Originally not aired on ??/??/????

Right then, Chai Warriors, we’re about a week into the Fringe and after all the stage time I’ve been getting, I’m feeling so comedically sharp that I’m genuinely worried I’m gonna rupture someone’s spleen with a perfectly timed pull-back-and-reveal one of these days.

Walking down the streets of Scotland’s capital (Edinburgh) on my way to meet this series’ first guest Jamie D’Souza, I kept thinking: just keep yourself to yourself Eric, don’t say anything too funny. Now, I don’t know if you losers have ever been to Edinburgh, but the streets are full of mad shit happening. There’re so many strange looking characters that it feels like you’re walking amongst the Chinese alphabet. It’s impossible not to think of something funny and potentially racist.

Keep it to yourself, Eric. Keep it to yourself.

“Jamie, how you doing mate?” I said, now with a Chai in my hand, having successfully made my way to the café without causing an accident.

“Who does this go out to?” Jamie said. He was kinda shaking as well.

“What?”

“Like do any agents or promoters listen to this?” He asked.

“You mean read?”

“Yeah read, sorry. Whatever, I keep forgetting it’s unrecorded.”

Jamie seemed agitated. Before we’d even started, he’d already texted me twice asking about how this was gonna advance his career. I wasn’t sure if this was another symptom of being a week into the Fringe, or if he’s genuinely just a bit of a shithouse.

When I first met Jamie, it was in a competition called “So You Think You’re Funny?”. To be excruciatingly precise, it was the final of that competition. We were both young, dumb and wearing black-and-white striped T-shirts.

“Oh, are you guys like a mime double-act?” The other acts would ask us in complete seriousness, and we couldn’t even deny it because we were both too busy trying to escape from the invisible boxes we were trapped in.

Two years later, and sometimes I worry we’re still trapped inside an invisible box of sorts. When you’re doing those competitions, it’s kinda drilled into you that comedy is about something more than making people laugh -- it’s about agents, it’s about impressing promoters, it’s about reviews.

What happened to just keeping it real and being funny? Honestly, if Peter Kay knew what was going on with the current state of British comedy, he’d be turning in his gravy. (I imagine he bathes in gravy).

“What made you want to do comedy, Jamie?” I asked, trying to snap him out of his insanity.

“Ah, yeah, a backstory,” he said. “Agents love people with a good backstory.”

“Forget about the agents for a second.”

“Well, okay,” he said. “So basically, when I was 14 my mum used to sneak me into comedy clubs.”

“Sneak you in?”

“They were all 18+ venues, you see. So my mum would put me in my Dad’s coat and buy me a beer from the bar, then walk with me into the venue as if I was her husband.”

I laughed. The story was wholesome. Good stuff.

“Aww that’s well cute, mate.”

 “The only problem was, she took it too far. She got really mad at me one time when I couldn’t keep up with the mortgage payments”

“What happened?” I asked.

“Well, I had to spend a week on a mate’s sofa, but then eventually she calmed down a bit.”

We got chatting some more about Jamie’s early days watching comedy, and I could sort of see it was having an effect on him. He seemed less agitated, more warm and bubbly -- like the conversation was reminding him that comedy is something he loves, not just a vehicle for social status. If this podcast can do anything for people, then I hope it’s that.

“Eric, this might just be the chai talking, but I don’t even care if an agent reads this or see’s my show anymore.”

“Yeah exactly,” I said. “What does it matter?”

“It doesn’t. It really doesn’t.”

At that moment, Jamie’s phone went off.

“Hello,” he said (to the phone, not me, we’d already said hi at this point). “Yeah, it is Jamie… What? Right now? Hmm… Nah… you know what, go fuck yourself. I’m not interested. I don’t need you anymore.”

“Who was that?” I asked.

“My letting agent,” he said. “Apparently my flat’s been broken into or something, but you know what, I'm done with these people now - thanks to you, Eric."

“Right.”

See you next time! x

Jamie put the phone down and smiled at me. There was an awkward pause; I felt maybe he’d taken this too far.

“Was that an agent?” I asked. “Did you just tell an agent to go fuck themselves?”

He smiled even more.

“No,” he said. “It was my mum.”

“What?”

“I don’t need that backstory anymore, mate.”

See you next time! x

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