Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Actor, writer and producer, best known as co-creator of TV comedy hits Catastrophe, Motherland, Pulling and Divorce.
On the island
Eight records
The keepsakes
The book
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:49Why are you drawn to writing about the mess?
Oh, well, uh I don't know that I'd know what else to write about really. I've never been that great at working things out or or talking. … I think generally I'm trying to explore parts of my life that I haven't sort of fully worked out. I mean, I've recently started having therapy and doing the sort of normal person's route rather than making a TV show about it. But for years, I didn't want to do that. I kind of felt I wanted to hold on to the mess. Like, I was worried if I got anything fixed, that you know, something would be taken from me creatively, you know, which is a really sort of assholy thing to do.
Presenter asks
3:26Do your friends and family need to be careful about what they reveal to you?
Oh yeah, I'm a watcher. I'm like a comedy dogger. I just kind of, I especially, I really love watching people's relationships. Sometimes I get angry at myself because I think be in the room, don't be thinking about what you can do with that thing because it feels sort of cheeky, I suppose, but. I've always done it, and I used to do it in a way that was perhaps not. Well, not the right way to do it. I kind of squirreled away the stories and then they just sort of turn up on screen. But now I I'm very open and honest with people. If they're telling me something that I know for a fact is going to go in somewhere, I you know, I tell them.
Presenter asks
5:51Ernest Hemingway
it's a very light tone. It just transports me, and I think that'd be good on the island.
The luxury
laptop (word processor only, solar-powered battery)
I can escape when I write. I can legitimately talk to myself out loud because I do that a lot when I write.
How would you describe your childhood?
I mean, it was great. There was a lot to love about it. But, you know, there was stressful elements because it was a turkey farm and my parents made all their money at Christmas. So Christmas, which is supposed to be, I guess, for most kids, this time of joy and anticipation, it was just kind of us watching our father have a slow heart attack and he would start smoking again every Christmas and my mum would be literally covered in feathers. She just would spend like two weeks in a shed just trying to get it all done and Christmas Eve everyone would turn up at our house with all their tickets that they collected from every turkey they plucked and we would pay it all out. So I just remember all these sort of big stacks of money around the house and the stress of that and the Rottweilers sitting there. And then Christmas Day they'd just sleep. They would just fall asleep and they would sleep, you know, for days.
Presenter asks
9:34What was your time at convent school like?
Not great. When I look back on it now, I think about the girls and just the sort of giddiness of it all and our sort of response to being under the thumb of an actually quite psychotic nun. There was just this constant sort of fear running through you and it was very old school. It was very sort of hellfire and brimstone and it built up a really nice juicy level of guilt and shame in you at an early age. So if you had any streak of boldness in you at all, it was terrifying because you're always going to get caught. And did you? You were one of those girls who kind of couldn't help yourself. Oh yeah, I got caught drinking wine in the classroom. That was one of the most terrifying moments of my life. Someone sort of smuggled it in. We couldn't even get the cork out. We just put a compass through the top of it. So literally, I mean, it was like drips. A drizzle of wine. A drizzle of wine. But you could get in trouble for anything. You know, I got in trouble for drawing a smiley face on a uterus, you know, in science class. There was a certain way to look and behave.
Presenter asks
15:40What happened when you got to Switzerland?
Well, I mean, initially, kind of normal-ish stuff, like he made a little film of me doing some speeches and he tried me out as a singer, did a little recording. This all sounds so mental now, Lauren, that it's making me feel a bit crazy. But he got me to a modelling shoot. And then one morning I woke up and he was in the bedroom with me stroking my face. And we were supposed to be leaving the next day and suddenly we couldn't find our passports. And my sister went absolutely bonkers. And we both turned the place upside down and went crazy. And eventually they were suddenly like found. And we skedaddled and then I never heard from him again. But it did do this weird thing where I thought that someone was, you know, just going to tap me on the shoulder and tell me they were going to sort everything out for me again. So that that kind of stayed in me for a long time, very unfortunately, because it meant that I sort of did nothing for quite a while.
Presenter asks
31:41What keeps you going when life gets especially messy?
I think I just still have a a mad love for what I do. I don't know if I still get the same kind of buzz from my own stuff, but I definitely get a buzz when we get something picked up that. You know, it's the first show that they've written. It's just a mad buzz and sometimes it's a bit much and I know I take on a bit too much, but it it's because I'm genuinely excited. It's all stuff that I truly love and with people I I really admire.
“I was worried if I got anything fixed, that you know, something would be taken from me creatively”
“I'm like a comedy dogger”
“I just remember all these sort of big stacks of money around the house and the stress of that and the Rottweilers sitting there.”
“I got caught drinking wine in the classroom. That was one of the most terrifying moments of my life.”
“I lost my mind completely, and I... I've got ACD from it. I sort of developed anxiety.”