The Adam Buxton Podcast Thread II: You're MAI WAIF now

[The Ombudsman]

Crikey, that Theroux is spot on!

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Crikey, that Theroux is spot on!

"Are you okay?"

Eerily accurate! Although I do agree with Buckles that it did stray slightly towards Nick Broomfield at times. Still, bloody hell. He's quite the mimic.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

I saw Buxton at the theatre recently. It was perhaps a wee bit pricey just to hear him reading bits from his book (I could have downloaded the audiobook and heard the whole thing) but a fun night out nonetheless. During the Q&A sections, I was tempted to ask about his cancellation fixation, but decided against it.

I tried to ask what his perfect Sunday is (like he did in Hot Fuzz) but he didn't pick me.

[Twit 2]

Which Mitchell are people talking about above? The shit panel show comedian or the shit author?

[popcorn]

comedian

[PammySpacek]

errrr perhaps I'm an awful centrist bigot then but isn't that likely to be true? Like, if you were to pick a century to live in in which you had, eg, the best chance of surviving childhood, learning to read and write, being warm and dry, having clothes, having enough to eat, not losing most of your teeth or dying of some horrible illness or suffering some other crippling malady by the age of 30, not being sent to war, not being executed for your religion or sexuality, wouldn't now be better than almost any other time? Obviously your chances of any of those happening to you today varies greatly depending on numerous factors, and I mean the tories are cunts and everything, but I'd pick now over 1921, or 1821, or 1721...

I was just thinking about how right now is particularly horrible if you're hoping for the human race to survive, and for fascism not to destroy everything. I wasn't thinking in terms of 1821 or 1721 or whatever, because I assumed that was a given. I was comparing now with various points in the relatively recent past, going back to the mid-late 20th Century. Also, yeah, Steven Pinker.

[Brundle-Fly]

Humans have always thought it was the end of the world, no?

[Mister Six]

They haven't always lived at a time where the conditions for irreversible climate change are fast approaching.

I think human beings will survive whatever follows, but civilisation as we know it, and all the developments we take for granted, might be utterly lost.

[Brundle-Fly]

Absolutely. It's scary now, but I was terrified of rabies, nuclear war, IRA bombs or catching AIDS as a young person, both utterly reasonable and plausible 1970s/ 1980s fears, but I recognise although some shit has got worse or hasn't changed, a lot of things are immeasurably better for people in 2021.

[Brundle-Fly]

Anyway, this is derailing the thread massively. Soz.

[Avril Lavigne]

I think playing Devil's advocate in any discussion is very boring. Reminds me of this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3c7UugnrlaM

[wrec]

I don't think the Colson Whitehead episode from a couple of months back was mentioned here. Considering he writes on a lot of serious and heavy themes he's a funny and enjoyable interview subject. I did think Adam overdid warning people in his intro/outro that the content of some of the novels (slavery, abuse etc) is harrowing - I mean we're all adults here and it didn't seem to be a trigger warning (unnecessary given that the subject matter is obvious) so much as norm-y timidity. I cringed a bit when he asked Whitehead if he'd trade modern day, relatively safe New York for dangerous but creative 70s NY - felt v privileged and detached to me but Whitehead didn't seem put out by it.

Minor criticisms really as Buckles is such an amiable chap, and he makes what he does well seem easier than it is, but sometimes I want to shake him for being so timid / white / suburban English.

[somersetchris]

Minor criticisms really as Buckles is such an amiable chap, and he makes what he does well seem easier than it is, but sometimes I want to shake him for being so timid / white / suburban English.

Yes he always comes across as hating confrontation and always being terrified that someone will think badly of him so I was surprised - and annoyed - that he was like a dog with a bone when it came to Kayvan Novak. I have never heard him go on and on and on about the same subject like that. He didn't even seem to know what point he was trying to make, and didn't focus on the potentially interesting question of whether it is less problematic to play people of different races if you're not white. I don't think either of them came out of it that well - Novak remained calmer than I would have done, but also didn't say much beyond 'I don't feel bad about it'. But then, Buxton wasn't really clear what he was actually asking.

I found it bizarre that Novak was the person he chose to go after on this, especially when he said 'well some people would say that you shouldn't play anyone outside of your own race / nationality' and if I was Novak I would have said 'so I can't play any characters that aren't British and/or Iranian? I can't play a vampire because I'm not a vampire?'. That wouldn't leave him many options, would it? There's got to be more nuance to it than that. Surely more of an issue would be that when he was less famous pretty much the only roles he would have been offered would have been terrorist, but they never talked about that. He went on and on so much about the same thing that they never talked about What We Do In The Shadows or much about Four Lions, except to focus on whether it was okay for a white person to make a film about Muslim terrorists. He really got totally hung up on this one thing and wouldn't let go of it.

[DigForVictory]

You could hear Novak deflating as the interview went on as what he thought would be a light funny chat with Adam where they could mess about and do impressions was bogged down with endless talk on offence and cancel culture and all that.

I like Adam generally but fucking hell he needs to move on from this fixation, it's really boring. Especially as he seems to have no real point to make on it, it's just wishy washy worrying.

[Cold Meat Platter]

Dig up his garden, that's all I'm saying.

[Lost Oliver]

Yeah, he just needs to say what he thinks instead of kind of hinting at things whilst he's looking down at his shoes. Followed by funny voice.

[thugler]

Really weird episode, first the fixation on the nose job. Even as someone who is pretty anti cosmetic surgery he just wouldn't stop going on about it. Thought it was a bit sad when novak started talking about his kids potentially having it. Nothing wrong with it. And then the playing different races stuff. Obvious he didn't want to talk about it beyond his initial statement and buxton just goes on and on, without even having a position on it himself. Felt there was tension right the way through apart from the impressions

[amateur]

Can someone post a timecode to the impressions please? I'd quite like to hear those but not any of the other rot.

[madhair60]

I took my microphone and found some human folk

Then I went on and fucking on about being woke

[Magnum Valentino]

Can someone post a timecode to the impressions please? I'd quite like to hear those but not any of the other rot.

It should start at roughly one hour in, in case it doesn't.

[Pink Gregory]

I took my microphone and found some human folk

Then I went on and fucking on about being woke

My name is Adam Buxton
I'm a maaaaa-aaaaan
I don't want to get cancelled
that's the plan

[non capisco]

He might want to stop enticing all his listeners to give his bum a nice little pat every week, then.

[Pink Gregory]

Adam comes out and gives a solemn apology for requesting 'a nice little pat, while his bum's up'

He is only partially forgiven.

[somersetchris]

Yeah, he just needs to say what he thinks instead of kind of hinting at things whilst he's looking down at his shoes. Followed by funny voice.

I'm fairly sure that he is worrying about being cancelled because he constantly worries what other people think of him, rather than because he's done anything wrong. If anything, the worst thing he's done is constantly equivocate about it.

[somersetchris]

Can someone post a timecode to the impressions please? I'd quite like to hear those but not any of the other rot.

I would have to agree with Adam that it is an absolutely spot on Nick Broomfield impression (I thought that was what he was doing, at first), which occasionally strayed into Theroux. For anyone who's not seen him he's pretty much the same - wishy washy liberal can't stay out of his own documentaries, although arguably he did it first.

Just tried to search for a clip, any clip, with a Broomfield voiceover, this is the first one I could find. There is also a video where Louis Theroux interviews him, that must be confusing on audio only, like a man talking to himself.

[Pink Gregory]

Yeah, Buckles is self-critical to a fault and always has been. It's very much part of his personality and I can see why those thoughts might nag at you enough to never quite let criticism go, and that extrapolates out into his preoccupation with 'cancel culture', because he agonises over criticism.

It's a point in his favour.  It wouldn't be like Adam to be the kind of bitter old liberal that you find a lot among his contemporaries that say 'this far and no further' when it comes to cultural changes.  He is, at the very least, honest. 

[somersetchris]

It's a point in his favour.  It wouldn't be like Adam to be the kind of bitter old liberal that you find a lot among his contemporaries that say 'this far and no further' when it comes to cultural changes.  He is, at the very least, honest. 

That is a good point. It made for an un-entertaining podcast episode but it doesn't make him a bad person. I've had another conversation this week with a friend of mine who 20 years ago would have been against every -ism there is but has now decided that equality for trans people is going too far, and he's not the only person in my friendship group to do that.

[Avril Lavigne]

I feel like a lot of it may stem from the Alexa Chung groping incident. He's probably living in constant mild background anxiety over the idea of her making a public statement about it and that's manifesting in this obsession with comedians being cancelled or at least taken to task over things they did in different times when certain things were 'more acceptable'.

[Hat FM]

You could hear Novak deflating as the interview went on as what he thought would be a light funny chat with Adam where they could mess about and do impressions was bogged down with endless talk on offence and cancel culture and all that.

I like Adam generally but fucking hell he needs to move on from this fixation, it's really boring. Especially as he seems to have no real point to make on it, it's just wishy washy worrying.

you hit the nail on the head there. it should have been a funny light hearted chat with someone whose work i have enjoyed for years but not heard any interviews but instead we got far too much sensible drivel. would love to hear Novak on RHLSTP. bet it would have been much better.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

would love to hear Novak on RHLSTP.

"Emergency question: Have you ever tried to suck your own blood?" (because he plays a vampire, geddit?)