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Anyone who doubts that climate change is a thing should come to Edinburgh pretty much every August for the last 35 years and make a note of how the weather and temperature has changed. I’ve got used to being soaking wet and cold every summer but it’s scarcely drizzled this year and today was like being in a Mediterranean city. I did not like it. I want to be wet and cold and then dry out in ridiculously hot venues.
RHLSTP has given me the opportunity to meet some of my comedy heroes. I am more of a comedy fan than a comedian, let’s face it. One that’s won a competition and been allowed to do his own shows. Today I got to hang out with Janeane Garofalo who was one of the many great things about the greatest comedy show there has ever been, The Larry Sanders Show. Today we got to find out about why she left the show, to join the cast of Saturday Night Live, in what, in hindsight was a bad move.
She’s an extraordinary comedian, right at the heart of the group that in the 1990s would change American comedy, but she’s very modest about her role in that, ascribing it to luck and being in the right place at the right time. I was nervous about meeting her - her characters were often surly and sarcastic and super 90s cool and she was a big Hollywood star so there was a chance she’d be full of herself, but she’s down to earth and vulnerable and great. She thought we’d met before, but even though we both used to drink too much, I think I’d remember that (and doubt that she would) as it would have been a pretty big deal for me.
Both of us enjoyed varying degrees of success in the 90s (I can’t remember if I did any films with Uma Thurman, but I probably did) and have had to cope with an industry that hasn’t viewed us as such hot property since (though we’ve both managed to carry on working - and again one of us has still acted in some very high profile and brilliant shows and films. I don’t think there’s any value in discussing which one of us).
I feel a greater sense of injustice for Janeane though, but she didn’t seem to think that the subsequent success of the men that she worked alongside was anything to do with sexism or with an industry not valuing older women in the same way as it does older men. She’s incorrect though.
What an honour to talk with her and she was even more open and honest back stage.
The podcast will be out in a couple of weeks.
Omid Djalili will be my guest on the final Edinburgh RHLSTP. The Tim Key show on Friday has sold out, so book now for Omid and Ed Gamble on Thursday and Sanjeev Kohli on Saturday. Now I have to concentrate on booking the September Leicester Square shows.
Do come along if you can.
The second Edinburgh RHLSTP is UP. Kiri and Rachel from All Killa No Filla are the guests.
Listen here.
