Hello, I'm Charles Mallett with the UK Column interview today. I'm very pleased to have Alastair Williams with me. He is a comedian and commentator and notes from this interview will be posted at ukcolumn.org, so please be sure to review those and send them on now. Alastair, a very warm welcome to UK Column. Thanks very much for joining me. Many of the audience, I'm sure, will be aware not just of you as an individual, but of your great array of, of work over the
years. What I'd like to do before we deal with all the various issues that confront us today is to go back, not through all the sounds of time, but some of them to the, the sort of the genesis of your career as a comedian and what it was that led you down that path. It's a, it's a big and bold step to enter that world and I, I would like to understand better the, the inspirations upon you and your aspirations back then when you were starting out. Sure. OK, Yeah, that's a good
question. I guess initially I always, always thought I would have liked to have been a comedian. On my 18th birthday, I went to the Comedy Store in Leicester Square, which is not a usual choice for someone who's 18, you know, usually go to nightclubs, that sort of thing. But I wanted to go to the Comedy Store in Leicester Square. I always looked at comedians and thought, oh man, I'd love to do
that. I was always sort of one of the, the joker type in, in class with my friends, always thought I'd like to do that. And then it took me till I was about, so I was about 30 to try it. And I went and did an open mic and I realised that, you know, I thought I was going to be really intimidated by how good everyone was. And I was like, oh man, these guys are rubbish, you know. Well, I could be rubbish. No, I can be as good as them, they're rubbish.
But everyone is when you start. And when I started, I was rubbish. And then, you know, so I was just sort of doing it in my spare time. And then eventually I started getting paid to do it and it just sort of took over as my full time job. But initially I wanted to be like, you know, famous and I want to be in Hollywood and I want to be this great comedian that everyone loved. And, you know, I had those sort of childish hopes and dreams about it.
But yeah, things have changed quite a bit since then. But you know, that was the original. That's a good start point, I think for, well, certainly for me, but for the audience as well. So let's go, let's go further forward because obviously you've been through some big ups and downs over the last few years, which I think I would be right in saying are effectively traced back to the Brexit in a Burger King period.
But but or or not. But either way, when at what point did things start to change? OK. That's a good question. I did used to have to go to Edinburgh and you'd do like an hour long comedy show to sort of showcase yourself. And I did this show called Food where I basically it was an hour long comedy show. And I was explaining to people that, you know, people like what can I eat to be healthy?
And essentially the point of the show was the food that you can eat to be healthy is the food that's sort of naturally here on the earth. That's either, you know, animals are growing out the ground. And it was a really sort of sort of an educational message about food. And that got sort of agents interested in me. But I quickly figured out that they weren't interested in sort of helping people eat the right foods. You know, they were interested in, you know, changing what I
was saying, really. And that's when I got my first sort of TV agent. And when I got my first sort of TV agent, I really noticed how much I was being sort of coerced to change what I was saying into something completely different. And I really didn't get on with my, you know, sort of TV agent because they didn't want to change what I was saying. And then Rexy Burke came slightly after that, which was the sort of the piece of comedy that sort of made me go sort of
really viral. And that also made the comedy industry or whoever runs it, the entertainment industry decide that I had to be sort of completely erased at that point because I was sort of, I was doing it for myself really. They they'd already, they'd already told me that I wasn't going to be back on the television or anything like that. I, you know, when I, when I left this agent, they, they made sure that, you know, I wouldn't be able to, you know, be sort of mainstream famous anymore.
So they sort of destroyed my career, this mainstream agent I left and then Brexit, Burger King was me sort of saying, OK, well, I'll just sort of go viral by myself then. You know, I don't, I don't feel like I needed to be on the television. I was like, I can just, I can just go on YouTube and put my stuff up there. And at the time I didn't realise how controlled YouTube was. You know, I was like, oh, we don't need the TV anymore. We've got YouTube. I can just, you know, grow a big
YouTube channel. And then I later down the line, I sort of discovered that, oh, YouTube is exactly like the television. You know, like Twitter is exactly like Netflix is exactly like television. You know, it's all controlled to 1° or another.
But yeah, Brexit, Burger King was sort of my first, my most popular viral piece of content and the beginning of the end, basically it was the opposite to how it should work, should be like it was Brexit at the time, all these comedians were trying to do comedy about Brexit and it was all the same. It was all, you know, if you voted for Brexit, you're a big
racist. You know, it was, and it was a million different versions of that on the BBC and everywhere, you know, And mine was the first bit of comedy. I think really that took a sort of so opposite view or just a different, not even opposite view, just a different view to that. And it should, if the comedy industry was real, it should have made the whole comedy to go, wow, here's this guy and he's saying something new and interesting about Brexit. Everyone thinks it's funny.
Instead it was like this guy has to be destroyed. You know, you must, you must never hear from this comedian again. And it really just sort of exposed the the hypocrisy, I guess, in the comedy industry. And it's my career, if you like. It really just sort of exposed the comedy industry as being fake.
Because if the comedy industry was real and they were sort of out there looking for comedians that are popular, that make people laugh and sort of broadcasting their reach, you know, then they would have everything to do with me. But they don't want anything to do with me because comedy is not really about that. I'm sure people might, some people might struggle with. What do you mean it's not about that? Like, they're not trying to pick the funniest comedians to make you all laugh.
That's the last thing they're doing. There's a real agenda to everything in the entertainment space, but especially comedy, you know, especially comedy, which is one that people think, oh, comedy, surely that's the one place where you must all be free. It's like, yeah, that's. And that's the reason why it's the most tightly policed because it is the place where you would expect that everyone can just, you know, say whatever they
want. And. And that's the reason why it doesn't work like that at all basically. I think that's completely fascinating and that and that is exactly what I would like to get into with you. You, you just at the beginning of that you talked about being coerced and being being coerced effectively, as I understand it, into creating particular material or only delivering particular material.
You just go into a bit more detail on on how exactly does that work in terms of having an agent or, or you know that space and coercion and and then getting to the point of finding that comedy is used as such a tool. Firstly, people usually say, you know, I don't understand how, how would that work or how does it work? It's all sort of run through the agents and the managers. That's how they control everything.
And, and what they say to the comedians is, you know, oh, what you're sort of doing, it's not really going to work for, for television. You know, this isn't really going to go across. This is not what the television companies are looking for. And by doing it that way, they can sort of control what what the public is, is given as comedy. I'll give you an example. When I was just signed with this television agent, I had this, this these pieces of material about how we shouldn't be on our
phones so much. We shouldn't use our phones so much. You know, society's really been damaged by us all being on our phones. And this is one of my most popular jokes at the time. It was really, really popular. And I was supporting this comedian on tour who was way more famous than me, really, really popular comedian. And I was doing these jokes on his show and he would came backstage to me and said, hey, man, those jokes, those iPhone jokes are amazing.
They're incredible, man. That's some, some of the funniest stuff I've heard. And literally that same night, my agent, who is his agent as well, said, we can't, you can't use those iPhone jokes anymore, right? And I was like, what do you mean I can't use those iPhone jokes? And well, the crowd love him And, and your biggest act, he said, that's my best stuff is that there's no way I'm getting rid of that, right? I'm like, what are you, what are
you talking about? And I was never, I was supposed to support this guy on his whole tour. They took me off his tour the next day. I never worked with him again. It would because I had displayed, you know, I'm not going to be controlled by you. It's like they told me to not do this. And I'm like, no, I'm not doing that, You know, because I really believe people are on their phones too much. And people were laughing at my material.
And I always has always had the sort of the sort of attitude of when an agent or a manager or someone would try and tell me how to do comedy or what I what I must say or what I couldn't say. I was like, you know, I don't, you're an agent or a manager, OK, fine. But you're not a comedian. You've never done this before. You have 0 minutes experience, you know in in what you're
giving me advice. I'm not here to take your advice on how to be a comedian, how to make people laugh because that's something that you don't know how to do. You know, I'm the expert in that. The guy who I'm supporting on tour, he's very successful and he told me that's a great piece of material. There's no way I'm, I'm going to stop doing this.
And the way the agent or the manager might sell it to you, it's like, oh, well, it's, you know, it's not going to work on TV because, you know, we got sponsors and stuff and, and they might be sort of phone companies and they don't, you know, so
there's that. But there's also a real sort of political side to it. This it's a real sort of everyone in comedy is left wing or all the BBC comedy is left wing it and everyone in the comedy industry, comedians especially like to think themselves as left wing because they still have this very sort of childish perception of like left is good and right people are mean and and I'm a goodie, so I'm on the left and all the baddies are on the right.
You know, it's like, you know, a six year old or something. But the way they keep that going is anyone who steps outside a sort of a sort of a rabid left wing position. Anyone that steps outside of that, you just you won't work anywhere, you know, people who won't book you for shows and that sort of thing. And, and that'll be their
excuse. Like when they cancelled me after the Brexit Burger King thing, their excuse for doing that was, well, you were on stage with Nigel Farage because they invited me to come and come and do this piece of comedy at one of the Brexit rallies. And back in the day, I was even more naive about the whole thing. I used to think that, you know, the Brexit Party with the good guys, if they got in, everything would change. So I was like, yeah, sure, I'll, I'll come and do that.
So I went and did that and they took photos of me next to Farage and all the comedy clubs. And people use that as an excuse. It's like, you know, we're cancelling you because it's not. There's nothing wrong with the joke because there's never wasn't anything wrong with the joke. Even people who thought we should remain in the European Union were like, oh, this is a great joke. I'm laughing at this is funny. So there's no real premise for them to cancel me about that.
So they were like, well, we'll not cancel you for that because they couldn't. They were like, but it's because you stood next the Nigel Farage. You know, that's why. And I've actually reached the point where I perhaps even consider that I might have been put on stage next to Farage so that I could be cancelled for standing on stage next to Farage, basically. So that's the way that they control all elements of comedy and the entertainment industry, but especially comedy is policed.
A lot of the comedy you see on on television has canned laughter put over it. And on my one only time they put me on TVI remember I went to the recording and literally probably 19 out of the 21 comedians that were being recorded for television, they they died on their, they died on their butt. Is the, is the expression in the industry. They were, they were out there doing their jokes to no laughs
whatsoever, right? The the, the in studio audience just like, oh, this is awful, you know, And then when I watched it back on the TV, oh, these guys were absolutely killing it. They were cutting to the crowd, falling around laughing. And I realized like, oh, oh, This is why a lot of people, they watched comedy on the television. And they say, I don't get it. Like I don't, I don't find this funny.
Like, but everyone's laughing. It's like they're probably not like they probably they record a really sort of rabid left wing position and they put canned laughter over the top of it. And that convinces you as the listener, like even if you're not laughing, it's like, well, everyone else agrees with this. So, you know, look, this whole, this whole audience is cracking up about how amazing feminism is.
So you must be, you know, way outside of where everyone else is thinking if you don't think this is funny. So it's, it's, it's a real vehicle for them manipulating how people perceive everyone thinks is putting TV comedy on. And just to add 1 further point to this, I used to be in when I had my TV agent, a lot of the guys that I was performing with, they would be sort of really sort of left wing guys.
And they would they would go to their TV recordings and they would sort of privately say to each other, does anyone else find it weird how crazy the crowd goes for our stuff? Like, you know, not even the punch lines. They'll be like, I'm just up there and the set up And they were like, yeah. And and they're just like it's really like strange. It's like, yeah, like, you know, the whole thing is manipulated to the point where even the left wing comics are just like putting me off.
How the audience just falling over themselves, you know, at these set up recordings to, you know, really lay it on thick. And sometimes they use can laughter and sometimes they just use a an audience full of planted people who are just going to go nuts to anything you say, basically.
Fascinating insight. I mean, for, you know, for the vast majority of us who have absolutely no idea how the comedy industry or the, you know, sort of the minutiae of, of the, the performance side of it would work. But we, I think it's, it's much more obvious to people in mainstream media in say film industry where exactly like you're describing, you know, we're, we're constantly given the impression that everybody thinks that. So therefore you must think the same.
But comedy, I think is one of those areas exactly like you say, that people overlook. They don't, they don't imagine that can be the case. But so this is what you saw. What did you find that you were working alongside other people who did see it or who you know, as it would appear to us now, like a lot of mainstream journalists who, OK, notwithstanding the sort of vested interest side of it who appeared just not to be able to see it, did.
Were there people around you that did see this and how did they react? I mean, it's in their best interest not to see it. They're quite clever in that everyone is at this sort of level, sort of. They're on the TV, they've got an agent, they're all on the on the gravy trains, so to speak. You know, they don't want to see
the things that that I'm seeing. And I remember I would go to other comedians and I reached the stage where this agent was directly trying to ruin my career because I wouldn't toe the line. So it's reached the point where the person who's supposed to be trying to help my career was actively trying to ruin it. Like an, I mean, like if a meeting, if I was on the radio at 12:30, they would send me, they would tell me it starts at 1:30. So I'd be an hour late, you know, and they would
consistently do this. And the other acts that I was signed, this agent, you know, they're all, they've got the same agent as me and we're friends. So I'm like, you know, that they had ruining my stuff on purpose. But they were like, you know, they would say like, Nah, I don't believe that. I'm like, well, look, I got the evidence right here in the e-mail.
I don't want to see it. I want to see it, you know, like, no, they wouldn't want to see it and no one wants to see it. It's not like I couldn't prove what's going on. It's just, you know, no one, no one really wants to admit that this is going on because 99% of people are just more than happy to go along with it. And they keep you so anxious in the comedy entertainment industry. You know, everyone's desperate
to get their age. And once they've got their agent, they don't lose their age. And, and, you know, they, they really sort of, if you go to the Edinburgh Comedy Festival and see the anxiety that is in the performers, you know, everyone, it's like they, they keep you like piranhas in a tank, you know, and they've got everyone just desperate to cling on to their seat at the table.
And, you know, they get most of the comedians into debt by sending them up to Edinburgh every year and tell them they've got to spend 40 grand on the show and hope that someone who works for PRLC or something. Anyway, they've got everyone desperate just to hang on to this, this, this chance of fame that they have. And, and 99.9% of the people in that industry, they are not interested at all in taking any sort of a actual moral position or anything.
They just want to be famous, you know, they just want to be on, you know, the BBC or, you know, and, and I would be, I would, I'm very vocal and I was on that Brexit Boking video. I was very vocal about the fact that the BBC are just this terrible organization with, with a record of, you know, covering up for, you know, Jimmy Savile and this sort of thing. I'm like, why would you ever want to work for this
organization? It's horrendous in my view, propaganda institution that's ruining this country. And you know, but 90% of the convenience was like, hey, I'm on BBC, you know, like check this out Mum and dad, you know, that's it's great for them. Like no one really has any sort of morals in that industry really. Because if you do, they just, they just kick you out, you know, So you really do have to make a choice.
But fortunately for me in a way, you know, they'd already sort of they'd already sort of booted me out and, and rejected me if you like, but not, you know, playing ball. So, you know, what did I have to lose? And Brexit Burger King was just me kind of saying like, hey, you know, just just leave me alone because I can do this. I can do this by myself. And I gave, I gave, I gave the establishment a bit of a black eye with the Brexit Burger King
thing. Just because people are people might not realise how bad things are, but so this Brexit, Burger King thing, for example, it was sort of anti the European Union in a way, right? When I would go on comedy tours with other comedians around Europe, we'd all be using the same promoter, right? And we'd all be staying in the same hotel. My room would always be terrible and it'd be tiny, be small. I'm like, you guys, room's terrible. But no, I was like, what is
going on? And then one time the guy who works on reception in the hotel was like, Hey, you know, he let the car out of the bag. He was like, Hey, you're the, you're the anti European Union guy. Enjoy your room. I'm like, oh, oh, right. You know, that's why you know, and I think there is a kind of, it's kind of like a digital black spot that they put on people like me, like my Twitter won't grow. My YouTube doesn't grow. Like it's not as simple as they
cancelled my YouTube channel. It's like, no, no, no, the whole thing is connected. All the social media works, networks are connected. Like if you are sort of marked out as someone who is trouble who they, they don't want everyone listening to you, no one's going to be able to find you basically. And they can make your life miserable in in a number of different ways. And they were already doing that with me before Brexit, Burger King, but they were certainly sort of doing it afterwards.
So, you know, there's no chance that they're ever going to allow me to have any sort of a mainstream career. But that's not even something I'm interested in anymore anyway. So it's fine. But you know, the the whole sort of social credit score system that people think only exists in China, I'm pretty sure it's here already. It's just, it's not, they're not sort of overt about it, you know what I mean? I think you're quite right. I'm I'm certain it's absolutely
here. And and that, you know, goes back to the the the jokes about iPhones and the, and the, you know, how critical it is to the, to the system functioning that everybody is glued to a device all the time. Yeah, I think the the the last bit really as the the the. Newly appointed or relatively newly appointed chief executive of Twitter or X said freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach, I think was her catch phrase.
But you, you know, what you're talking about in terms of taking a moral line or, or, or, or a decision, a choice which going back to your initial aspirations, you know, you have been faced with a, with a difficult fork in the road in effect, that the, the illusion of the world of comedy sort of shattered around you. And yet obviously you have decided to stick with comedy as something that is, you know, still a very big part of your life.
How did you? Well, I mean, I don't know how hard the decision that was to make, but how did you make that decision? Did you question you know that it might be something that you would get out of altogether? There was a time when I wasn't sure where, whether I would, whether I would keep doing it, but it's, it's what I'm supposed to be doing. And I've always been, I've always been sure of that. And you know, I'm pretty sure that's why God, what God made me to do.
And I'm pretty sure that God gave me specific talents and he's, he's expecting me to use them to tell people the truth. Because if you're already good at stand up comedy, people will listen to you because they're laughing and they're just and when someone's laughing at something you say, they're admitting that it's true. So it like no other art form or medium. You change someone's mind with stand up comedy because you make them laugh. They're sort of agreeing with you.
If I'm just talking about it doesn't matter what it's let's say I'm talking about climate change and I've got the whole audience laughing at at climate change. Well, really they're sort of saying, hang on, maybe this whole thing is a bit silly. This is a bit ridiculous and it's not so serious. I thought, you know, you can really change people's, can we change people's mind and change
people's ideas? And I'm 100% certain that the talents I had are God-given and that he's created me to use these talents to tell people the truth. I couldn't care less what, you know, they think at the BBC or the Netflix, you know, I'm doing what I'm doing what he tells me to do. So you know, I'm going to keep doing it, even if it's only on a small scale.
You know, right now I'm just sort of doing this sort of the comedy circuit and they won't let me in the big clubs anymore, but I'm sort of beneath that and I'm sort of doing my own thing. But you know that, you know, that's absolutely fine. You know, that's absolutely fine. So I never really, I never really came that close to giving
up all together. But there was a time when I was doing more stuff on sort of social media and more stuff on YouTube just because, you know, that's where where my career sort of took me sort of thing. And then they had the whole sort of three-year period where there was no comedy shows anyway. So it's just as well I had something to do during that time. But now I'm sort of getting more back into doing live stand up comedy really. But I never considered, you know, stopping doing it.
It's like I'm good at this. Why would I why would I stop doing this, especially when you know, there's there's no one I've ever offended. You know, I find it's one of the one of the few people you can find is cancelled and there's no discernible reason why. Like you can't even point to a single person who's like, oh, he offended me about this. You know, it's so the people that they really want to cancel, they just, they just do it quietly.
They just, they shadow ban you. They take away your channels. They, they, they reduce your reach, so to speak. You know, the people that they publicly cancel, like Andrew Tape, for example. You can't go anywhere without hearing this guy's name everywhere. You know what I mean? It's like you go on these big Piers, Piers Morgan about how cancelled I am. It's like, oh, come on, guys. You know, like the people, they own everything, including the people that have cancelled.
Like, you know, the people who the people who are famously cancelled are part of the whole thing. You know, there's there's very little, there's very little legitimate voices out there that have, you know, big followings. I don't know if there's any. That's completely fair enough. I think there's a very accurate summary of the situation. But tell me and, and you know anyone I, I, as I say, I should imagine a vast majority of the audience will be familiar with
some of your material. They may have even had the the pleasure of listening to you live. So I speak, I think for everybody when I say we're absolutely delighted that you didn't give up comedy. But do you find now, having, having seen things for what they are and feeling, I think I'm right in saying that you have, like you just said, you have a clearer path in life. Has that made a difference to the connection that you feel with an audience? Yeah, I, I guess so.
I guess so. How many audiences are really sort of honest group of people? You know, they're just out to have a good time. They want to have a laugh. And if you make them laugh, they're enjoying themselves and that's it. You know, it's really not a difficult industry to run. It's like if the guy's up there speaking and everyone's laughing, he's good at this, Get him to do it more. But like I say, having a connection with the audience and stuff like that has never been
my problem. Like making people laugh has never been my problem. Like staying alive outside of the outside of the game, Having made a room full of people laugh is the difficult bit. You know, especially when you're sort of broaching the sort of topics that I want to that I want to broach, you know, for example, enforced speech around
pronouns, that sort of thing. 99% of people think that that's horrendous and they don't like it and they don't really think that this man is a woman or this woman is a man. They, they know it's nonsense, right? But they're terrified. They're terrified to say anything. This is, they know they're going to be relentlessly bullied. They'd probably lose their career. So we're in this sort of weird position where 95% of the population don't agree with this
stuff. They can see how damaging there is, but they're not going to say anything because they're too worried about what it might cost them. Well, it's already cost me everything. And I'm in the position of somebody who should be saying something about this. You know, it's the comedian's job is to point out the ridiculous. Like throughout the pandemic, for example, comedians that weren't talking about how ridiculous the whole thing is. I'm like, you know, where are you guys?
Like all the comedians I used to love, all the comedians I used to think were great and amazing. I couldn't care less for any of them after this pandemic. If you were a comedian, someone who's supposed to be making observations for a living, right, you're, you know, you're supposed to really be able to tell what's going on and then explain to people and you're sitting through this thing and you're, you're making jokes like, Hey, if you not vaccinated, punch yourself.
It's like now that's, that's, that's gone past sort of incompetence and into sort of, you know, evil, to be honest with you. So I lost, I lost a lot of respects. I never, I never lost a connection with the audience, but with, with my sort of peers or the sort of famous comedians, but the same thing with sort of famous musicians or famous actors. It's really exposed to me how fake that whole industry is.
These these people that you're given to follow, you know, and the way our, our culture encourages that, you know, there's some of the most, some of the most gutless, spineless people that there are available who'd literally they're just, like I said before, they just want to keep their space at the table of being this extra special human being who's famous, you know. And yeah, so I always, I always, you know, had had no problem having a connection with the
audience. It's just it's the slime of the entertainment industry that that I don't want to be involved in. Fair enough. And you make a very good point about the on the observational side of it and, and not offending people, not, not necessarily saying it's an explicit sort of purpose in your material.
But but on that though, how, how do you yourself, and particularly now, how do you decide what will be something that you can effectively make a joke out of and, and, and that you would, you know, might for whatever reason, decide not to? How do you how do you filter stuff? I just sort of go with what I, what I, what I want to talk
about. I sort of go with what I, what I think is, is amusing or if there's a particular issue that I'd like to, and I'd like to have people reconsider about whether they want to go along with this sort of agenda. I'll, I'll try and make, you know, jokes about it, for example. So I don't really have a don't really have a particular thing that I may need to do.
I just, I just want to do what, you know, what I think, what I think people will laugh at. But there's very few comedians that, you know, are actually doing that. You know, a lot of a lot of the comedians these days, they're trying to, they're trying to do what their agent and their manager tells them that people want to hear about, which is usually a sort of monotone left wing stuff. You know, there's very few people out there that are legitimately just saying what they think is funny.
Most of it is sort of agenda driven. So yeah, I just sort of go with what I think is what I think is funny. Basically sounds pretty simple, but that's supposed to be what we're all doing really. Fair enough. And it works. Last year a British comedian of the year at the Comedy Store, which is a fantastic achievement and and I I'm sure would have given you a sense of enormous sort of pleasure and
satisfaction. And in a way one in the eye for a lot of the people that you described sort of earlier on in this interview. But I think to people who have heard that, you know, your story is one of having been shunned, completely pushed outside. And then you've had this amazing success at the Comedy Store, just to sort of clear the path as to how that happened. How does how does that work? How were you able to get to that? I'll tell you how, Charles. I'll tell you exactly how.
I don't enter comedy competitions because they're all crooked, essentially. They have judges and the judges just pick the most left wing or you know, the person who ticks all the right boxes or whatever. But the British Comedian of the Year is the only competition that's voted for by the audience. So it's literally like whoever the audience thinks that was the funniest wins. And that's the only reason I entered it.
And the final was at the Comedy Store, which is one of my favorite places ever to do comedy. And I haven't, I'm not allowed to do comedy there anymore. And no one's told me why. I always do very well when I'm there. Then all of a sudden, one day just I'm not welcome there anymore that I've never told me why. So the opportunity to go back there, do comedy there, you know, one last time. And then maybe I'll go back. Maybe I'll have to be back there
again one day. Maybe not, but doesn't look like it. But the opportunity to go back there again and, you know, have a great show and walk out with a giant check. But I see you later, guys. You know, it's just too good, too good to pass up, you know, so, but the only reason I won that is because it's voted for by real people. You know, it's a real competition, but nothing else in comedy works like that.
If you go to the Edinburgh Comedy Festival, all the judges like write for the Guardian or, you know, it's all, you know, it's like who's the funniest lesbian? It's not like who's the funniest person, you know what I'm saying? Or it's like, who's the funniest, you know, person who's got some kind of, you know, woke points or whatever, But they're they'll straight up tell you like, dude, you're just you're a straight white male. You're not getting anything here, especially if you're
comedy isn't left wing. It's like, you know, the whole thing is, is a rub. There's no point someone like me, you know, even going up there and there's less and less people sort of going every year and more and more audiences switching off to the to the way that the comedy is run. But to take this even further, I don't even believe that they're looking for the funniest people anymore. I got a theory that there's certain people in the world that
want to make the world ugly. OK, so if you look at architecture, it's a great example. Films is another great example. Music is another great example. Comedy is another great example. You know, all these things are awful compared to what they used to be. Architecture is one of the best examples I can give you. You look at the buildings from 400 years ago, how incredibly beautiful they are. Look at, you know, look at the latest, like libraries that they put up in places.
Places just awful. They hurt your eyes. You know, statues in London, just grotesque, ugly. You know, music is the same. New music's awful. You know, new comedy is awful. And, and I'm on the comedy circuit. I I know who's funny and who isn't. Some of the people that they're putting on the television are the worst, Charles. They are the, they're not even like just OK or average. Some of them are the worst, like open mic level people.
And they've got an agent and then on TV and I honestly believe that there's certain people that run the world and they hate joy. They hate joy. These people are so soulless. They're so disconnected from the creator that they, they want other people to suffer like they're suffering. And entertainment industry and culture is controlled a lot of times from the, from the top down. Like in comedy, they have a, they have an Arts Council, an Arts Council, Charles, you know
what I mean? Like bureaucrats in charge of the arts, Like why would I need a, a bureaucrat to run stand up comedy? And they do these comedy clubs that I mentioned when the pandemic hit, the Arts Council comes in and says, listen, we got millions of pounds to help you stay open. But if you want the money, you have to sign up to this, you know, thing. And The thing is, when you reopen, it's going to be 50% women. It's going to be 50% Black guys.
It's going to be this. It's going to be that. And this way they come in and they run the whole show now, you know, and places that I used to love, places like the Comedy Store, for example. But if you made it to the Comedy Store, it used to mean something. Used to mean like, oh, he's at the Comedy Store. He must be one of the best acts in the country. It's not that anymore, man. I walk past the Comedy Store, I see the names of the people performing.
And like one of the people on there will be a real comedian, you know, they'll put them on last. The other three, they might be good. They might not be that good, you know? And it's because it's not run the way it used to be run. It's not run as in the funniest people get in here now it's like right, 5th every bill be 50% women, you know, and 50% of the people doing stand up comedy are not women. Let's say 20% of the acts are women, right?
So now you're filling 50% of your bill from 20% of the people. You know, it's not going to be as good as it was when you were just picking the funniest people that there are. And, you know, it's, it's a bit of a shame, you know, that that that comedy has gone that way. But you know what, what hasn't gone that way, you know, so, but I think it actually runs a little bit deeper.
I think on the outside, they'd like you to think that this is happening because we're really progressive and we love these certain groups of people. We want to help them. I don't think that's the case. I think they actually want to ruin everything. And this is their way of doing it. You know, they don't really care about black people. They don't care about lesbians. They don't care about women. They don't care about anyone. They want to ruin things and this is their excuse to ruin
things. They come in here under the guise of we need to make sure that there's representation. But really it's just it's an excuse for them to pick people that aren't very good, put them up there. And then female comedians is a great example, right? I know loads of female comedians that are hilarious. They're never the ones that they put on the television. They're never the ones that they pick.
They pick the ones that are not very good and then people watch it and they go, she's not very good. Female comedians suck. And it's like, no, they don't. No, they don't. They could have picked the really good ones the same way. I don't think they're picking the really good male ones either. You know, the same way I don't think they're Star Wars is a great example too. You know, I still love Star Wars. My brother used to love Star Wars. Star Wars used to be great.
You watch the latest Star Wars stuff and fans of Star Wars are like, dude, are you trying to ruin this? You know, it's all about, you know, the lesbian driven again, for no reason. You know, it's, you know, everything's got that. Everything's lesbian driven now. I don't mean it's not just lesbian, but you know what I'm saying? There's, there's all like, you know, especially kids programs, you know, there's so much stuff in there that doesn't belong in there.
And I just can't see it as being an accident anymore. I just see that they're just out there deliberately ruining not just the world of entertainment, but, you know, most things. You won't find any disagreement from from me, certainly no the audience I should imagine. And and as exactly as you point out, you know, joy is now an act of resistance. Talk to me about Christianity because I know this has become a
a significant part of your life. And I don't want to you know, no need to go into any into any great sort of personal detail if you don't want to, but just the sort of broader principles you've you've referred to it. You've touched on it a little bit sort of earlier on in the interview, but just just tell me a bit about how that's come into your life and and formed an important, important part of it and your your sort of outlook.
I started off just before I was a Christian before I believe in God. I I wanted to do the right thing, you know, and, and not because I was a Christian, because I believe in God, I just, I just wanted to do the right thing. I legitimately wanted to make people laugh. I wanted to bring people joy and I wanted to try and do the right thing and help the world a bit. You know, this food show, help people lose weight stuff.
And when you start down that path, you sort of, you quit, you'll quickly be destroyed, especially if you're trying to do that in the entertainment industry. And I was very quickly, completely and utterly destroyed for trying to do the right thing. And you're left with this realization like, hey, why does the world hate me so much for trying to do the right thing? OK. And I lost everything when, you know, my agent sort of counselled me.
I lost my YouTube channel. All my friends in comedy turned against me on the same day, you know? But I knew that this was all happening because I wanted to do the right thing. I didn't want to. A lot of comedy at the time was about dividing people. You know, white people are racist. You know, men are toxic. You know, it's like men should hate women, whites should hate blacks.
You know, I was always trying to bring people together legitimately and I would always be painted as the bad guy and this horrible person for doing this. You know, it's like, Alison, why won't you do material about how white people are racist? And I would say, well, I'd love to accept that, you know, that's racist. You know what I mean? Like, I won't pick on white people for the colour of their skin for the same reason I won't people pick on black people, dude.
It's, it's wrong. And for having that attitude, it, it was going to cost me my career, but it was more important to me to say what was true and to try and do the right thing. And for that reason, I was completely destroyed to the point where after I lost my agent and stuff, I became very paranoid that, you know, there was this big sort of entity that run the world and I had pissed it off and they wanted to destroy my life. Now I say paranoid. I was paranoid.
That doesn't mean I was wrong like, you know, now, especially looking back, I was quite correct, you know, but I was, you know, a very desperate, scared and alone person, you know, at the time. And I would, I would say the Lord's Prayer over and over again because it just, it made me feel better for some reason. And I found myself, God revealed himself to me personally at this time. And then I found myself reading the Bible. And there was there was something that Jesus said that
changed my life completely. And that was if the world hates you, which spoke to me because I just had my whole life destroyed for trying to do the right thing. And I knew in my heart that I was trying to do the right thing and that's why I've been destroyed. And Jesus said, if the world hates you, remember that it hated me first. Now, Jesus was a man who went around healing people, telling us to love each other, and for
that he was tortured to death. If you think that you have any sort of story, that is all, Oh, poor me. I was trying to do the right thing and something bad happened to me. You can't beat the story of Jesus, you know, And before I heard that Jesus said this, I used to feel bad about the fact that the world hated me.
I used to feel like negatively about it, like, oh, the world hates me. And then when I realized that what Jesus said was true was, you know, if the world hates you, remember that it hated me first. If you look at what sort of a person Jesus was and how good he was and the world hated him, right? So if the world hates you for trying to do the right thing, you shouldn't feel bad about that.
You should feel as though you're following in the footsteps of of Jesus. And that that completely changed my whole life because I realized that it was true. It was true. And that married with my own personal experience, which is if you go out and you try and heal the world and you try and fix it, the people that run the world will hate you and they will destroy you. And there really is a war taking place.
And your listeners, whether or not they believe in God, they'll be able to see the war that's raging right now between good and evil. And you know, the Bible speaks of this, and the Bible lets you know that if the world hates you, remember that it hated me first. Speaking of Jesus, if you're really on the side of good, if you really want to follow Christ, you will find yourself in complete opposition with the world. And that was where I started. I started listening to what
Jesus had to stay say. And I came to the Bible not as a Christian, not as a believer in God, not someone that had been raised on it, but I did love the truth. If you're a good stand up comedian, you say people would be like, oh, that's so true. And as they're laughing, right? I was all about the truth. And I realized I'd never read the Bible before. I'd never listened to what Jesus said. And I said to myself, I'm going to read every word that Jesus said and I'm going to find
whether or not it's true. And every single word that Jesus Christ spoke is 100% true. I couldn't find a fault in any of it. All of his logic, all his reasoning, everything that Jesus Christ has ever said is true. And this is a man who claims to be the Son of God. So if everything that I can find that he ever said true, right? The one thing that he's lying about is the fact that he's the Son of God. I don't think so. Like I'll give you an example. They asked Jesus what what's the
golden rule? What's the one thing that we should be doing? And he says, treat other people as you would have them treat you right now if everyone in the whole world followed that one simple rule, if everyone in the world treated each other as we would expect ourselves to be treated, you know, what sort of world will we be living in? If everyone did that, we'd be living in heaven. So I look at that and I think, well, this guy has just told us the way to heaven in one sentence.
You know, if we followed that, we will be living in heaven. So, you know, I can't get away from the truth that we're in the words of everything that Jesus Christ spoke. And not only that, his practical example of if you try to do the right thing, you know, this world, I hate you that spoke to me as well. And despite from that, the the multiple signs that God has given to me that he's real and he's looking out for me. I honestly don't believe I ever
have my comedy career back. If it wasn't for God, I don't believe I'd still, you know, be here. I wouldn't have my family. Everything I have comes from God, you know, and I can go into detail.
I'm not sure if you you'd want me to, but multiple times where it's been unmistakably God that has intervened in my life that, you know, it's, it's the most important thing to me is to do to do his work is to, you know, you know, live a live a good life, the type of life that he would want me to do and just just do what he wants for me to do rather than what I want for myself. Fascinating.
And it's obviously been a huge sort of solace to you and and clearly has shaped the way that you conduct yourself now sort of at least on a, on a sort of spiritual and psychological level in terms of the practical sort of delivery of your philosophy. Has it has it made a difference? You know, you, we're talking about the world around us being so ugly and being deliberately so and the and the sowing of the vision and all the rest of it. Do you see a way, a sort of
collective way out of this? The collective way out of this, well, I mean, the collective way out of this is Jesus Christ. There's no, there's no one else that can save this world. You know, that's, that's what the Bible says And, and trust me, that's what I believe. And you know, that I think is the is the great conspiracy. That's the one thing they don't want people finding out that God is real. And if we turn back to him, all of this could be fixed.
If you look at the United Kingdom, for example, as a country, people often talk about the West, the fall of the West, and as though there's some western way of life that that has built this country. This is not a western country. This is a Christian country. It's following Christian values that have made this country what it is, that gave this country the empire that it had. It's because we believed in God.
If you go back and you listen to these songs, Land of Hope and Glory, you listen to the words we we're thanking God for making this nation great. Everyone in this nation, pretty much, you go back 500 years, almost everyone believed in God. If you didn't believe in God, you'd be a weirdo. People would think you were crazy if you didn't believe in God. We used to read the Bible. We used to follow God's rules, try and be a godly people and
things were amazing. About 100 years ago, we decided we weren't going to read the Bible anymore. We're not going to try and love each other and be selfless and be honourable and be righteous. We're going to be selfish and we're going to watch the television and we're going to follow celebrities and we're going to throw the Bible in the name of Jesus Christ and the bin and we're going to replace it with Ant and deck. And now we look around and we wonder where everything went wrong.
You know, it's, it's not the fall of Western civilization, it's the fall of Christian civilization. We've, we've thrown God in the bin. We don't think we need God anymore. And the Bible is very clear, many examples of throughout history when this happened, when a nation of people turn their back on God, things get terrible. And if you look at the United Kingdom or America or anywhere around the world where you know, people, they don't, they don't
believe in God anymore. They don't try and be holy anymore. We look, we look down these days on people that try to be holy. So do you understand that being a Christian is about sacrificing yourself and helping others and trying to be kind and looking after the poor and looking after, you know, widows and orphans and, and, and being selfless. And when everyone starts working like that, you know, nations rise, communities rise.
We've thrown that away. And we don't see that things are getting worse and they're getting worse and they're getting worse because we replaced God with technology. You know, when people started watching the television, you know, and the. And if you look back at old entertainment, it used to be so wholesome. It used to be hello and welcome. And I have only been playing the piano and my wife will be singing and playing the
harmonica. You look at it now, you know, it's twerking and whap and just it's gross. Charles, you look at a music video, now it's soft course satanic pornography. I'm not even joking. I wish I was joking. You know, our culture is just being, just being poisoned. And I and I imagine there's a large part of your audience that perhaps don't believe in God, but you might not see God, but I bet you can see the devil when
you look at entertainment. And when you look at, you know, you don't have to look very hard when you watch these, the Grammys or even the Olympics and opening ceremonies of Commonwealth Games. I've got some, some great material of mine where I'll, I'll do a commentary over the top of the opening ceremony for the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, for example, which is a giant satanic ritual, the, the, the Olympic Games, London giant satanic ritual.
You know, and when, when you listen to me commentate about these things and anyone that's got an understanding of the Bible and the script, scripture knows that these people, they know what they're doing. They know, they know about the Bible, They know that God is real. And a lot of the stuff that they put out there in your face is the exact opposite of of what God says and how God says to behave down to God made them male and female.
You know, that's we're living, you know, the opposite of that. You don't have to get very far into the Bible before you realise that our world is structured to be the exact opposite. The exact opposite of the way God wants you to live and the way God says to do things. And that is the reason why this country is falling apart, that's the reason why the world is falling apart, is because we're turning away from God. And the Bible even says that
this is going to happen. The Bible even tells you that towards the end of the age, which is where I believe that we are, people will turn away from God in huge stroves and things will get worse and worse and worse. And this is, you know, clearly the age we're living in, you know, the 666, the mark of the beast. You know, the people that have read the Bible and they understand Scripture. Most people that don't read the Bible, they won't understand that the Bible is history pre
written. You can read what's going to happen in the next 5000 years in the Bible right now. And you can watch it happen in front of your face. You know, people that actually take time to read and study the Bible will realize that all of human history pretty much has been played out in the Bible written before it happened.
You know, the more people investigate the Bible, the more you'll realise that, oh, there's a reason why the whole world used to be glued to this book non-stop, you know, and family was important at that time, marriage was important at that time and things were good. You know, we've thrown all that away for Love Island Fast and Furious and we wonder why things are degrading. But when you ask, is there a collective solution to all this? Indeed there is.
If this it's not too late for this nation and its people to turn back to God and He will heal this land, you know, but that is, that is the solution. But most people, you know, they, they don't want to hear that solution. That's, you know, they want, they want a man to save them. They want Trump to save them or Nigel Farage to save them. But there's, there's no man that can, that can reverse this. There's no man that can bring peace to the earth.
You know, there is a man that's going to come and offer peace to the earth. But that is the man the Bible says to truly look out for, that is the, the Antichrist, the man that will combine all the world's religions and all politics and rule the whole world. And he'll be the best man and he'll be so peaceful and great. The people that don't believe in the Bible and they don't believe in God, let's just remember that I told you this. And just if it happens, remember that I told you this.
You know, so this is the period of history that, that, that I believe that we're in. We're in the, the period where people are falling away from God and things are getting worse and worse. And people should be encouraged that, you know, Jesus is coming back. God is going to return, you know, and the important thing is to get right with Him before He does.
I think you're absolutely right. You know, for people, regardless of their particular belief system, the, the the descriptions you cite specifically of where things have not just gone wrong but are being apparently deliberately made to go wrong is, is something that I don't think people can really contend with at all. And of course from in particular in recent times, the year 2020 and thereafter, where people were incited to do the most abominable things to one another.
Brings me on to, I suppose you know, that the the aspect of contrition and forgiveness. And I suppose I wonder if this relates back at all to comedy and that we've heard, you know, in raking over what has gone in the in the last four years. There's there's many sort of statements along the lines very well, you know, mistakes were made. We, you know, we didn't know at the time that that was going to
be so awful. Have you had people in effect sort of crawling back to you, particularly after what we talked about earlier with the, you know, the success at the Comedy Store, crawling back to you saying, OK, now I see what you were talking about. I see that you're right. And people from, you know, whether agents in the past or anyone you know, has anyone had the spine, I suppose effectively to come back to you and say you were right. I see what you were I. Don't think so.
I don't think so. No, I don't think any. I don't think so. You're not expecting anyone to either, you know, I don't. I'm not sure. I don't. I don't think anyone said, you know, you're right. And honestly, I'm not. I'm not particularly, you know, expecting them to, you know. Yeah, I don't think that's happening, Charles. I suppose honestly, I'm can't say I'm particularly surprised, but it's always worth asking is you never quite know who's going to pop out of the of course at what time.
But but then say, looking ahead, I suppose more on a personal level rather than a the macro level. But bearing in mind where your sort of work is at the minute, have have you got anything in the pipeline particularly related to, you know, your your belief system as it is now? Is that influencing any of the projects that you're either concentrating on the minute or the future? We're doing an audio book called Christianity for Dummies.
That's a working title. I might change, I might change the title where I just want to sort of sort of package the, the message of Christianity and the message of the Bible into something that, you know, is easy for people to listen to. It is, you know, it is amusing. I think I, I might have, I might have a way to, to, to capture people's attention. Like for example, most, most people would say, you know, I haven't read the Bible because I don't believe in God, right?
Well, I could say, you know, you don't believe in God because you haven't read the Bible, right? The evidence that God is realized in the Bible. So you've sort of got things the wrong way. So I'd like to give people, you know, an incentive or just an idea about, hey, you know, you know, some of the incredible wisdom and, and stuff that you, that you can read in the Bible that will just completely change
your life. There isn't a problem that I've had in my life that the answer isn't in the Bible. It really is the most fantastic, incredible, life changing book. And I wanted to just do the sort of audio book that would just sort of encourage people to, you know, pick it up and, and, you know, get involved in and ask God to come into their life, you know, and just because it's, it'll change your, it'll change your whole life. It, it did for me.
So, you know, that's, that's I guess influences my, you know, my work. It sounds like a huge undertaking. How? How on earth do you set about doing that, and how did you start with that? I interviewed a lady called Claire Craig, who I really like, and she'd done an audiobook. And I was to say, oh, audiobooks are a thing, You know, I'll do an audiobook. And, you know, that was it.
I put it on, I put it on sale on my website to for pre-orders and a bunch of people pre-ordered it and I was like, well, now I've got to write it, you know. So that was I sort of just snook at myself and, you know, now I guess I really need to get down to finishing it. And, you know, so yeah, that's that's that's what happened. Fantastic. Well that, that will be one to look forward to.
But tell me, I mean, I don't want to pin you down necessarily, but when do you think or when have you committed to publishing it? I said it would be out this year, so I'm absolutely terrified. So I've got six months left, so I said it would be out in 2024. Let's let's assume that I stick to that. I was going to give you the chance of not actually mentioning the year and and holding this interview, but there we go. It's out there.
Well, that's one to look forward to And but so, OK, so we've got the book, the books coming up. Tell me forthcoming gigs and that sort of thing. Bearing in mind we're July 2024. Is there anything on the, on the immediate horizon that people might like to sort of look out, look out for you at? It's actually, believe it or not, it's quite difficult for me to even get the rooms to put on my own shows. That's that's that circuit is quite closely controlled.
Although we, I did just do my own show in London on Tuesday and that sold out. That was quite encouraging. So I'm going to be doing a few more of those dates. So Tanya Edwards is a comedian that I'm working with. She's great as well. She's very much along the sort of same lines as me and you and us, your audience probably. And we do, we do an hour long show together. So we're going to try and get a sort of nationwide tour going for that to get a bunch of dates and put them together.
So I'd like to people to to look out for that because that'd be a great opportunity to come see me and her together. So we're just working on the moment about putting, you know, which towns we can get to and which venues will give us a room and when and that sort of thing. So that is very much, yeah, something I'd like out for. OK, perfect. Well, we'll look out for further details more.
I'll absolutely put that out when there is more on that and otherwise just sort of day-to-day for people who would like to find out more about what you do, do, what you have done, where should they go to look for your material? Well, you can find me on locals. You familiar with that Locals, It's like you search my name on there and Rumble, I'm on there. You can you can search me out on on those places.
I guess locals and Rumble, you search my name, you might find me. They're going to let you. That'd be the best place. Super Alistair, that's fantastic. I think we'll probably think about drawing to a close now. If if you had any sort of concluding remarks on on anything that we've covered, I think now would be the time to to get that out. It's been I mean it's been it's been quite a rarely case here.
We've covered a lot of big topics and I think that you know, what I would say from my point of view is that the to the start point, the insights into the sort of comedy environment have been completely eye opening and I think would have been for the for the audience. And then again, the the passage through and into Christianity and how that's shaping your world view and, and indeed your outlook is, is phenomenal.
But yeah, just if there was anything you particularly had to say to sort of round off that would be lovely. Oh, well, I'm not sure I've summarized the whole thing. I don't, I don't know. I don't know that I, that I have anything. I don't have any powerful to conclude, you know, be nice to each other about that. There you go. That's that's that's my message. That's it. That's all I've got, Charles, All I've got. Simple, to the point, very
effective, I think. I think we like that that that will go very well. Now, as I said at the beginning, this has been an interview for UK columns, so please share it widely. Look at ukcolumn.org for notes and relevant links. If you are able to support UK column financially for £5 a month and you're not already doing so, please do consider it. And it just remains for me to say thank you very much indeed for Alistair. It's been a real delight to have you here and keep in touch
please. Thanks very much. Enjoyed it. Thank you. Thank you very much. See you soon. Yeah.