Elis James and John Robins
#548 - Two Mice, Scrabble With Dixon and Leeds Train Baguette
12 Jun 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What surprising event happened to Elis at the Royal Albert Hall?
Hello, everyone.
The Ellis & John Cinematic Universe is now available to all. Yes. Head to patreon.com slash Ellis & John for loads of extra content, including our brand new film series, The Adventures of Ellis & John, fully visualised podcast episodes twice a week, and behind-the-scenes bonus content.
So to watch shows, get ad-free episodes, and come on adventures with me, Ellis & Dave, head to patreon.com slash Ellis & John. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Ellis James and John Robbins show. It's a big day. It's a fun day. But what you hear of that will be dependent on what platform you're listening on.
That's a nice positive start. What a start.
It's information.
Oh, my God.
Keep it tight for the first 20 minutes. It's like an announcement you get on a train, which tells you a bit too much, but you're glad to know.
But let's not do that, John. I'd get told off if I started a podcast like that. If it was my turn to start the Friday ep and I'd done that, I would have been told off by John.
I can tell him off. All right, tell me off. John, that was poor. Okay, it was informative, though.
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Chapter 2: How do Ellis and John handle criticism in their comedy?
Say sorry to 14-year-old John. Say sorry to 18-year-old John. Sorry, sorry, sorry. There you go. It was better. Sorry. You're welcome to all three. What about 44-year-old John? He's sort of out of the picture. He does the tax returns and sorts the insurance out. And that's good. We like that side of this. Send you a Christmas card. No, he can't be arsed. No.
And that's fine, actually.
And moonpig.com just feels too cheap to do. Yeah. So, unless they want to sponsor the podcast, in which case I use them every day of the year.
Yes, and I use funkypigeon.com and all of the other ones.
Yeah, 44-year-old John, you've got to lean into the positives.
Yeah.
He hits a deadline. Yes. He keeps a house tidy. Yes, that's true. He's always, like, taxed, MOT insured. His tyres are never bald. Good. Your house is tidy. I'll give you that. Thank you. He is good at sort of coming up with practical solutions. He's a good listener.
To things he cares about.
That's very true. Completely zoned out of your World Cup conversation. In 44-year-old John's head, he was just going, corrupt, corrupt, corrupt disgrace. And also, the World Cup conversation was 20 seconds long. Yeah, I couldn't tell you what happened. Three red cards in the opening game. To the organisers. To Donald Trump. That's good. I'd like to send him off.
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Chapter 3: What is the significance of the Dalai Lama's coffee spill analogy?
44-year-old John is also a satirist.
Yes. So there, but yeah. But no, all the Johns are now content because they've had their apology and it was just a game. It was just a fun game. It was just a fun game. And we manage our emotions on a day-to-day basis. We do. We do. So, I've got a treat for you both. Have you? Well, I'm not sure I do anymore, but I do because you apologised. Okay.
Oh yeah, we'll always apologise. I must admit, I did enjoy telling you all. What have you done in your weeks? Absolutely massive week for me, again. But I should begin by saying thank you for all of the messages about the Royal Albert Hall gig, but there's a few things I need to clear up. Okay. It was a genuine surprise.
Okay, so on last Tuesday's ep, if you haven't listened to that yet, well, you're behind, so catch up. But there was a big old announcement whereby we surprised Ellis with news that he will be headlining... That little club venue in West London.
The Royal Albert Hall.
The Royal Albert Hall. When you say little club venue, there is bizarrely and hilariously a studio at the Royal Albert Hall.
Yeah, we've both done gigs.
We actually have done that gig. So I did the studio at the Royal Albert Hall about, I don't know, God, 12 years ago probably. Did you sell that out? It wasn't really on me to sell it out. It was run by a company called Avalon. I think the gig did broadly sell out and I was actually closing. But yeah, so for a long time I said I'd play the Albert Hall, but in reality it was a technicality.
So I did get surprised. I didn't know we were going to play the Royal Albert Hall. It was a... A secret that was kept from me by John and Dave and my wife as he was involved.
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Chapter 4: What are the details of the Geordie Financial Year skit?
I think if I was faking it, I'd have gone, no way! And then I'd have done some crocodile tears and gone, oh, I'm so glad.
But also, in the main, people aren't good enough actors. to do that. Like someone said to me that, um, someone said to me that the, like the whole thing with Russell Brand on Piers Morgan, finding the page was a, like a skit. Yeah. To sort of claim he's sort of got some kind of mental health issue, which will help him in future trials. Yeah.
And I was just like, I don't know if you ever seen Russell Brand acting, um, He can't do that.
We've all seen Get Into The Greek. Yeah. So it was a genuine surprise. I've since talked to Amy, our producer for McIntyre Entertainment, who was like, yeah, I've been involved in this since February. Oh, Amy's been heavily involved. I love the poster.
Yeah, we've got a poster.
Who does all of our artwork. The poster, and who did the artwork on John's book, Thirst. The poster is sensational and I love it. I'm also extremely glad and looking forward to the show because it's playing the album holds a once in a lifetime opportunity. So I'm delighted about it.
I was just, I'm not very good with surprises and kept thinking that there was a catch or that I was going to have to do it with my trousers down.
No, no, no.
So I'm also incredibly grateful to the two of you for going to that much work. And that's all the Johns. Yes. What was six-year-old John doing?
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Chapter 5: How do Ellis and John reflect on their past selves?
It might have even been XFM, actually. Alice's Gig Diaries. Alice's Gig Diaries. I remember, yeah. And because I've kept all of my notebooks from 2005, 2006, but the set lists are very funny because they're like any stand up comedians or bullet points. And my opener for about 18 months was Geordie Financial Year. which was just an excuse for me to do a Geordie accent, right?
And the material itself was quite weak, but I did it probably 80 times. And the problem with doing weak material, ironically, at big gigs, like I did Geordie Financial Year at the Shepherd's Bush Empire, is that it is just a bad bit of stand-up.
Yeah, it doesn't really make sense.
It doesn't really make sense. I couldn't also, in my defence, I couldn't remember the nuance. Mm-hmm. Because it had been 10 years. I certainly won't be doing Leeds train station baguette because that material was never good enough.
And what are you feeling about the growing number of people who are suggesting they might leave before your set because they're not fans of your stand-up?
Yeah. No one said that. Which is one of the funniest things I've ever seen.
I would say my self-esteem is fairly decent. Yeah.
Because we've not factored in for the fact that the audience might leave before us. Yeah, yeah.
The people who hate me, Dave. Well, no, no, no. The people who... This is seemingly a far more common sort of belief and opinion than I'd realise. The people who like to have a pint with me but hate my stand-up.
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Chapter 6: What insights do they share about mindfulness and self-awareness?
No, I'm too embarrassed to do that. I'm just riffing all the time. It's also very expensive to film in the Royal Albert Hall, I think, so we'd have to have a chat about that. Not if you have secreted a spy camera in your bow tie, Dave. Oh, what an odd angle. Just straight at your chest. So, you can get tickets online. On the 24th of June, if you're a Patreon subscriber. What's the URL, John?
Ellis, please be silent while I tell you the URL. Patreon.com forward slash Ellis and John. And Patreons get 48-hour pre-sale access. Got to get in there. For the general public, the butcher, the bike and a candlestick maker, it's the 26th of June. 10am. 10am.
Somebody said on my Instagram, give me Geordie Financial Year or give me death. Like a great t-shirt. I had a quick look at people who played the Royal Albert Hall, and it is crazy. We were lucky enough to do the Apollo last year, and the Beatles played at the Apollo, and Queen played at the Apollo. Winston Churchill did the Royal Albert Hall. Albert Einstein did the Royal Albert Hall.
Good grief. As well as all the mega bands. What did Churchill do? What was his set? He was at ballet, I think.
Yeah. It was at Swan Lake.
Not a great interpretation, but it did ship some tickets. Strong old dancers, they had to catch him. Oh, yeah.
So there you go. Ellis James, Pressures are a Privilege, live at the Royal Albert Hall on the 24th of March, 2027.
I went to watch Paul McCartney do a live-in conversation. Wowee! I've breathed the same rarefied air as a Beatle again.
Did you rush the stage and just go... Like trying to inhale his breath?
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Chapter 7: How do they incorporate listener correspondence into the show?
Brought to you by tomorrow. What's that? Freedom you can trust. These are all the taglines for our company. Yeah. Believe in magic. Audio squared. What's that mean? Well, it's more audio. Okay. Audio cubed. Audio times audio equals significant.
Audio squared were at the podcast show, weren't they? Were they? No. Oh, right. Okay. The podcast... Believe your ears. Oh, nice, yeah. The podcasts we are launching, number one, Don't Think So Somehow, starring the great Alistair Green and the great Rachel Stubbings. This is huge. That is going to be massive. This is brand new.
It's massive. It's huge. It's enormous. It's Alistair Green and Rachel Stubbings.
A lot of you will know Alistair from his online videos on X and Instagram. He's been doing that for years and years. He now does them at sort of live shows. John and I have known him for quite a long time. I can't remember the first time I met him, but it was quite a while ago.
I think I saw his last ever stand-up gig. Oh, did you? And that was like 15 years ago.
Yeah. He's an extremely funny man and Rachel is extremely funny as well. And the two of them together are great. The pilot, we are so pleased with the pilot.
It's so funny. Yes. It is so funny.
The trailer's funny. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I showed Izzy the trailer last night and she was laughing. So it's just, this is, it's a Galactico, isn't it? I'm two Galacticos. It's a fascinating relationship that they have.
And I think it's a real tonic to anyone who's bored with podcasts that are slightly like... In the toxic positivity realm, I think, and in the sort of... Constant improvement.
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Chapter 8: What exciting new projects are Ellis and John launching?
Oh, optimisation. Optimisation. It is through and through. It's toxic negativity.
No, Alistair and Rachel are not tech bros.
No, they're not tech bros.
Who see death and illness as a glitch in the matrix.
They're not telling you how to make your life better. They're not telling you how to improve your morning routine.
I mean, at points it does feel like they can barely stand each other.
But what, I mean, how many podcasts do you have when people... It's great.
Yeah, it's just so good. Indeed. And don't think so somehow. Launch is on Tuesday, but you can find it now because we've got a little trailer online. So just find it wherever you listen to your podcast. But the first ep will be coming out on Tuesday, June the 16th.
And follow them at Don't Think So Somehow on Instagram.
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