Do you still get kids fondly remembering that show, A Lot of Horrible Histories? Coming up and singing the King Charles song to you? Yeah,

like you wouldn't believe, honestly.

But the funny thing is that over the years, the OG generation, they're now adults, they're now men with beards.

One of the most common phrases that I get from people who come up to me for Horrible Histories is, you were my childhood.

Isn't that nice though? It's lovely, but it's bizarre for that to now be from people old enough to have their own kids.

You can't have any delusions about your age when that's the case.

But yeah, it's getting on for 20 years since we first began, you know.

And he says, it's actually heartbreaking that he says, oh, I quite like wearing trousers.

Totally.

It just sowed a little seed that then later I started getting into comedy.

While I was still at Rose Bruford, actually, I was sort of watching more and more like clown companies basically, fringe kind of comedy shows.

And I wrote to a few different people whose work I liked and said, can I come and watch you rehearse over the summer holiday? And the director of a lot of these shows that I loved was a guy called Cal McChrystal.

And this company called Spy Monkey got back to me and said, yeah, come, we're rehearsing a show over the summer.

Come and, you know, spend as long as you like with us.

And Cal was the director.

So it's about comedy is truth?

like...

Just like so...

Just sow the seeds of doubt.

Wow.

But also because then people...

I mean, ghosts are hard to believe anyway, but if someone went, you know the guy from...

Horrible histories.

when the film

and then

the idea that Jack's spirit is fading was like, oh, that's a bit like Back to the Future, and then the group of kids coming in, like the Goonies, and we were like, oh, these are all kind of our favorite films from when we were kids.

And that's when it really felt like, oh, this is cinema, like we can really, we can really paint it on that canvas and we can have a big orchestral score and make it feel like a cinema trip in the way that we think of from our childhood.

Oh yeah, I mean we gave sort of, you know, with Simon who directed it as well, there were sort of little references, sometimes just put in the script, sometimes it would be this bit, you know, and send a little screenshot from something and go, we were kind of, thinking it's slightly reminiscent of that so there's those little nods and touchstones but also throughout you know easter eggs for for fans of the show we wanted something that could just be a film that you could go into completely fresh and not knowing the show and enjoy but also you know a level on which there's things in there which are really rewarding for like fans of the tv version lots of little i think as well one of the biggest things that for me makes

it feel like a film in that sense is the score which is i'm going to get her name horribly wrong now but suna ware maya i think is how you pronounce it just is an absolute genius and just gave us goosebumps with the score that she delivered and it really does make it it for me it takes me back to that feeling of watching those kind of films when i was a kid

Not props.

What's the bear? Is the bear a prop? The bear...

I mean, so this was a nightmare.

Because the bear is in the house, and they've kept it there, and keen viewers of the TV show will know that the bear gets destroyed in the last series.

But because it was always there... we'd sort of forgotten that fact.

And so we shot with the bear on the stairs.

We shot the film with the bear on the stairs.

So when they go, do you want to wear these

yeah

and you just have it sitting in your belly and it doesn't go away yeah with philippe you would be doing something you'd be midway doing something through doing something Knowing that you're dying on your ass.

And then he would like he'd sit there.

I remember one time he just got his keys out of his pocket and started just looking through his keys.

And gradually everyone's looking at him.

and laughing at him and eventually just sort of stop and he goes well they are more interested in my keys than what this shit that you are doing and he would like i think he was at a but everyone would laugh like and he'd turn to like your friend and go was he shit was it boring or was he excellent or you know and they would go yeah he was shit and you beautiful it was wonderful like it's by the time you sit down it's just like there's nothing in the air it's just all i love that i love it i absolutely yeah

PG or a 12?

It's a PG.

So you started this series in 20... uh, '18, '19, something like that?

Yeah, it was a long while ago.

The funny thing about that as well is that as Gho- like we decided that ghosts stay exactly how they die.

So obviously ghosts, they, they will look the same for eternity.

And meanwhile we as human beings are aging.

Yeah.

And we kind of...

Uh, the-there are huge benefits to...

Yeah

... and we kind of, uh...

Th- there are huge benefits to...

You know, it's not like it's always all six of us working in a room together for every minute of it.

So we, we kind of, we get together in a room a- as many of us as we can and kind of throw ideas around, and it's important that as many of us as are, are there as possible in that phase.

[laughing] So can you clear it up? What-

It's not...

It's, it was just a guy, a, a, a v- a very eccentric and very brilliant Frenchman called Philippe Gaulier who would tell you when you were boring, and on the v- rare occasion you weren't boring, it w- you felt on top of the world.

[laughs]

We connected immediately, and we just...

I felt like I'd met a best friend, and because she was with somebody who was also a friend, uh, like a new friend, I don't, I didn't open any part of my mind to the possibility of being attracted to her.

I think I probably was but just wasn't admitting that to myself.

And then they split up, and then actually what happened was another mutual friend said to me, "You're in love with her, aren't you?"

No, do

... after Me Too, and there's s- I mean, just so much awful stuff.

You know, nothing has changed it would seem.

It's...

Oh, the other thing I thought was you sometimes ask what people are going to be buried with.

Yes, yes.

And I thought there is, I've had quite a lot of false sets of teeth made for various projects I've done.

And that won't, they won't, they're not going to fit anyone else.

So I can't.

Different one every day.

big bottom

Yeah.

I, yeah, I did some filming at Sellars Park once, and they just let me on the pitch, and I... someone got hold of a ball, and I scored a goal.

There was no one in the grou- there was me, uh, the, the cameraman, and the sound guy.

Go City.

City.

[outro music]

who

did you support Well, we supported...

I don't know if this audience are going to be impressed.

They will be impressed.

We once...

I'll tell the story.

We had stopped doing it, and it had been a couple of years since we'd stopped.

So

not

for us to say.

But the weird thing is, like, we...

As you say, we were cast in horrible histories.

I've been on the record a lot.

I've made no secret of the fact that when it first came to me, I was like, I don't want to do kids' TV.

And my agent said, well, look at the scripts because they're quite funny.

to sort of get your