From The Comic's Comic

Episode #392

Iain Stirling’s Scottish accent might be known around the world for narrating the exploits of the hit British reality TV series, Love Island. But in Stirling’s first Amazon Original stand-up special, Failing Upwards, the comedian finds himself falling short of everyone else’s expectations when it comes to his physical health and his love life. Stirling sat down with me over Zoom to discuss how growing up in Edinburgh sparked his early comedy career, the realities of working with his wife in reality TV, and why he wanted to make sure his comedy special for Amazon was truly special.

The eighth season of Love Island UK premiered this week! And Stirling’s Prime Video special just came out at the end of May! Perfect time for a chat, don’t you think?

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If you’d like to read the condensed transcript of our conversation below, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription!

Last Things First: How long into this podcast would it take for my listeners to know who you are, without me mentioning you by name?

Well, instantly from me speaking, if they watch the British television program Love Island, Otherwise, I don’t think they would know, necessarily. I don’t — I’m not really — Stateside-wise, unless they came down to the New York Comedy Club where I’d done 10 minutes unannounced for Visa reasons, I can’t imagine they would know me at all.

It has to be wild because you’re famous for narrating Love Island in the UK. But you’re never seen onscreen right? Have you ever been onscreen?

They used to do a sort-of dumping or eviction every week, our live show, studio show thing outside the villa, in the first series a la Big Brother, but they sort of got rid of that, because it was sort of annoying having to do something with the contestants every week. It sort of messed with the chemistry. So I was on doing stand-up, actually, that first series.

Oh, wow.

It was weird though, because the show was in its first series so no knew what it was, and it was filmed in Spain, so we got people, British holiday makers, and as they’d been on holiday in Spain, they obviously hadn’t seen the show. So I was doing stand-up about a television show that nobody had seen. Characters on the show that nobody had seen. So it was an odd one. I don’t know if there’s clips of it anywhere or anything like that. That was very fleeting. That first series went largely under the radar. So since the show has sort of found its legs I’ve not really been on it at all. Which I quite like.

That tells me that you also went there to film, right?

Yeah, we go there for the whole time. I think it sort of started out, initially, because the voiceover job, originally, I guess was just sort of going to be rather functional and maybe add a little bit of comedy value, but it wasn’t going to be, by any means a big part of the show. I’m another member of staff. So just everyone was in Spain, so they just had me in Spain. It was easier that way to have to deal with me. Logistically, it’s actually easier to fly me on a plane than it is to use technology to, you know, beam me into those areas.

Right, or to have you sitting where you’re sitting now, watching the footage from afar and narrating.

Which, of course we can. Yeah, thanks to COVID and things like that. We can do that now and the technology is there but it wasn’t before. And yeah, because of COVID, everyone’s recording and all that, has sort of vastly improved. I feel everyone sort of caught up with me now. I’ve got all these fancy mics and whatnot. I felt like I was cutting edge at the time. So I always go out there, apart from one year due to COVID, but I’ve always spent two months of my year in Spain. Europe’s quite small as well. It’s only a two or two-and-a-half hour flight. It’s not far.

But Mallorca must feel like a world away from Edinburgh.

There’s this joke in the UK, of like Americans don’t travel. But it’s funny when you actually coast to coast America, you realize it is like different worlds everywhere you go. And Europe’s basically the exact same, but then you’ve got to add language on top of that as well. So yeah, the weather is vastly different. And also we stayed at a German tourist resort in Spain. So most of the people there, English will be the third or fourth language. Still phenomenal English, which is sort of more embarrassing for the Americans and Brits.

Does that make it easier or tougher for them to decipher a Scottish accent?

I’m very rarely asking for anything other than a couple of beers. So it’s normally OK. Never. We very rarely have a deep dive.

As you joke in your special for Amazon Prime Video, Failing Upwards, being Scottish helps as a tourist.

Absolutely. Absolutely. It’s different in America. I think in America, people think of the UK and they basically think of just England and they think of the Queen and all that sort of stuff. But within Europe, England’s got this sort of yobbish stereotype attached to it through football hooliganism, and also just through the British Empire, and their sort of like questionable history and whatnot as well. It’s obviously not true of all English people. It’s actually not true of the majority, but there is that sort of, you do genuinely have a thing where if you go abroad. And if people think you’re English in Europe, and you correct them and say you’re Scottish. There’s very often a sort of sense of relief in the air that you’re not going to vote for Brexit and tear the place apart.

Americans we’ve had a joke for at least the last 20 years that traveling abroad, we say we’re Canadian.

There’s an amazing British comedian called Sara Pascoe, who has a very good joke where you say if you ever hear someone with an American accent. You ask them whereabout in Canada they’re from, because if they’re Canadian, they go, ‘Oh my God, everyone assumes I’m American.’ And if they’re American, they go ‘Oh my God, she thinks I’m intelligent.’

So, growing up in Edinburgh, did that make it more likely or less likely that you would pursue comedy and the performing arts? Having your city overwhelmed by it every August for the Fringe.

Hugely more likely. Hugely more likely, I think I was about 13-14, my August would be spent traveling into the center, to see majority comedy. Me and my friend Greg, we sort of became obsessed with — there’s a big thing in the UK, university comedy troupes. The Cambridge Footlights is the biggest example, they sort of gave birth to Monty Python and stuff. So we’d go and see the Oxford Revue and the Cambridge Footlights. Every university’s got one, but Oxford and Cambridge were the most famous, and when you’re 13-14, you see these 18-19 year olds in this dark basement room, doing these sketches. They weirdly became my idols, people that aren’t all that more older than me. And then from there, I got into Python, Little Britain, The Mighty Boosh and stuff like that. I started sketch comedy quite young, like 14-15, I think I put on my first Edinburgh Fringe show with my friend. So I wouldn’t have done any comedy otherwise. I’m not from a background where — there was no drama at my school. There’s no theatre in this state where I grew up. There was very little to do.

So how close did you get to becoming a lawyer or barrister, what have you?

So when I went to Edinburgh University, I tried to go to Oxford University because of the comedy Revue element. I don’t know if you know this: Cambridge is the better one, but nobody told me that. So I tried to get into Oxford. But I didn’t get in, unfortunately, so I went and done law at Edinburgh. I graduated. But I’d already been a year into stand-up and I’d already been offered a job on kids TV. Although I graduated, I was already graduating with a job in the world of entertainment. And I wasn’t very good at it, if I’m being honest with you.

And then and then a full dozen years or so later, you decide to turn that experience into Buffering, right?

Yeah, yeah, I did. Yeah. So I’ve written a sitcom called Buffering, which is basically about kids TV presenter that hates kids and hates kids TV. I sort of wrote a sitcom based in the kids TV studio, because there’s something innately funny about children’s television. Like, when I was working in kids TV, I would try to explain to my friends why my day was so difficult, and it’s sort of difficult to not do that without being funny. So I’d be like, oh, it’s so annoying. I got gunged this morning, the gunge was really cold, and I had to get changed and I had this wig on and the wig got all crusty, like it hurt my skin. Everyone’s laughing, and I’m like, I’m trying to open up here! So that’s why that sitcom, I think there just is an innate undertone of tragedy about kids TV, even though it’s a very fun thing to do.

You were also so young when you started doing children’s TV. You were what, 21?

Yeah, I was 21.

So you’re barely not a kid yourself.

No, I was just drinking by American laws wasn’t I? By Scottish laws, 12 years deep at this point. I wish that was a joke. I wish that was a joke. But yeah, it was sort of funny as all, because I’d just started doing stand-up. When you start doing stand-up, I think you sort of default go down this shock comedy route, because it’s harder to get laughs, so if you can get any sort of reaction from an audience you value it, and so it’s much easier to use a word or a topic that sort of shocking, because at least you get something from a crowd. So I was sort of thinking I was the next Bill Hicks by night. And by day I was talking to a puppet dog, dressed as a cheerleader, being gunged. At 21, it’s sort of hard to get your head around it.

Did it feel like, even though you’re a success, because you’re on the telly — that you weren’t living your dreams? Because this is not what you had dreamed of when you were 13-14, watching the Footlights?

I think that is sort of exactly it. I think that was that folly in youth. It’s funny now what I got jealous of — my friends were doing a gig in Manchester. And they’d all go to the cinema during the day. And I couldn’t go to the cinema during the day, because I had to go film a TV show. Whereas as you get older, you worry because you’re at the cinema during the day and all your friends are off recording their podcasts and filming TV shows. So I felt like I wasn’t living that comedian lifestyle that I longed for. But then also you find that in retrospect, no comedian really wants to have seven afternoons free to go to the cinema every day. They want to have work. Purpose. I did definitely feel like being a kids TV presenter was getting in the way of what I really wanted to do. But then, in hindsight, I look back at some of that stuff that I did on kids TV and it’s really funny stuff. So it’s frustrating really. I loved it, but I feel like maybe I could have enjoyed it a little bit more if I just let it, just that was what I was doing, for a bit.

Well, how much catharsis then, did it provide you to be able to revisit that whole milieu for Buffering?

Yeah, well, it was a first series, so we’re really proud of it. I feel like that will be something we explore properly in future series. This idea that Iain, who’s the main character, that’s my name. That’s how good my acting is. The character has to be called by my name, or I’d get confused. I think it will be that world where he thinks he’s too good for a world and then eventually that world will maybe start to slip away. I think we’ve all, in our lives, done that thing if it’s work or whatever, a relationship. Not where you think you’re too good for it but you think is not for you. It’s not what you want. And it’s not till you started to lose it that you realize, oh maybe this is what I want. Maybe this is as good as it gets. I find the idea of really interesting in comedy and just in life in general, of like, how do you know? How do you know if you’re doing the right thing? What’s the right moves to make? It’s impossible when so one of the big things we’re always trying to solve.

Did you have any kind of existential dilemma then, when you were presented with the gig for Love Island?

Originally, yes. I sort of said no to it, originally, for the simple reason that it’s over the summer in July. And I’m sure that people that are into comedy enough to listen to this know, but like there’s the Edinburgh Fringe every year. So as a comedian, you basically have to write a new hour of material every year to bring it to the Fringe. And that’s your sort of like, when you lay out your story, you’re showcasing yourself. So it’s got to be good. So to go to Spain to do a voiceover job for two months, June-July, would have meant my show not being as good as it could have been. And it was my flatmate at the time. A comedian called Phil Wang, a very funny comedian.

He’s been on the podcast.

Oh, brilliant. He’s got a very good special on Netflix. Really great guy. He made the point that you go to the Edinburgh Fringe to get jobs like this. So you should obviously do it. So I’ve done it, and it worked out but yeah, I’d been off kids TV for like a year. A bit more than that. I’d been doing stand-up and it did feel like am I going to put yet again another obstacle in the way of being a full-time comedian? But I’m so glad I couldn’t make that decision. I guarantee I wouldn’t be talking to you today.

You can correct me if I’m wrong. It feels to me as though the UK has an even richer tradition of reality television? And I only say that because it feels as though a lot of the formats that we have in America are adapted from the UK.

There’s something very European about reality TV. At least it feels like that to me. Like sort of like the idea of the underdog. Letting your guard down and not caring what other people think. That sort of ideas, quintessential elements to our reality TV program. I think even in America, the reality TV that I watch, has still got that sort of like, veneer of the American dream. There’s a core of reality TV drapes this American flag, really like Selling Sunset or something like that, where everyone’s been very honest and upfront but you know they’ve been in makeup for hours before they have this iconic conversation. Which is to take nothing away from that. So yeah, I don’t know. I don’t really know enough about reality TV in America, but certainly, from my experience, the big ones in the UK, Big Brother and Love Island, tend to travel worldwide.

I presume then there wasn’t a stigma attached to the idea of taking taking the job. It was more just how does this impact my building of an hour for the Fringe?

Do you know what? I think there actually was a stigma. I think there was an idea of if I done this show I might be able to widen in my audience but I might alienate some of the more comedy purists. I actually feel like that’s changed for a number of reasons. When I first did the job, it was like, you might be known as the Love Island guy and then you won’t get booked for XYZ. Because you’re not sort of like a stand-up comedian. In the UK, it’s panel shows, radio shows, that sort of thing.

So you wouldn’t get Taskmaster, if you did?

Exactly that, but then I think two things happened. The sort of voiceover for Love Island went over quite well. A lot of comedians started doing comedy voiceovers. And then you had a comedian in the UK called Joel Dommett, who finished really high up in a reality TV show called I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here (second place in 2016). Ironically, he went on that show not a celebrity, and then came out very famous.

That’s really winning.

Yeah. And then I think little things like that happened that turned it around. And now I think as well, with comics, and this is where we’re so behind America. In UK we’re catching up with the idea of like these certainly television gatekeepers, these commissioners that make things that mean you can get a wider audience are disappearing. Because podcasting, YouTube, all these things. I mean, just talking about YouTube now like it’s a new idea is mad. But these things. Actually you can build an audience however you want. And then once you’ve got that audience, you can put out a thing, and people will judge you on this thing. As opposed to they’d judge you for what you’d had been on, shows you can get and can’t get and stuff so the pendulum is moving really, really quickly now. It’s only in the last couple of years, this idea of like every comedian has a podcast. In the UK, that’s a very new idea over here. Nowadays, every comedian has a podcast. I’m very much behind the curve, but it was never a thing before.

And also, now for the last couple of years you’ve been able to work with your wife Laura Whitmore. How is it different recording voiceover when your wife is the host?

Well, we’re sort of quite lucky on that front, in terms of we both work on the show Love Island, but the crossover is actually incredibly small. There’s been a running joke with me and the writer. My friend Mark, we write the voiceover. We love the days the presenters in, because that’s like our day off because the presenter does all the talking. So we almost high-five each other when the presenter comes in, because all we have to do then is say: ‘And here comes Laura.’ And then from then on in, she does all the heavy lifting, so it’s sort of great. We don’t really crossover much, in that sense. And on a sort of personal note, it’s obviously fantastic because I’m in Spain for eight weeks. And it just means she’s over in Spain, too. Whether it be pockets of time at a go, or all the time or whatever else was. Yeah, it’s really fortunate, actually, for me, which I’m very happy about, and she’s very good at what she does as well as which is, obviously doubly fortunate. So I’ve got someone that I can trust to do the job.

And also the two of you didn’t have to play the game yourself.

Of course, I mean, if she was a contestant, that would be an absolute worry, wouldn’t it?

Yeah, you didn’t have to meet her the same way that the people you’re talking about have to meet.

Just for the American listeners, in case you’ve never seen Love Island. It’s not like what Squid Game. It’s not like you win it, and then you get to come back next year but as the commentator.

How did you two meet?

We were sort of like in the same sort of friendship circles and stuff for years, and then we just met through recording different programs. Just one of those, almost like a work colleague situation really. We were just in the same circles. We just gravitated to each other naturally.

You say that you’re in the same circles, but when you joke about her in the special. It’s as if the tabloid media has no idea that you’re in the same world as your wife.

Yeah. Well, I mean, there’s two elements. It’s funny that joke, because I’ve got a joke about how I’m sort of the side element to Laura when we’re in the media. And obviously there is a truth to that. That is why it works as a joke. There’s also a more interesting and harder to articulate element of, the treatment of women within the media. I mean, in the grand scheme of things, the joke should really be, I get it incredibly easy compared to my wife, because she’s a lady. And maybe that’s the sort of thing going forward down the line, at some point. I will try and make that funny. I mean, there is that thing like especially of course when she goes to an event or whatever, she’s just a very impressive person. Being in the shadow of that is funny, but even though it’s not necessarily completely true, but for comedic purposes, it does work.

Did you feel like you had to at least mention her in the special?

It’s always really tricky talking about my personal life. And even like, my work and stuff, because you don’t know how much crowd work needs to go into it like this special that I’m doing is getting released worldwide. So do I want a really boring bit where I explain that my wife also works in television and she’s done these things, which is maybe a bit, a lot of path to lead for a joke. But at the same time, I don’t know if like maybe an American audience gets left behind by that. So yeah, I didn’t feel the need to mention to her. It was more I felt what context was needed when I did mention her? But that also applies to my do for a living. I’ve got a lot of jokes about my voice being more famous than my face, because I do voiceover. So it’s like, how much need to spoon-feed an audience that I do the voiceover on a TV show? It feels really presumptive, like, Love Island, you’ve all heard of it. That feels like quite arrogant to me. But at the same time, how boring if someone paid to see my show, and I’m explaining what Love Island is and they’re like, yeah, man, we know what that is because we’re here. Are you an idiot!?

That’s the reason we paid tickets to see you.

Yeah, so it’s quite tricky. Yeah, it’s funny you asked that, because it is apparent to the question but probably not. Not because it’s an elephant in the room. More because that’s what it is: The whole time, I’m thinking about, how much does the audience actually know about me? That’s the tricky thing, I guess. And it almost feels like the American part of me, from me watching lots of stand-up. They all know me! They’re here to see me, which is actually quite healthy view to have on the world, and there’s a very British, they probably don’t even know who I am. They probably only bought a ticket because they live nearby and this is odd. What am I doing? There’s a bit of that vibe as well.

Well, I imagine there’s probably people who are just going to watch to see if you kept in the bit with the audience member leaving to take a piss.

Yeah, I mean, I’m so glad. We weren’t gonna keep it in, because it was so long.

I was curious because it was long.

I would love to know what you think about it because basically, for people who haven’t seen it yet, a guy goes to the toilet during the show. And he’s a lovely guy. Like, you could tell he was so mortified, that he had to go the toilet. He was gone for honestly about 10 minutes. I was waiting for him to come back in, so we could record that. We’re having lots of fun in the room. I was like, if I start another bit, then he walks back in and blahdy blahdy blah. And basically he was waiting. and he didn’t want to come back in because he didn’t want to like ruin the show a second time. So I think someone from the venue or someone from the special team like running around the venue trying to find him. Oh, no. He’s waiting for you to come back. So yeah, I left it in. Because I felt like it was fun. I felt like the payoff at the end justifies it. It is a really fun moment and a few specials I’ve seen have hecklers, but I’ve never seen a special where like, things actually just derailed for like five minutes while we just wait for this guy to come back. So it felt like a little nice moment to save forever.

Yeah, that’s what I figured but I wanted to hear your answer. I figured that in some ways, it does make the special more special because it’s something that only happens in that moment.

There’s always the worry of — in the room obviously, as you can imagine, anyone that’s been to live performance, it was electric in the room when it was happening because people were like what is going on and we’re having such a laugh — and then you’ve got to edit that down to make it work for telly. Is it a bit alienating to people are watching at home? Who knows? We’ll find out. I really enjoyed it. I really liked that. And also, I always find like I see online a lot now there’s always a sort of like heckle putdowns of stuff go online and people seem to like that sort of thing. Yeah, I’m not. I’m not a huge fan of it. I don’t really like heckling on people. I’m more about celebrating people. So it felt like a nice way of doing that my own way.

The trend that I’ve seen — and I just reviewed Ricky Gervais’s new special, and the trend that I’ve seen recently especially on Netflix, but it’s been no matter what the platform is — is comedians will say something, then they’ll go oh, this will never make the special. But we’re watching it in the special.

This will get me in so much trouble! Will it, though?

But whenever they say this won’t make the special it’s like seems like such a conceit. Because they never edit it out.

It’s absolutely mad. There’s one comedian that does it brilliantly. Greg Davies, who was in the British version of The Inbetweeners, and he’s the Taskmaster on Taskmaster. He’s got a special, it’s The Back of My Mum’s Head or something like that. He’s got so many great specials. Firing Cheeseballs At A Dog. You’ve got millions, but I think this one’s called the Back of My Mother’s Head or something to that effect. It’s on Netflix. The first minute or 30 seconds of the credits, and you can see him doing stand-up. You can just hear the muffle and the audience laugh and there’s a huge laugh to start. When the credits come down the special starts and he goes, ‘Well, that’s never gonna make it into the special.’ And it actually didn’t. Brilliant! Well done. It shows him doing a routine that gets a massive laugh from the crowd. And then you don’t know what he said, he goes well that will not make it special and then he starts the show. That’s good. Do that then.

Because it also makes you wonder, what happened??

Just think outside the box. It’s so funny how these things are coming around though and this will like oh, I shouldn’t be saying that. And again, listen, I am not by any stretch of the imagination the greatest comedian out there. I’m not here to be like, Oh, this is how you need to do it. I think it’s more interesting that, for a while that whole like, I can’t believe I said that was a really interesting and funny way to do things. And then comedy constantly comes full circle and then you’ve got to subvert that, subvert that. So I think no, there is surely a more interesting way of going around these sorts of things than saying something offensive, saying that you’re not allowed to say it and then carrying on, everyone carries on regardless. It feels done to me. But what do I know about anything? I’m panicking even saying that, sharing that opinion.

I don’t know if this will make the podcast — but you mentioned earlier about how comedians now have like more power and more platforms. And I just wanted to make sure I asked you how important Twitch to is your career?

I love it. I absolutely love it. My friend Alfie Brown, another fantastic comedian, referred to it as long-form social media, which I totally agree with. So it’s a streaming platform, Twitch, where you can like chat or play games. I like it, just because I’m on for like two three hours at a time just talking. I feel like it’s the most authentic me and I don’t mean that in a sort of like Los Angeles/Hollywood like authentic self. I just mean like I’m on for three hours. You can only keep up a pretense for so long, right? So I feel like I give off the most me vibes I guess. And I feel like TV shows are edited or Instagram’s only one picture whereas with Twitch, I feel like you really get a vibe for who I am, which I really enjoy and I like the platform. I like subverting it and messing around with them. I still think it’s massively underused. So I really like it. It feels like a fun, safe space where I can play around with ideas.

I know you said you don’t feel like a true professional comedian unless you’ve done a podcast during the day. So thank you for sitting with me.

Thank you for getting up so early for this, Sean, I appreciate it.

It’s been my pleasure.

Ah, thanks so much, man. Have a lovely day.

You too.