This week’s guest on the award-winning foodie podcast, Dish from Waitrose, hosted by Nick Grimshaw and Angela Hartnett, is comedian Rob Beckett,
Rob talks about beef jerky; his wife’s love of rotisserie chickens; regional delicacies; and gaining a stone while filming in America. He also discusses his new show ‘Tempting Fortune’; touring; how dyslexia helped his comedy; his daughter being heckled; working with Romesh; and the new season of ‘Celebrity Traitors’.
Here's a taste of what Rob told his hosts:
Rob apparently gained a stone in America when filming with Romesh Ranganathan. “The thing is though; I put on weight so quick. I went to America filming with Romesh for like 6 weeks. I put on a stone, because I just like the food over there. Eating away. Yeah. And the booze. Everything’s so big there. Yeah. So, I have to try and be careful.”
On touring he said: "It's brutal. I was away for nearly 200 — 180 to 200 nights last year - including all like filming work as well. Um, but the tour I think was about 150, 160 dates. But I love it. It's my favourite thing to do - but it's just the travel. Getting places. You know, the, the easiest part of the tour is the gig. But the moving from here to there, hotels - being away from the kids, missing - missing all the school plays and all that- that's the hard, the hard part. The gig is the fun bit, you know?”
He says dyslexia helped his comedy: “I found out I was dyslexic about a year ago, but I didn't know all the way through school. So, I've got no working memory. And so, what that means is like, it's much harder for me to remember what I plan to do. So, I've built a sort of coping mechanism of- being able to just think on the spot all the time. And I didn't realise how much of an asset that was in live performance - until I got into it.
But I spent years trying to do comedy the way everyone else was doing it by writing it all out, practicing it. And actually, I thought, no, all I need is a bullet point, and do loads of gigs and work from there. So, my show, there's no script, there's no— I haven't got anything to show you apart from 10 bullet points. And then that might be a 10-minute routine. And then over time that sort of disappears and leaves my mind. And I used to worry about that, but no, actually, if it goes, then it can open up space for new stuff.”
Dish from Waitrose is available on all podcast providers.
Picture by Harriet Langford
