involved in something that's just a total community project. And as well as someone who just… I love sport, I love football so much. And it's so cool to… it's a real privilege to have a bit of a spot where I can I can see a bit behind the scenes, and know a little bit more about the industry and how it works. I found that fascinating. Really, really cool.

DH: Is it in any way similar to the theatre or the acting industry? Or is it very different?

JS: It's the same. I tell you what, it's the same in that footballers, I think, are really similar to actors, in that there's so many that…there's a lot of people who want to be actors and there's a lot of people who want to be professional footballers. And it's a vocation, you know, it's a thing that you just absolutely need to do it, and it absolutely just drives you wild when you can’t do it or be a part of it. So, I think that there's a kind of similarity there, for sure. Yeah.

DH: Yeah, that's really cool. And so, you're kind of running a football club and company director of Mischief, as well as a writer and an actor. Do you find any of those, particularly your various roles within Mischief, do you find they conflict artistically at all, and prevent you from doing certain things or kind of inhibit you in any way?

JS: No, I don't think so, I think they all fit fairly well. I try to be a really balanced person, so I hope one of my strong suits as a person is I'm quite good at being balanced and looking at different sides to different arguments and being able to put myself in other people's shoes quite quickly. So, I think that helps in a sense. I mean, you know, as we've grown as a company, I suppose sometimes just the actual day to day running takes up more time than it used to, so you have to be really disciplined to make sure there's enough time to do what is…what for me is the thing that I'm really good at, which is, you know writing stuff and hopefully performing in stuff as well. You've got to really make sure you safeguard your time and you prioritise, because otherwise you can find yourself just falling into…just doing lots and lots of admin and not doing what is probably the thing that you’re…the thing I do that probably serves the company and everyone best, if that makes sense.

DH: Yeah. And you know, it doesn't serve yourself because, you know, the reason you go into doing it is because you enjoy it. You didn't get into it acting to send loads of emails.

JS: Exactly. Exactly. It's really interesting at the moment, because obviously there’s this hiatus, and you really… it's just so interesting to see maybe like what was an essential email, and what was actually just the kind of stuff that is probably less important.

And that's why at the moment, stuff isn't happening.

DH: Yeah, it's sort of re-calibrated everyone's perspective.

JS: It really does, and you get a bit of distance. You'll know as well as well as me, the last four years have been amazing, and such a wild ride, but there really hasn't been any time to get off and kind of assess what's happened or think about things with more of a wide lens, because you're so in everything. And, you know, every moment is so exciting and full, but it's it's very, very pressurised, you know, to turn around the amount of work that we've turned around, and make sure that, you know, everything is as good as it can be and also make sure that you're rehearsing and know everything and you're just fully engaged. I think one of the things that I love about Mischief is, I think all of us don't do stuff by halves, you either fully commit and you're in, or you don't. And I think to fully commit for the length of time that we have is amazing. I suppose one of the very few positives about what's happening at the moment is, I think everyone around the country is hopefully able to get a bit of perspective, speak to your family a little bit more, I think [Henry] Shields said this, but I spoke to my parents so much, and my grandparents and other family members, and there's time to just check in with people. I got married at the end of last year, and, you know, me and my wife, I don't think we've ever spent as much time together as we have recently. So I suppose it's good to try and find where the positives are.

DH: Yeah. How are you finding that, spending a lot of time together?

JS: Yeah. I mean, you know, we love each other very much so it's very nice. We've actually started writing a play together, so that's been really fun.

DH: Great!

JS: And then also we've just done all the stuff in the flat that we've always said, well if there was time, we'd to do that. And I'm putting up shelves and things that we're both rubbish at, particularly me, and stuff that we've always just said, oh, if only there was the time on Sunday, well now there is the time, so let's put up those shelves and things. Like everyone, again I imagine in the country, we now have a really organised, tidy, flat.

DH: Yeah, I think this is the time for that kind of behaviour. Mine and Charlie [Russell]'s garden is immaculate.

JS: How are you finding it? Am I allowed to ask you questions?

DH: Yeah, you're allowed to ask questions, yeah.

JS: How are you finding it?

DH: That's a very good question, John. I'm actually okay. I was saying to Charlie the other day, that I think cause I spent quite a lot of time as a kid indoors. I actually don't mind being indoors for a long time.

JS: Yeah.

DH: I find it quite easy. And so, going to the shops or just like going for a walk in the park or whatever, I know some people, like Charlie, has to do that every day. I'm actually quite happy just to go and sit in the garden for a bit, or you know, I've got a lot of stuff keeping me busy in the house and that doesn't bother me too much. But I know for certain people, you know, being stuck indoors all day is really difficult.

JS: Yeah, I can imagine. I think that currently I'm okay with it. Like sometimes, I don't know if you find this, sometimes I find that I'll have like a moment, where it's like I fall into a little hole of worry, and then I'll kind of lift out of there again. But it's quite rare that that happens, and I imagine so many people are going through that.

DH: Yeah, it's real sort of peaks and troughs of am I doing enough? I should use this time to relax, No, I shouldn't. I should be doing more. And it just kind of bounces between those two.

JS: Exactly. But I think you've just got to do whatever you need to do to get through this period of time, and also try and be a good person. A lot people said this on TV, but I imagine that this is a point in our lives that we'll really remember. So I want to come out of this period of time feeling like I conducted myself in a way that I'm comfortable with, and, you know, I think that I did my bit. Equally, it's so hard to...I think the cruelty of the current situations, I think that when the chips are down, people want to help each other out and reach out, I think that's human nature. And the thing that we are prohibited from doing is physically reaching out, so it makes it more abstract of exactly how you can be a good person in this situation. You know, it's clear there are things you can do, you can make sure that if there's older people who live near you, you can do little notes to them saying if you need someone to go out and do your shopping, then we can absolutely do that.

So many people are doing fundraising efforts to make sure people who are going to be in a precarious situation are looked after.

When we come out of this, I just want to feel like I did my best there, but equally we've got to just get through it and not put too much pressure on yourself if you're listening.

DH: Yeah.

JS: It's natural to feel anxious over this time. Just try and relax, have fun and enjoy. You know, the world is so fast and furious, and just try and enjoy this little bit of slow down. Or at least take positives from it. I know it's hard because a lot of people are unwell and worse, but just try to have a positive mental attitude I think.

DH: Yeah, I think that's good. Once this is all over, and once you can get outside, will you be running another marathon do you think?

JS: I will. Ironically I was supposed to have run one yesterday. I was running it for the women's team at Ashton United as part of the fundraising effort to make sure that team is self-sufficient for the next couple of years, but alas, that marathon was cancelled. I've also been a bit unwell, so I think I would've struggled anyway. What I'm thinking in the coming weeks is, I have a very small backyard so part of me is thinking I could try and run that marathon in my backyard.

DH: Oh, mate.

JS: I think I'd have to go up and down the yard About a hundred thousand times.

DH: Yeah.

JS: Maybe I could do that. Out of the yard, into the living room, back out from the living room into the yard. Try and do that and see if I can run the marathon in that way.

DH: Yeah. I mean the more you say yard, the more it sounds like a weird sort of prison scenario.

JS: I mean, it is a yard, it's not a garden. There's no grass or anything.

[DH laughs]

JS: You know, it's good to know your strengths, and it's good to know your weaknesses, and one of my weaknesses is definitely gardening. Like I've seen what you and Charlie have done, you've got plants and flowers, and they grow and blossom. Whenever I plant something, it just dies, to the point where I now feel like I shouldn't be allowed.

[DH laughs]

JS: I don't know what it is. I do everything that it says, but they just don't make it. They just they never make it.

DH: It is a bit of a trial and error with gardening I think, some people are very good at it. Charlie thinks she's quite bad at it, but I think you've got to be very patient as well.

JS: Yeah.

DH: I'm good at planting stuff. But, I'm not good at looking after stuff.

JS: Yeah, I was going to say. I don't think me or you are the most patient people in the world.

DH: No. I'm just like either grow now, or just don't grow, pick one.

[JS laughs]

JS: Like, come on mate, pick a lane sunflower!

DH: Yeah. Come on, mate! Switch on. Grow or don't grow. Just don't be slow about it.

[JS laughs]

DH: I think...

[JS goes to talk]

DH: Oh! Say that again...

JS: Am I striking the right tone? It's just occurred to me that I'm not being ever so funny. I'm just answering questions, but do I need to be...I dunno...

DH: More amusing?

JS: Yes. Should I be making an effort to be amusing?

DH: You could do, but to be honest it's more...the tone that I sort of wanted to strike with this was more that it just feels like you and I are having a chat and talking about stuff that we wouldn't really get an opportunity to talk about in a regular interview.

JS: OK. Well, that's yeah, I think we're doing that.

DH: Yeah, it feels pretty good. And to be fair, you know, if people have got this far in and are bored, you can turn off.

JS: The curse words at the beginning, that might have put few people off.

DH: Shall we put another one in now, do you think?

JS: Balls.

[DL and JS laugh]

DH: Very good. Now I'm going to wrap up the getting to know you section. Could you give us that jingle?

JS: Can I give you an answer to a question you asked earlier? Just very quickly?

DH: Oh, please do, yeah.

JS: The difference between the football and Mischief is, in Mischief obviously we all have creative control. So you're not just responsible for making sure on the day to day things run, you can totally affect or change things. We can write a funny script, and if you don't think it's funny, you can carry on working on it. And, you know, when you fall, as I'm sure we'll discuss, we rehash stuff and we refine and we build it and develop it as a performance. So when you're nervous and thinking, Oh my God, this is it, you are ultimately, you're the one responsible for stepping from the wings, onto the stage and delivering. Whereas with football, I'm not responsible for that moment. You can work really hard all week and you get really nervous because there's a big match coming up, but I'm not responsible...with the rest of the board or committee, you choose someone who's going to manage the team, and then that's on them. So you don't get a way of spending that nervous energy, because you can't do anything, you're totally out of control once a match starts. Whereas once the play starts, or a TV filming, we are all very much in control. That is a difference. And I've learned quite a lot about myself through having both of those experiences.

DH: Yeah, it's weird, isn't it. Because I sort of think, that element of control is such a human thing to want to have. But I think within... it’s weird because when I talk to people or go to schools and stuff, or talk to people starting out in comedy, often the thing that I'll say is about when you're on stage, it's about controlling each moment and controlling how long it lasts, not sitting in it, not being indulgent, controlling, telling the audience when they need to stop laughing, telling the audience when the punchline is for the joke, when they need to clap, all those sorts of things.

JS: Yeah.

DH: And we talk about having that level of control in comedy, but ultimately you can't control whether an audience find something funny or not. You can only control your delivery. And that's kind of similar, sort of weird feeling.

JS: We were joking before this started. Find someone who really likes to feel prepared. So, you know, I'll do a lot of prep, and I think it's more the fact that with what we do, you can rehearse, so you can at least be like, I've done everything that I personally can do to make sure that I'm on top of all the things that I control. But then I think more than just control, it's just the fact that we've got all this nervous energy and you have an activity to spend it on. If you're performing in a play, you don't feel as nervous once it starts, because you've got other things to do and you get adrenaline, and you can use all that adrenaline. Whereas if you are watching a new cast for the first time, or if you are watching a football team play in a qualifying round for the FA Cup, where you know it's really important for the future of the club and you know that actually that it will look after a hell of a lot of people if we can just score. We've got nowhere for that nervous energy to go, other than just standing there at the side, clapping, shouting Come on!

[JS and DH laugh]

JS: Which is tough. And it's not necessarily about control. It's just about the fact that you're just so pent up and there's nothing else to do with it, other than just try and chill and enjoy.

DH: Yeah. I think that's very good advice. Are you happy for us to wrap up getting to know you?

JS: Yeah, I think so.

DH: Could you wrap us up with that getting to know you jingle?

JS: [singing] Bam bam badda bam bam! Bam bam badad badada Getting to know you! Wow!

DH: Very good. It is an ear worm.

JS: You won't forget it, it's right in there.

DH: So you are about to have another jingle, almost immediately. This section is Questions From The Web. And these are, they're not just from the web...well they are...they're just from Twitter basically. These are some selection of questions that people have tweeted in that they'd like to ask you specifically. So, yeah, could you give us Questions from the Web jingle?

JS: [singing] I got a question. A question in my head. I'm going to put it,. put it on the web!

DH: Nice!

[DH and JS laugh]

DH: I felt like there was a lot of tension.

JS: There was, I was really tense. Like, I really tensed up to do that.

DH: That was good.

JS: That was my American voice, I think.

DH: I liked it. I liked it a lot. So the first question I've got is from @EmmaAkeyy. I think it's Akeyy. It's [spelt] A K E Y Y.

JS: Yeah, I think so. Akeyy.

DH. Akeyy. She has asked, and we can do this separately to this recording if you like, please can you record wake up instead of get out, so I can set it as my alarm in the morning.

JS: I would love to do that. A few people have asked me for that, in the same way a lot of people asked me to do one that said stay in. So, yeah, here we go! WAKE UP! WAKE UP!

[DH laughs]

DH: What I might do is get you to record it on your iPhone after this, and then send it to me. And then we can put it out as an official Mischief MP3.

JS: Yeah! Maybe we should do ones for different moments in your life.

DH: What other moments are there? Like Happy Birthday? It's gotta be like, congratulations, you've just got a new job or something.

JS: You could do affirmation ones, like WELL DONE!

DH: Yeah.

JS: WELL DONE. WELL DONE. You could do...there's like a moment where you need to just put yourself out there, you could have, STEP UP!

DH: Yeah, that's very good. Step up. I mean there's lots of stuff you could do for football.

JS: COME ON!

[JS laughs]

DH: Yeah. Like if you guys have a big screen, whenever Ashton scores, it could be you in the deer head just screaming, GOAL!

JS: That one would need to go, ba ba!, I think.

DH: Yeah, great goal?

JS: GREAT GOAL!

[DH and JS laughs]

JS: Although, apparently on the day after The Lodge aired, we won. And a few of the players text me saying, get in. And I was totally baffled by that.

DH: Very good.

JS: And then I was like, oh! get in, get in! Very good!

DH: Get in is a very good one.

JS: Yeah.

DH: Okay, so there you go Emma, there's your wake-up recording. I'll see if I can get John to do it separately after this.

JS: It might not relax you. SLEEP NOW. SLEEP NOW. I imagine more and more people are awake from the podcast right now.

DH: Please do send in all your requests for John to shout various things from his deer head character.

JS: I've got a lot of time. That could be what I do in the mornings.

DH: Yeah. We'll have to insure your voice.

JS: Yeah, because ironically, it's something that does strain the vocal cords doing that.

DH: I imagine it does.

JS: To reach everything out and just tense everything up.

DH: So our next question here is from Hayley Pineapple. Presumably she is not an actual pineapple.

JS: You never know!

DH: But the pineapple asks, what is your favourite holiday destination and why?

JS: I just went on my honeymoon, and we went to Africa and that was just absolutely amazing, we went to Tanzania. That was just a mind-blowing experience. So I'd probably say there, or I Iove to go anywhere in France, just because I've been trying to learn the language forever. So, you know, somewhere there, probably those two places I'd say were pretty, pretty amazing. Zanzibar, that was really cool, that was on our honeymoon as well.

DH: And do you think that it was your favourite destination because it was your honeymoon? Or if you'd gone there for another reason, it might still have been your favourite?

JS: Hard to know. I mean, it was just such... it's such a great place for a honeymoon. We were so lucky to be able to go, but equally it's just beautiful. Again, it's just one of those things where it's life changing to go to somewhere where there's just a different culture and just immerse yourself, it's a really, really fantastic thing to do.

DH: That's really cool. Yeah, I don't know why, but I imagine if you went to, you know, the Grand Hotel in Scarborough for your honeymoon, I don't think that would be your favourite holiday destination.

JS: I don't know. But the honeymoon is a really good thing because you're so loved up. We had such a lovely day on our wedding, one little fact is that Dave Hearn performed the ceremony.

DH: Yes.

JS: Dave actually married us. But it was such a lovely time, you go there on such a phenomenal high. I think no matter where we'd gone, it probably would have become my favourite destination.

DH: Do you get a lot of preferential treatment?

JS: um.

DH: Not as much as you want?

[JS and DH laughs]

JS: Like when we went to a hotel, there's often some fruit on the bed and a message that says, you know, congratulations. So you get like a little glass of prosecco when you're having dinner. So I suppose you get that kind of treatment. Also, we were really lucky because of the shows and stuff, it was very limited when we could actually go. So we went in November, and we were really fortunate that all the weather was perfect. But it's not necessarily the season where people travel out there. So it was quite empty and quite quiet, which was again, really really cool, because it meant we had proper time to speak to people that were there and make friends.

DH: That must be really nice.

JS: Yeah.

DH: OK. Well, our next question is from @Daisy. What is your most memorable moment from LAMDA?

JS: LAMDA?

DH: Yeah. Now, I think you've probably got couple, but, you know, you don't have to pick just one.

JS: We did a performance of Cabaret, and that always immediately reminds me of my time there. It was such a cool venue, it was an old music hall that obviously that like Chaplin had performed on, and I was the MC. So that was a lot of fun. But then, you know, it's probably just... it's more just the silly daft exercises you do, like the object exercises, just watching people, watching one of your friends just peel a banana and eat it, and then pretend to write a diary entry, that always sticks in my head. Doing clown classes, obviously, that's had a huge impact on the work that we do. And just, you know, just having to stand up in front of 25 people which was, you know, your class, and just be funny.

DH: Yeah.

JS: You know, I thought that was really useful because that put such a crazy pressure on you. In fact, have I got time to give you a bit of a Eureka moment I had with comedy?

DH: Absolutely.

JS: I remember we had to stand up as our clown. We had to walk from behind this little flat that was put up in the room, walk from behind it, look at everyone and just do something that made everyone laugh. I think you had to fall over and make everyone laugh. And you know how you did it, how you engineered it, that was totally up to you. But really, you had like three seconds to make everyone laugh. And I remember sitting down and I was going through my head like, what could I do? My mind was racing and I thought, I know what I'll do, I've got quite loose trousers on, I'll undo the buckle now, just very subtly, then my trousers will fall down as I walk, and then I'll trip up and that'll be really, really funny. So I surreptitiously unbuckled my trousers, I got up, walked out from behind the little flat, my trousers fell down, I fell over, and nothing. Like there was no laughter whatsoever.

[DH laughs]

JS: I had really tight little pants on underneath my trousers, and my trousers were down by my ankles, and all these colleagues and friends who I was just getting to know were all just looking at me with very stern faces. And I was just totally vulnerable and exposed. And, you know, I must have gone a ridiculous shade of red and I must have looked quite alarmed, and the more wound up I got, and the more vulnerable I became, all of a sudden, those stern faces started turning into guffaws and laughs. I think it was at that moment that I realised, oh...particularly with my style, it's not really about getting people to laugh with me. It's people laughing at you. And, you know, very often the thing that's funny is just pain and a truthful vulnerability. And I think that moment actually has had quite a big effect on, you know, so much of how I perform comedy and also things I write and stuff like that.

DH: Yeah, that's really good. I think that's the kind of thing that a lot of people kind of want to know. Those sort of eureka moments because they happen so rarely, but they only happen if you're brave enough to fail I guess, or stupid enough to think you won't fail. And I think that's the joy of it.

JS: You've got to fail and fail and fail. You'll fail many more times than you'll succeed.

DH: Yeah. And then hopefully someone will come and see that success and be like oh, that was very successful.

JS: Few people remember failures. They remember successes, and they never remember failures. If you go and see a sketch show, you remember the brilliant sketches don't you. You don't remember that one that didn't make you laugh; you remember the three sketches that did make you laugh.

DH: That is very true.

JS: Look at all the Monty Python sketches. You remember the parrot sketch, and you remember the sketches that really really made you laugh. You don't remember the slightly more mixed ones, from the earlier days.

DH: The sort of stranger ones.

JS: No. You just don't because that's how the human mind works. But you've got to just be expressive and be prepared to fail to find the parrot sketch, to find the thing that's really, really funny.

DH: Well, that actually leads on, speaking of Monty Python, to @Satellitegirls question, which is, who are your comedy influences growing up?

JS: So growing up, it was like Morecambe and Wise. I used to watch so much Morecambe and Wise, I used to go to my grandparents a lot and they just had all of it on VHS. So huge amounts of Morecambe and Wise, and then also lots of silent comedy. I'm really into Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, all that stuff which, you know, was just so, so simple but so beautifully crafted. And then I also watched a lot Norman Wisdoms, so it's really old school stuff. But then, you know, in more modern terms, Lee Evans, Peter Kay, also Monty Python. I really like Smack The Pony when that was on, lots! I try and have quite an eclectic... particularly now I try and have lots of things that I like that's really, really eclectic. I think that's quite good for your development as well, as a creator. You just watch lots of stuff and try and find different ways that you enjoy them.

DH: She also asks what current comedy are you loving apart from Mischief?

JS: What comedy am I loving? The last year has been a bit of a...we've been so busy with the new shows, and with getting married and the TV show. Oh god! Come back to me, because there's loads of stuff that I watch, but my mind's just totally gone blank and put me on the spot.

DH: That's alright, we can jump to @PauliesMum47. I don't know if Polly's asking this question or it's her mum, but she's asked how do you find the transition to television, and were there any unexpected problems from going from one medium to another?

JS: I think that, I really enjoyed the process of going from stage to doing some television, I thought it was really fun. I think that in regard to how you create, you have to find a way to condense the whole process and then you might play and maybe perform it...

[Police sirens in background]

JS: Oh, they're here for you!

DH: You heard that?

JS: I heard the sirens.

DH: That's a shame. We're running out of time, unfortunately. They're going to burst through the door any minute.

JS: Oh, okay. Well, I'll be quick.

[DH and JS laugh]

JS: You have to speed up the whole process. So you write a play, and you might do an out-of-town try-out and then you put it on in London, and you have previews. And all that time you've been drafting and whittling, and you've got an audience every night. You can hear what gets a laugh and what doesn't. It's not just the writing, it's the performances. You know exactly where you need to be, exactly how you said the line and exactly where your character is in that stage of the journey. And in TV you just don't have that. We had around 10 days to rehearse and get the whole episode on its feet and ready. And, you know, that just means you have less time, then some of the stuff you can't actually do until you're there with the audience filming it. So you have to just get a lot sharper. And I'd say probably there's less space for indulging and saying, well, let's just give that a chance, let's see what happens. I think you have to be a little bit more decisive and say you know what, that's going to take half an hour to film on the night, and we're not going to go run it in front of an audience before then, and it also, sounds like it could be expensive, so let's just not take the risk there because we can really put ourselves in hot water. So you've got to strike the balance in that sense. I think the other thing that we found in the journey was telling the story of who the audience is with the TV show. Is the audience just the audience at home? Or is it an audience that's in that room as well? Because I think that audience is the thing that creates the pressures for the Cornley characters. With Peter Pan Goes Wrong, we had that audience there, and we showed the audience quite a lot, we kept cutting to them and seeing them in their seats laughing or applauding or whatever. On Christmas Carol [Goes Wrong], we did the exact opposite, we still had an audience there, but then we chose never to show them, which I think probably didn't work as well, because it makes it a bit more abstract and a bit more alien, of just what is that laughter and are these characters under pressure? If there's no audience, they could have just stopped, couldn't they? And then I think we found the perfect way of doing it now with the TV show, which is you show them in that shot at the beginning, and then maybe you might cut back to a very wide shot of the studio, where you're just reminded, oh, there is an audience, you're not constantly showing them in a way that might alienate viewers at home. So, I think that's been the biggest test actually, just telling the story of who the audience is.

DH: Yeah. It's always something that we learn by doing unfortunately. So that's the main thing with that audience. But I think that's...Yeah, I would agree with all of that. I think that can bring us to the end of Questions from the Web. So can you give us the Questions from the Web jingle?

JS: Ok then. Oh, it's not an earworm. [singing] I've got a question, question in my head. I'm going to put it, put it on the web! That wasn't it was it?

DH: Nice. Now that was pretty close, that was pretty good.

JS: Ok.

DH: Well, you've got one more chance to come up with a jingle, because the final section is the quickfire round. I call it the round. But this is not a quiz. It's quickfire section. So can you give me a quickfire jingle??

JS: BADA BADA BADA BADA BOW! Now, that was awful!

[DH laughs]

DH: It was just so erratic!

[JS laughs]

JS: I'm not going to succeed in this round.

DH: This is gonna be good.

JS: I'm gathered. I like to slowly find my point. I'm not good at just...what about just like BADA BADA BA QUICKFIRE. BADA BA. No terrible. Again.

DH: Did you cough at the end?

JS: I don't know why. I mean...

[DH and JS laughs]

DH: It really sounded like you went...BADA BADA BADA BADA QUICK FIRE [makes coughing noise].

JS: No, I know. I don't know what it was. I tried to make like a, WOW! sound, but it didn't come out.

DH: It got stuck. Well, remember that because it'll do that at the end again. OK. So you get the idea of a quickfire, I'm going to ask you loads of questions, try not to think about them too much. Just fire up the first answer that comes into your head.

JS: Alright then.

DH: OK, here we go. First question, what is your favourite colour?

JS: Red.

DH: What is your spirit animal?

JS: I don't understand. Probably like a meerkat or something, like a Gibraltar, something that's not comfortable ever.

[DH laughs]

DH: Who is the bossiest member of Mischief?

JS: Oh, God, I oh, pass. I dunno.

DH: Pass. Good. Who is the most likely to corpse on stage?

JS: You're up there! Charlie's up there!

DH: Yeah, they're pretty good options. Is a Jaffa Cake a cake or a biscuit?

JS: Cake. It's in the title.

DH: There you go. What is your favourite film?

JS: It's possibly, City Lights by Charlie Chaplin.

DH: Nice. Who in Mischief would be the first to die in a zombie apocalypse?

JS: I think it would be me.

[DH laughs]

DH: Very good. Have you ever been mistaken for Rory Stewart?

JS: Rory Stewart? I've not been mistaken for him, but it has been pointed out that there are similarities. Same with Gareth Southgate, same with Rory Mcllroy. Really just anyone who has dark hair, who is probably thinner than they could be.

DH: [laughs] And finally, who is your comedy hero?

JS: Well, me and Harry Kershaw often say you're my comedy hero. But you know, most people in Mischief are. And then probably like Norman Wisdom or Charlie Chaplin or Lee Evans, those kind of physical, crazy storytelling people.

DH: Very good. That is the end of the quickfire round. So give us that quickfire jingle.

JS: BA BA BA BA BA BA [makes exaggerated coughing noise].

DH: Very good. So we're gonna wrap up now. But just before we go, do you have any, I know you like to watch a lot of documentaries, do you have any TV recommendations or documentary recommendations for people to watch?

JS: We're watching Unorthodox at the moment, which isn't a documentary, but that's a really good drama that's on Netflix. We've started watching the second series of Sunderland Til I Die, which is a really good fly-on-the-wall documentary about the running of Sunderland Football Club, which even if you don't like football, I think is really compelling viewing. Tiger King, you know, everyone's watching that at the moment, and I would recommend that. And then can I give a book recommendation?

DH: Absolutely.

JS: A guy called Dan Jones, me and [Henry] Shields both share a love of medieval history, and he wrote a book called The Plantagenets, and that's a really good history book if you just want to get into Plantagenet history. And I'm also currently reading, think you pronounce it Quixote. I think that's how he's asking us to pronounce it, But I would say Quixote, but it's Salman Rushdie, and it's a kind of adaptation of Don Quixote, and that's quite good. And Unfollow by Megan Phelps-Roper, who's one of the people who were in the Westboro Baptist Church, who were in the Louis Theroux documentary visit.

DH: Yes.

JS: She wrote this book about leaving the church, And it's a really good book. Essentially it's about being timed and looking at different sides and just trying to look at where people are coming from, and just trying to approach everyone with a degree of understanding, which I think is, to come to through that particular church to come out with that view, that's a really great book, and anything Louis Theroux. I've literally gone back, and I've watched every Louis Theroux documentary from the very start.

DH: They're so good aren't they.

JS: Yeah. And he's got a book out at the moment called I Gotta Get Theroux This.

DH. Yes.

JS: It's available on audiobook, and that's really good to read. And also everything by Jon Ronson. I've just read everything by Jon Ronson over the last six months, and he's a bit of an idol at the moment. I think he's an excellent writer, and just the way he writes is so detailed and interesting. Yeah.

DH: Well, great, thank you. Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for listening. I've been Dave Hearn, and this has been Jonathan Sayer. Do keep your eyes open for the next episode. Follow us on Twitter and various other social platforms. And thanks for listening and keep making mischief.

JS: Thank you.