He told me the experience of working with Tim Curry had a big effect on him.

The first time I met Tim Curry, I'd been shown around Shepparton Studios by Brian Henson, Jim Henson's son, who directed Muppet Treasure Island.

And he said, you know why you got to meet Tim? Tim's great.

I can't wait to introduce you to Tim.

And I was quite an overbearing child, I'd say.

Lots of energy bouncing off the walls.

And Tim was sitting in the makeup chair.

Did you reconnect with Tim later in his career?

Kev knows about Mike Leigh

... well, it was a 12, uh, so Mike Leigh would have a 12-week improvisation, um, a 12-week rehearsal process where the, the actors would improvise, and then they'd improvise and improvise in character, and then it became a solid script.

[laughs]

But we were, we were rehearsing their, their, you know, their creation.

And so it's just a lovely way to, to, to create something, and I think that's why it still holds up because it's real dialogue, real characters, and, um-

You're-

Oh, my God.

I've done it again, so I'm, I'm so, I'm so jet lagged from fucking Los Angeles.

Right.

Listen, I'm gonna do it now.

I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm at home.

I'm ready.

Oh, okay.

Summarize your relationship with the senator.

My job was just to make sure Lindsey knew everything that was going on in the world.

He knew how to say it and he knew what to say, but that's had to keep him up to date.

Lindsey was a force of nature.

The guy was just a tremendous, I think he was as sharp as a tack if you just wanted to look at it.

He knew how to talk.

He knew how to talk to people.

Answer that for me.

I know how tough this has to be for all of you, and this seemingly came out of nowhere, didn't it?

Yeah, Mike, it absolutely did.

I worked with Lindsey for 27 years, Mike.

I think one of the great, maybe untold stories about Lindsey was the number of people who were around Lindsey for decades.

There are several people in the office who were with Lindsey for 30, 32, 34 years.

I was there for 27.

I was one of the top, but certainly not the top people.

And frankly, it's a trait that's kind of rare these days in Washington, D.C. No,

Kevin, what do you think? Can you tell us something about Senator Lindsey Graham that nobody watching knows?

Lindsey was very, for a United States senator who was known around, frankly, not only within his own state, within his own country, he was known around the world.

He was a very unpretentious guy.

This is a guy you got to understand.

He was the first in his family to go to college.

He graduated from University of South Carolina.

His parents died when he was very young and left him a sister, Darlene, who he loved dearly.

He was really close with his staff.

We

had to come up with a lot of ideas.

We shot 50 sketches for a 23-minute episode.

So the Kevin Bishop show was very breakneck-paced.

There was no sketch over a minute long.

Wow.

A lot of them aren't suitable for today's sort of climate.

How did you get to know Steve?

Yeah.

And, uh, Paul said to me, we were doing impressions of Billy Connolly together, and Paul knew...

That when you meet someone who does impressions, y- y- you, when you see the thing you know how to do, the, you are unlocks the impression.

And Paul's thing was like, he went, "Billy's always i- in a state of wonder," you know? He'd go, "Look at that.

Somebody made that with their mind.

Oh, look at that.

You get a weird how that comes out, that look." And that wa- that was, uh, the, that was the unlock of Billy Connolly.

Yeah.