David Mitchell

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand nine.

Presenter0:28

My Castaway this week is the comedian David Mitchell.

Presenter0:31

As a teenager, he was something of a swat, suffered crippling shyness, and would rather stay in and watch telly than join any of the clubs or sports that his peers enjoyed. Now he's won an armful of awards for his T V and radio sketch shows, and for the Channel Four sitcom Peep Show, in which he stars alongside his comedy partner Robert Webb. It was written especially for them, and portrays the broadly dismal lives of two flatmates, failing to take life by the scruff of the neck and living in some squalor. I think the reason it works has a lot to do with just being honest about what your life is like, he says. So it's quite consoling if you feel ever so slightly isolated, or not quite in the mainstream, or a complete loser, to see us doing considerably worse.

Presenter1:14

Um so I'm guessing uh

Presenter1:17

David Mitchell, that you're a sort of glass half-empty kind of a guide. Is that does that seem unfair?

David Mitchell1:21

Uh

Presenter1:21

Uh

David Mitchell1:21

Yeah.

Presenter1:22

Yeah.

David Mitchell1:22

No, I'm I am gl a glass half empty person, I suppose, but but I I like to think I I don't think it's the end of the world that the glass is half empty. I I do acknowledge that there's something in the glass.

Presenter1:32

Um and what about um Peep Show? You play this character, Mark Corrigan. He does look a bit as though his mother is still buying his clothes for him. Uh how w how would you describe him? What sort of man is he?

David Mitchell1:44

Uh primarily I'd say he's unhappy and he doesn't like himself and

David Mitchell1:50

He feels he has an inability to do the things society requires of him, and his desperation is to break in and gain acceptance. I think he's neither loathsome nor commendable. I think he's like a lot of people, probably a little bit worse than average.

Presenter2:06

I said in the introduction that the part was uh

Presenter2:09

Written for you. I suppose that can't be an entirely comforting thought, then, is it? That somebody thought this is a part that belongs to David Mitch Mitchell.

David Mitchell2:16

No, it's not a comforting thought, and the number of times people say you're so like your character from Peep Show are not comforting moments. I console myself with the thought that, well, obviously he's like me'cause he looks and sounds like me, and also that I'm happy in my career and most of the choices I've made, and he isn't. And I think it's important for my mental health that I continue to draw that distinction. And I love the fact that British sitcoms are an environment in which people like Mark Corrigan are the centre of attention, in which the sort of doubting mediocrity gets a bit of focus, because God knows they don't get it in life. So, you know, I'm happy to take one on the chin to allow that to happen.

Presenter2:28

Yeah.

Presenter2:57

And what about the adulation? Somebody gave you a massive pair of pants recently, didn't they? By way of a sort of I suppose a a flirtatious message, you might take that to be.

David Mitchell3:05

Matt looked at the b Yes, at the end of one show, a massive pair of pants were were thrown at me.

Presenter3:10

Tom Jones style.

David Mitchell3:11

Uh well I I don't think they were his.

David Mitchell3:15

I think Tom Jones said they were huge, and someone had gone to the shop and bought the largest and least sexy pair of female pants available to throw at me, and it's definitely sort of a reflection on the way I'm seen, and not entirely a complimentary one.

Presenter3:29

Maybe a good time for some music. Tell me about your first track.

David Mitchell3:32

Well, my first choice is uh Walking on Sunshine by Katrina and the Waves. And that was the music that Rob and I used to use uh to do our sort of bowing to at the end of our two-man shows, because it's it's incredibly upbeat in a in a pretty one-dimensional way, but a way you can't fail to enjoy, and it definitely made audiences clap more loudly.

Speaker 43:57

Thank you.

Speaker 44:01

I know no no.

Speaker 44:03

I said, baby, I just want you back, and I want you to stay. Oh yeah.

Presenter4:24

Katrina in the waves and walking on the sunshine. I was suddenly imagining you David Mitchell may be dancing to that at the school disco.

David Mitchell4:31

I don't think my school's ever had discos, actually. Certainly I would have danced to that, I think, at university, even though that's um, you know, it's quite an old song by then. And also it's the first shows Rob and I did well the first night of the first show we did was so horrendously under rehearsed, but we'd sort of got away with it and the audience had laughed. And I really associate it with the massive wave of relief that it's it's done and they've laughed and now they're going, they seem relatively happy.

Presenter4:58

What about putting yourself through that? It's a certain sort of person who wants to put themselves through that again and again and again. What have you ever asked yourself why?

David Mitchell5:05

I d well, I th I think I think fundamentally when it goes well and when you get laughs and people clap, that feels great and you feel, you know, important and clever. I don't think it's particularly abnormal to to feel that, but maybe it's abnormal to go through a lot of stress and risk of that not happening because you you need that. And from a very young age I thought that making people laugh was about the cleverest thing anyone could do.

Presenter5:32

Did you do it as a young boy?

David Mitchell5:34

I don't think I I certainly didn't feel I did as a young boy. I I remember at the age of about

David Mitchell5:40

Ten or eleven, thinking, wouldn't it be great to be funny? Obviously, I'm not.

David Mitchell5:45

And not thinking that was bad,'cause I I had reasonable self-esteem at that age before the horrors of puberty hit, and I thought I'm quite clever and good at lessons and and this sort of thing, and I have friends, so I've I felt all right about not being funny. But I remember very definitely thinking, But I'm I'm not that. And then I think when I was a teenager I in conversation would naturally put things in a way that would make them laugh. So I I think it was when I was kind of fourteen, fifteen, I began to think maybe I'm a bit funny.

Presenter6:15

This was at school in you were at school in Oxford, you were brought up in Oxford. Yeah. And for the first few years of your life you were brought up essentially as an only child?

David Mitchell6:22

Yes, yeah. He my brother's uh sort of sev seven and a half years younger than me, so I very much remember being an only child.

Presenter6:28

Did you enjoy that?

David Mitchell6:30

I think so. You know, obviously those are the years where you're kind of allowed to believe you're the only person in the universe who matters. And I was very happy with that idea. And I remember when my parents said I was going to have a a brother or sister, that they put it to me as if it was for me, so I would have someone to play with. And I immediately did some maths and thought, well, hang on, I'm seven.

Presenter6:37

Uh

David Mitchell6:53

I'll be eight and and he or she will be naught. I don't want to play with six year olds, let alone naught year olds when I'm eight. And you know, I I sort of I think I'd actually worked out that by the time we'd be able to play properly together I'd be about the age I am now.

David Mitchell7:09

Yeah.

Presenter7:09

Do you now play proper?

David Mitchell7:10

Yes, we well we play properly if yes, we go to the pub and do the crossword. I think that's it's adult play.

Presenter7:10

I think I can

Presenter7:18

Sounds like fun. Tell me about uh tell me about the second track today then.

David Mitchell7:22

The second track is Stranger on the Shore by Akerbilk, and that's a song that basically reminds me of my childhood because my mum loved that kind of mellow sound, and you know, I do as well. And when we came to try and think of a sort of theme tune of our radio show, which is called That Mitchell and Webb Sound, it struck me and Rob as a piece of music that definitely has a sound, a very sort of cheesy, lounge sound. Yes, I think it would it would create a sense of mellowness even in the sort of terrified isolation of a desert island.

Presenter8:28

Acker Bilk and Stranger on the Shore. Y you described that, David Mitchell, as uh you were explaining why you'd chosen it as being incredibly cheesy and uh you clearly know what's not cool.

Presenter8:38

And yet you're not a cool person yourself. People who often talk about what's not cool spend a lot of their time trying to be cool.

David Mitchell8:45

Well yes, well I I'm I'm very worried about this term cool really uh because it's it's taken us so important and

Presenter8:49

Right.

David Mitchell8:54

There are more important things than being cool.

Presenter8:57

What what were the important things to you then when you were growing up?'Cause of course being a teenager that is mostly the preoccupation of teenagers, is how to be cool and how to be accepted and how to just sort of hang with the pack.

David Mitchell9:09

Yes, I think I hated being a teenager. And that's not to say that I hated my teenage years. I was sort of a bit miserable and a bit fine like most people, but the fact of being a teenager I hated. The fact of my mood clearly being changed by hormones, the arrival of which I hadn't expected. And I think I thought there was no way I could be cool. It would take too much humiliating attempts at wearing different sorts of clothes, at talking to people I was afraid to talk to, i.e. women. So I thought, well, I won't try, and then not being cool won't be a problem. I'll just try and be myself. And I think that's a pretty sensible approach, really.

Presenter9:47

Think that.

Presenter9:49

The tortured teenager, then I mean, I I worry for you. You sound as if life was a sort of daily misery.

David Mitchell9:55

No, no, it it was nothing as grandiose as being a tortured teenager. It was just I suppose aes aesthetically I the idea of being a teenager or of youth or of that kind of thing never appealed to me. I'm sort of almost tweed on the inside in some ways and and and I would I would very happily live a long life of, you know, ninety years, but being fifty for the whole time.

Presenter9:58

Yeah.

Presenter9:59

Yeah.

Presenter10:18

The the horror of of when uh puberty struck then, what what do you remember of that? What was particularly awful?

David Mitchell10:25

Puberty came at a time when I was also changing schools. And I was going from a small prep school which I really loved and where I'd been a sort of big fish in a small pond and loved doing the school play and that sort of thing, to a much larger school where I couldn't even be the best at lessons there anymore. There were too many other swats. Beforehand I'd completely when my parents said, Oh, well you know one day you'll want to have a girlfriend, this and the other, I said, absolutely not. Why would I? Well it's of no interest to me at all. I'm entirely independent person. I wouldn't want that. And then suddenly there are all these hormones and you do want that. And I couldn't bear the inconsistency in myself. I had made various statements to my parents about the fact that I had no interest ever in even meeting girls and suddenly this wasn't true.

David Mitchell11:15

And I d I just didn't yet have the maturity to say yes, I was wrong about that because, you know, I was ten at the time and perhaps I didn't know everything about the world. I can't imagine that they threw it back in your face. No, they they wouldn't have done. No. I think the product just the the idea of even being remotely teased about that for a second was unbearable.

Presenter11:35

Let's have some music. What's track number three?

David Mitchell11:37

Ah, well, track number three is Creep by Radiohead. And Radiohead actually went to the school I I went to, which is Abingdon School. It's a good school. I had a perfectly reasonable time there. But my God, there was a lot of mopey cynicism among those teenagers, myself included. And

David Mitchell11:57

I just find the words that it's a brilliant song, but the words are so depressing. And I like to think of it as our school song. I would like one day, as a stunt, to arrange for all of the pupils in Abington School to stand up in chapel and sing a sort of organ arrangement of this song. I'm a creep, I'm a weirdo, what the hell am I doing here? I think that's very much the attitude of a lot of the pupils.

Speaker 412:23

I wish I was special

Speaker 412:28

You're so very special.

Speaker 412:33

But I'm a trick

Speaker 412:39

I'm a little

Speaker 412:43

What the hell am I doing here?

Speaker 412:49

I don't belong in

Presenter12:53

Radio Head and Creep. You've won is it two BAFTAs, dear bitcher?

David Mitchell12:57

That's right, yes. One one for the sketch show and one for me.

David Mitchell13:02

Comed was it comedy performer? Comedy performer for for Peep Show, yeah.

Presenter13:05

Is it important to you? I mean, I know on the night, obviously, it's probably rather thrilling, but uh does it matter to you professionally that you've been acknowledged in that way?

David Mitchell13:12

I think it's it's impossible not to be pleased, but I think the m the main thing that matters professionally to me is that I'm allowed to continue to make programmes. But nevertheless, when you get one it's it's great. So I I'm slightly disappointed in myself by how pleased I was.

Presenter13:28

Not again.

Presenter13:30

Um, did you take your mum along to the BAFTAs? There's a trend for doing that.

David Mitchell13:33

No, I didn't. I f I feel bad now that that I didn't, but n no.

Presenter13:37

What what did they I mean, presumably they must be incredibly proud of your success. Do they talk to you about it in in absolute terms? Do they tell you they're happy?

David Mitchell13:45

Oh, they are so yeah, they're lovely about it. And yeah, really they've always been lovely about it, but they've changed the wa I can see that the uh weight has been lifted.

Presenter13:53

Uh you studied, um, history at Cambridge? Yeah.

David Mitchell13:55

Yeah.

Presenter13:56

Good times.

David Mitchell13:57

Yeah, oh yeah, I abs had a lovely time. In a w in a weird way that's where I felt I became the kind of modern me.

David Mitchell14:03

Which is obviously ridiculous to draw an arbitrary line somewhere, but I think probably most people do. And how did you look when you were a student? Well, I I wore clothes that my mother had bought for me, but, you know, under some instructions from me. Uh, so but just

David Mitchell14:19

I would have looked incredibly conventional. I was very gangly and thin.

David Mitchell14:24

I think I probably looked younger than I was, but certainly didn't look cool.

Presenter14:28

And did you have a plan? Did you think right professional acting and comedy? I know it's going to be my life.

David Mitchell14:34

I think I decided I wanted to be a comedian in my first term at university. I I think that was the point when I decided.

Presenter14:42

Did you say it out loud to people?

David Mitchell14:44

That's when I started saying it out loud because I met lots of people very quickly who were also saying that out loud, so it became an okay thing to say. So, you know, it suddenly felt while a distant uh goal, an achievable one.

Presenter14:45

Yeah.

Presenter14:56

Was your mum really still buying your clothes as a student?

David Mitchell14:59

I think so, not in an organized way, but I wouldn't buy any clothes. But I I just I I still hate buying clothes. Uh but I've going into a shop and trying something and it's on, it's frightening, it's humiliating and and and I hate the thought that anyone could point at anything I'm wearing and say to me, You think that looks good, don't you?

Presenter15:09

What is it?

David Mitchell15:20

I think that's whether or not it actually did look good. I'd find

David Mitchell15:23

Uh being in a position where that accusation was rightly made would be humiliating.

David Mitchell15:28

I'm sort of very sensitive of any accusations of vanity, which I think that very sensitivity is vain.

Presenter15:36

It it that is um unusual, to say the least, isn't it? Given that as adults we all have to clothe ourselves and some people take more care than others, but we go through the motions at least of thinking, Well, I look good in navy or I'll avoid stripes or even that sort of decision just fills you with

David Mitchell15:51

Well, yes, I think I think I allow myself to sort of say, well, what I'm looking for is something that's appropriate, but anything more.

Presenter15:51

But yes, I think I

David Mitchell15:58

Any any greater attempt at style than that I I I think is something I shouldn't allow myself. It's uh i completely illogical, but I think it goes back to the kind of teenage feeling of well, I I can't be cool, so I mustn't try.

Presenter16:12

Would you rather have a sort of Harry Potter cloak of invisibility that you covered yourself in and that people just formed their opinions on what came out of your mouth rather than how you do it?

David Mitchell16:20

Yes, I think I'd I'd settle for that. Absolutely. Or if we all had to wear a certain uniform. I'd love that. That'd be absolutely fine. Where you just standard issue clothing. Give us rules, please.

Presenter16:31

Give us some music there.

David Mitchell16:33

What have we got? The next piece is the Adagio from Corelli's Concerto No. 8 in G minor, which is I know it as the music from Master and Commander, which is a brilliant film, based on a brilliant book. There's something seductive about this world of a ship that has a very definite task that has to be run in a certain efficient way and nothing else matters. It's the ultimate escapism for the anti-multitasker.

Presenter17:57

The Adaggio from Corelli's Concerto No. Eight in G minor, the theme music to Master and Commander. Um when was it that you met your comedy partner then?

David Mitchell18:06

It was uh 1993, in the first couple of weeks of my first term. It was in an audition for the Footlights pantomime, Cinderella, and I remember being struck by his long hair and earring and thinking, This he's a scandalous man. But we didn't really get to know each other well until later that year when Rob came to see a little sketch show I'd put on with uh some friends of mine, and he he thought it was good and he asked me to do a two man show with him. And he was a year above me at Cambridge, so he was a kind of established Footlights man, and so to you know, to be asked to do a show with him was uh was very flattering. And also I thought he was funny.

Presenter18:47

Sounds like he was cool as well. The hair and the earring.

David Mitchell18:50

I think yes, I think Rob is a bit cool.

David Mitchell18:53

I d I don't think he'd mind me saying that. He's he he's he's certainly attempted to be cool and succeeded on various occasions.

Presenter19:00

There

Speaker 419:00

Uh

David Mitchell19:01

I dare say there were horrendous misses before I met him. But yes, no, he he he's a lot more comfortable in in the world of cool and dancing and and music and you know. I imagine when he was a teenager happier to be openly a teenager.

Presenter19:16

He's recently and to huge acclaim of course done this uh flash dance routine on on BBC One Prime Time. He did it I think for comic relief.

David Mitchell19:23

Yes. Did you watch? I did watch and it was terrific and absolutely nothing I could ever imagine doing myself.

Presenter19:31

Yes, I wanted to put that

David Mitchell19:31

No, it's good to watch and say, Well, we've got that side of the double X cupboard. You can do all that kind of thing. And I'll make terse remarks about the cabinet.

Presenter19:43

Uh, when did you go to Edinburgh together?'Cause you performed at the the festival.

David Mitchell19:46

We went up year after year for ages.

David Mitchell19:50

Kinda did all right there, you know, we had nice reviews and met producers, but we never had a breakthrough year.

Presenter19:56

And were you the sort who stayed up in the assembly room bar till sort of three in the morning? And

David Mitchell20:01

I certainly stayed up late a lot and got drunk a lot, but not in a sort of exciting partying way really, just in a kind of my God, this is stressful and the only part of the day I can relax is the part of the day after the show, so I must try and extend that part of the day, go to bed as late as possible, and wake up as soon before the show as possible.

Presenter20:19

Did you ever wonder why you were putting yourself through all of that?

David Mitchell20:22

I think in Edinburgh that's when you r yeah, you really question whether this can ever be a proper job, because you're not making any money. You sort of think this is no industry. There are more performers than audience.

Presenter20:31

There are more performers than audience.

David Mitchell20:35

Can't really remember. We just scrabbled together enough money to put on a show in the cheapest way possible. And then I think we were beginning to make a living as sort of jobbing writers around T V and radio shows. I started to make a living in September nineteen ninety eight, and it was a tremendous excitement to suddenly

David Mitchell20:55

be suddenly talking to my friends who had jobs, and say yes, I'm still doing the comedy thing, and look, I can get a round of drinks in.

Presenter21:02

Let's have some music, what's next?

David Mitchell21:03

Next is a song called Mm Mm by the Crash Test Dummies, which I very much associate with my time at Cambridge because it was on the radio loads, and it always makes me remember that time when I was first living away from my parents and, to my immense surprise, really enjoying it.

Speaker 321:21

Once, there was as current.

Speaker 321:27

Got into an accident and caught it come to school but when he finally came back

Speaker 321:37

Here's her.

Speaker 321:40

I turned from black into bright white

Presenter21:44

The crash test dummies and mm-mm mm-mm. There's no way, David Mitchell ready to say that without making a fool of yourself, is there?

David Mitchell21:51

No. Yes. I felt very self-conscious saying it.

Presenter21:52

I guess that's a good idea.

Presenter21:53

Well, we boosted this.

David Mitchell21:54

Yeah.

Presenter21:55

Um the conventional character that you seem to be clearly can't actually be the case. I mean, to work in comedy you have to be an unconventional person.

David Mitchell22:05

Yes, I yeah, I think I'm I must be unconventional. I've I've chosen a very odd job, and and that's what I tell myself when I'm feeling a bit down on myself for being too conventional. I remember k when I was uh in my year off between school and university, I

Presenter22:09

And and that

David Mitchell22:19

Felt very strongly that what I was supposed to want to do was go travelling.

Speaker 422:23

Yes.

David Mitchell22:23

And I felt guilty that I didn't, and I glumly went into railing with some friends, and was frightened the whole time that we'd have our money stolen, we'd be stuck and not able to get home, and essentially I didn't enjoy it, but I got through it out of duty and out of the feeling that if I didn't go travelling, then I wasn't an interesting person. And something that that sort of University and afterwards has given me the confidence to say is it was okay not to want to go travelling, and it didn't mean I was boring. And there are a lot of other people who are frightened by change and and by having to confront new situations. And I confront enough new situations, thank you very much, and so I'm allowed to be timid about other ones. But I'm I feel better about myself that I'm uh happy to say that now.

Presenter23:08

Y you once said you didn't learn to have fun until Cambridge.

David Mitchell23:12

Yes, that was it. The Interrailing trip, which was just before Cambridge, was a spectacular failure in having fun, I'd say, for me. And I didn't even know at the time it wasn't fun. I thought, right, this is a great city, I can see that. I wish I wasn't here, though.

Presenter23:27

The discovery of fun must have been extraordinary then if it didn't happen until you were 1899.

David Mitchell23:31

Yeah, well I mean I had sorts of different sorts of I'd had fun as a child. I had fun, you know, watching television, playing with Star Wars figures, you know, going to the fair, that kind of thing I liked. But as a teenager, what I wanted to be was talking t to friends I knew very well or at home watching T V or you know I was I was not at all gregarious and I learnt as a student how to have gregarious fun, how to enjoy going out and going to a party and that this didn't necessarily involve dancing at a disco. That was great as well.

Presenter24:05

Do you think other people doing those things, like dancing or wearing flamboyant clothes or even fashionable clothes, do you think they look ridiculous doing it?

David Mitchell24:14

I think some people do. I think the ones that aren't enjoying it look ridiculous. And I think that's why I was nervous of trying to affect enjoyment of those things. I think there are a lot of people that get dragged along and feel they should enjoy it, and I feel sorry for those people, and they should let themselves off the hook, put on a tweed jacket and watch Star Trek.

Presenter24:32

Do you think that's most of England?

David Mitchell24:34

I don't know, I don't know whether we're in the majority, but I don't think we get as much access to the media as our more flamboyant friends.

Presenter24:43

Let's have some music then. What have you chosen next?

David Mitchell24:46

Ah well, this is a piece of music that can never fail to cheer you up. It's Herb Albert and the Tijuana bras playing Spanish Flea. And I remember this from my childhood. This was played on the record player at home a lot. And it strikes me this would be a very appropriate piece of music to go mad to on a desert island.

Presenter25:29

Herb Alpert and the Tijuana brass and Spanish Flea. And just to be clear, David Mitchell, when you said a song to go mad to, I I wondered maybe if you meant actually to dance madly to, but you didn't know that.

David Mitchell25:38

I mean the song to Lose Your Reason To.

Presenter25:40

Right.

David Mitchell25:40

Yeah.

Presenter25:41

Um, what about I feel cautious asking you about the girls at university, because you went to this boys only school and you said you didn't you were self conscious as a teenager. When you find uh fun and enjoyment and freedom at university, did you also find women?

David Mitchell25:46

Yeah.

David Mitchell25:54

Well, I became able to have women as friends. I was I'd say unlucky in love, or certainly completely unenterprising in love.

David Mitchell26:03

Uh so no, I mean I it's I didn't sort of form any nice relationships there, but uh yeah, I had some pointless infatuations and some pointless flings.

Presenter26:14

Was that a source of regret to you at the time, eh? Did you worry about that?

David Mitchell26:18

Yes, of course I worried about it a lot, but it it wasn't a source of immense regret, I think, because I was aware that I was at least well, I was at least addressing that as an issue, and no longer hoping I'd return to my sexless ten year old self.

Presenter26:30

And boys often go into to music and join bands because they know it gets them the girls. And women love to be made to laugh. W w was there any sense in which you began to appreciate your skill in that department? I mean, that you know, if you can make a girl smile, you're half way to getting her into bed.

David Mitchell26:47

Well i if if that's true the the other half's the difficult

David Mitchell26:52

Um I I don't think I ever consciously thought that. I mean, I think you you know, you you want to th I I think there's a showing off element and you want to show off in front of women you find attractive. And it definitely counts more when they laugh than when other people laugh. And when other people laugh, you want them to have seen that.

David Mitchell27:11

But I don't think that was my primary reason for going into comedy. I think it was it was it's something that just as always a joke is something just pleases me more than anything else. And there are some people who think comedy

Presenter27:14

Yeah.

David Mitchell27:24

is frivolous and is less important than than other things, and I am horrified by that opinion. I think anyone really intelligent understands and appreciates that the funny must be part of everything.

Presenter27:39

Let's have some music, what's next?

David Mitchell27:41

Well, this is a a piece of music that just always just always makes me feel very sad and British at the same time. It it's it brings out my kind of uh melancholy patriotism, and it it's absolutely beautiful. It's Elgar's Cello Concerto, played by Jacqueline Dupre.

Presenter28:57

Jacqueline Dupre playing the opening of Elgar's cello concerto in E major with the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir John Barbara Raleigh.

Presenter29:05

So David Mitchell, Robert Webb, your comedy partner, is he's married now and he's about to have his his first child. His wife is is pregnant. Will that change everything, do you think? Will it change your partnership forever?

David Mitchell29:12

Dwife is is pregnant.

David Mitchell29:17

I imagine it'll change it, yes, but uh.

David Mitchell29:22

Rob's life will change more than mine, I imagine. In the way our partnership has sort of matured, we we're we're more professional than we were. But I I think now uh we've got the maturity for him to be a family man and for us still to get some work done.

Presenter29:37

And what about you? Do you want that for yourself one day? Do you imagine? Children and something.

David Mitchell29:40

Yes, I think I do. I certainly don't I don't want that not to happen to me without having made a definite decision. I don't want to look back and say, Oh, never had any family or children or anything. At what point did the last opportunity for that pass you by? But I th I think so. I think I'd like that.

Presenter29:58

Because I I have the impression from things I've read that that your life i is fantastically work centered and that everything else has suffered as a result. You know, you still live in a relatively I was gonna call it simple student flat. Um one might even say dingy, or certainly the people who recognize

David Mitchell30:12

I think one one might.

Presenter30:16

I mean, you're a star, for God's sake. Why has the reference?

David Mitchell30:19

Uh

Presenter30:19

rest of your life not caught up with that.

David Mitchell30:19

Yeah.

David Mitchell30:21

Well, I've I've been very busy, I think. I think I have focused entirely on work.

Presenter30:25

Yeah.

David Mitchell30:25

for a long time and and that's f for for a lot of the time it it was the most important thing to me and it was stressful and difficult. I think now, even though obviously I'm still stressed about it and very focussed and worried it's all going to go wrong, I do feel I've achieved a measure of stability in my success. Still frightened to use that word. So I'm beginning to think about other things and I suddenly notice, yes, I'm living in basically like a student and I'm single and

Presenter30:32

Good.

David Mitchell30:54

These are things I want to stop and I need to spend more time and thought on it and be less in denial of it as an issue.

Presenter31:02

Yes, have you thought about it? Have you thought about the kind of woman you'd like to meet? What's your ideal woman?

David Mitchell31:07

I don't think I have an ideal. The women I have sort of become infatuated with or in the past have been different. It's it's very much case by case. Uh I don't think

Presenter31:19

Oh, you've old romantic

David Mitchell31:20

Yeah.

Presenter31:22

Case my case. Um, so you'll be on an island and you will be all alone?

Presenter31:28

How will you deal with that apart from going mad to the Tioban Bras?

David Mitchell31:31

I won't deal with it. It it's it's a nightmare. I don't much like being on my own.

Presenter31:33

Yeah.

Presenter31:36

You'll be able to lash up a shelter and catch some fish.

David Mitchell31:39

Oh no, no, I have no skills in DIY or cookery or hunting or fishing, so I w I yeah, the the good thing is I will die of starvation and exposure probably before I can even whittle a tool sharp enough to kill myself with. But no, I I would hate that solitude. It's a nightmare, the idea of a desert island. And no no amount of music would assuage that pain.

Presenter32:02

Yeah.

Presenter32:04

Yeah.

David Mitchell32:04

Uh Yeah.

Presenter32:04

Yeah. Yeah.

David Mitchell32:04

That

Presenter32:04

Okay, let's listen to your final disc then.

David Mitchell32:06

Well if anything could while away an eternity on a desert island, it's this fantastic and very moving song from the beginning of a comedy puppet movie. It's a Rainbow Connection, sung by Kermit. I defy anyone not to fall in love with this song.

Speaker 432:22

Why are there so many songs about rainbows?

Speaker 432:28

And what's on the other side?

Speaker 432:34

Rainbows are visions. But only illusions and rainbows have nothing to hide.

Presenter32:46

Jim Henson as Kermit and Rainbow Connection from the Muppet movie. So, David, I'm going to give you a copy of The Bible and the Complete Works of Shakespeare, and you're allowed to take a book. What what are you going to choose?

David Mitchell32:57

Well I think I should choose something funny, because the Bible isn't very funny and the funny bits of Shakespeare aren't as good as the other bits in my that's my bit of literary criticism there. So I'm going to take Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh, which is one of the funniest books I've ever read, and I think is almost exactly the sort of novel I would like to have written.

Presenter33:18

Right. And uh a luxury too. What will your luxury be?

David Mitchell33:21

Could I have a television please?

Presenter33:24

Well, you can't have a television, but you could have you could have a video cassette recorder, a D V D player with a stack of particular D V D

David Mitchell33:30

Well, I'd I'll I'll have a D V D player and television set and largest possible stack of D V D's. I I think I have D V D's of sitcoms, please.

Presenter33:40

Right.

David Mitchell33:41

Of as many episodes of as many sitcoms as I'm allowed.

Presenter33:45

Okay, I'll bundle you up a boxed set then and you can have that with Uh

David Mitchell33:48

DVD player

Presenter33:48

But no broadcast television. And which one of the eight discs, if you had to choose just the one, which one would you? Um like

David Mitchell33:56

Oh.

David Mitchell33:57

Before this programme was going to say the Elgar, but in listening to them it's not going to be that, it's actually going to be Rainbow Connection, because that of all the songs is the one that makes me feel that if I were on a desert island I might get rescued.

Presenter34:10

David Mitchell, thank you very much for letting us use your desert island discs.

David Mitchell34:14

But Okay.

Presenter34:14

Uh

Presenter34:21

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.