Chapter 1: What mindset does John Robertson emphasize in his creative process?
Hello, listeners. We are back.
We're back after less time than previously. Just two weeks.
Now, a note for those of you who watch the show on YouTube. First of all, thank you so much. Please subscribe to the YouTube channel if you want to watch the show. But our first episode with Karis Bradley, we had a bit of a technical issue, which is basically I forgot to record the video. So that episode came out in audio only, so it is available on all your podcatcher apps.
It's just not available on YouTube.
Imagine what we would look like.
Yeah, you got the idea. You know, you know.
Yeah, three people talking.
Exactly. And on this episode, we have John Robertson, who you might know because you have, if you've ever found yourself locked in a dark, dark room.
You need to give some context to that.
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Chapter 2: How did John Robertson's 'Dark Room' performances evolve over time?
So join that.
Yeah, please check it out. Do we have anything else to say or should we just bring on John right away?
No, here is John Robertson.
Let's do it. So, John, thank you so much for being on the podcast.
Oh, a joy, a joy to be with you. Can I start with, I don't want to start with, this isn't a criticism per se, but this is the first time I've been disappointed by someone's background because I expected you to sort of live in like a castle or a dungeon or something like that.
I hate to disappoint you with my suburban poverty for a start. I also hate to disappoint you, and this is a terrible thing to say, you were the second person this week to say that to me. Sorry. No, no, no, no, no. I can't remember who it was, but it was a London comic who turned to me, and I've been in London on and off for 13 years, and he went, do you live here? And I went... And I went, yeah.
And he went, my God, I always pictured you in like a 17th century manner, like a sort of Widmille and I thing. Yeah. So I'm very pleased by whatever reputation I've created and very disappointed by what my budget could actually afford.
The myth of John Robertson, isn't it?
Yes, and like most myths, really not backed up by facts. But nevertheless, you know, I once turned myself into a cow, and that's why the sun shines. There we go.
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Chapter 3: What unexpected strategies does John use in his daily life?
Thank you.
Explain it to our listeners.
We absolutely do need to explain it. If I didn't have to explain it, I could have afforded that mansion you thought I was in. Which would be nice. Yeah, The Dark Room is a live action video game frequently promoted by my agents with the phrase, you can't explain it, you just have to go. Which is very nice.
People pick options off a screen and I'm wearing a lot of leather and spikes and a sort of cyberpunk-y, mad maxi, anime-y, S&M-y thing where I'm a video game and people are trying to escape this sort of old... parody of text adventures, and the audience chants along with all sorts of in-jokes we've collected over 13 years, and people win crap prizes or die, and it's pretty wild.
It's just a good time, and you can put that on at a gaming convention. You can put that on for 4,000 people at a heavy metal festival. Why not? It's the same audience, but with slightly more fluid in them at the later one, you know, so... Yeah.
Yeah, because I remember when you started The Dark Room, it's been fun to watch it evolve over the years and like the outfit evolve as well.
Yes, yes.
I remember when you took it to Edinburgh and you were doing it in Underbelly or The Hive to like sold out rooms. So like a couple hundred people. And now you do it to like huge... Like huge theaters at Comic-Cons and stuff, right?
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Chapter 4: How does John Robertson define 'Set It and Forget It'?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like sometimes, you know, like everything else.
Okay, so not sometimes because your social media tells me all the time.
Well, that's correct.
John Robertson does stadiums like daily, according to me.
Well, you know, that's the nice thing about cutting down a two-hour show into 15-second clips and then releasing them constantly. You know, it is amazing. I mean, 365 days of content out of one show. Great, you know. Lovely. God, imagine. Actually, that would be nice.
If you cut it so that, you know, if people put out clips for every laugh they got in a show, that would be so intriguingly depressive. Because remember when a rave review was laugh a minute? Yeah. Because if you went to see a standup show and you laughed 60 times in an hour, you would genuinely be like, well, that was shit. The worst thing I've ever seen. My God. Or a storytelling show.
But yeah, yeah, you know, like we do, we do very, very large shows a few times a year. And we're like everybody else, you know, we're doing art centers and theaters and rock festivals and stuff. And we just end up in a whole bunch of places. You know, it just, it just feels massive because it is, which is very nice. It's a lovely feeling.
People, I don't know, like I did the thing that all weirdo artists do, which is you, you throw yourself into what you believe in. And then people who are nicer than you and actually interested in enjoying and being involved in something, pick the thing of yours they like. And then you go, great, you know, because all of my stuff was designed to alienate.
And then this thing, which I just thought would be more of that, people went, no, actually, you might have accidentally produced something good. Yeah. Thank you for making a unit of entertainment. Look, just come over here and play with us, would you? For fuck's sake. You can't just be an isolated child carrying on with your weird Nick Cave, Barry Humphreys bullshit over there. Come here.
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Chapter 5: What challenges does John face with routine and spontaneity?
You're actually in a photo. My costume... to do the dark room from the shoulders down is just the outfit that I wear when I go clubbing. I have a photo of you, Abigail, and your partner and a couple of friends of ours as we're about to go clubbing. And at the time I'm like, wow, you know, look, look at those nice young kids. So we've all just moved to London and off we go. Right.
When I go clubbing now, if I wear that outfit, people look me up and down and go, oh, fuck John, you came dressed for work. That's not bad. Also, can somebody time that? Because that might have been a minute and then there was one laugh. Terrible. Terrible.
It's okay. It's a podcast. It's just flamboyant.
Podcasts that laugh an hour. A laugh an hour and then the downfall of democracy.
It's a show that has permanently changed my vocabulary as well because I can't call a pineapple a pineapple anymore. I just call them flamboyant potatoes. Thank you. There's a few comedians that have done that to me.
Oh, good.
My daughter will grow up not knowing the word pineapple.
Thank you. John, of course, remembers this, but Joe, and then we'll stop gushing about John. I feel like we're just like fanning at our friend, as you should. But when I first moved to London.
I am so erect out of shot. That has nothing to do with the praise. I just thought you should all know. Sorry, I know this story and it's very funny. Yes.
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Chapter 6: How does John's neurodivergent experience shape his creativity?
So I was there with you, friends. Oh, that's excellent. Abigail, I feel remiss in letting you know, well, that wasn't the story that I was expecting.
Which one?
Because I have the text from an earlier time with the shirt because you've actually had two misadventures featuring the shirt.
Oh, I wore that shirt a lot. I did wear it out. Tell them the other one.
May I quote you? And also, I think I probably should because I've already used this in my show. So several audiences know this story.
I expect a check in the mail.
Oh, no, you've been quoted. Your Instagram handle's been mentioned. There we go. It's this. It's this wonderful text, which is Abigail and I had gone and hooked up with Tom. So this has happened to Tom, I think, a couple of times. I do have more than one shirt. And it's just this. You'd woken up, right? And, you know, maybe you guys didn't know what you were going to be yet, right?
Or whatever was going on. And you've texted me and you've gone, you don't know what it is. to wake up in bed with a boy and then look down and see John Robertson staring judgmentally up from your own tits. Yes. It's one of the funniest things I've ever seen. We howled. We howled in the house. I should have printed that text and gotten it framed. It's so good.
have to dig through the archive we should put it as a review on the website it's fantastic I will I'll message the merch guy he'll love that
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Chapter 7: What insights does John share about audience interaction during performances?
I went to the place that had the smallest line, which was this kebab shop, right? And I would get like a chicken kebab. And then I couldn't understand why when we watched British things on the television, a kebab was a thing that people ate late at night, you know, or what, or what donor was or, you know, and so it was just that exact experience. And so I've always been like that with food.
If I, if I decide like, like I've just had, I've just done a photo shoot, which means for a month I trained to look nice in the photo shoot. Right. Which, you know, I'm 40. It made no discernible difference except for me. You know, like maybe my bowels moved a little bit faster or something, you know, but like I went, okay, well, I'm going to go and exercise now.
Oh, I'll climb the Eiffel Tower every day. Right. You know, the equivalent of doing that. So that's what I did. Wait a minute.
Like, do you have an app that's like this many steps as the Eiffel Tower?
There's a Stairmaster machine at my gym and one of the settings is Eiffel Tower. What? That is an intense setting. Well, it's not as high as the Great Pyramid, which is, I've never attempted because it's double. But like, so I've done that between once and three times, like every day for a fair whack of time.
But even I can go, all right, I'm doing this because on some level it's much easier just to decide one thing and then never do anything else, right? Mm-hmm. And also I have to go, well, this is probably more figurative than it is practical, but it's really nourished me to go. And it's the same with like, okay, well, okay. I need to, I need to eat. I'll eat the same meal constantly.
You know, like I don't, I don't change that at all. You know, I think it must've been six months after moving here that I stopped eating rice cakes and luncheon meat. That was the meal.
God, you sound like a 30-something-year-old Midwestern housewife on a diet. Just rice cakes and cold cuts.
I will just point out, that's not shitty rice cakes. That's glutinous rice cakes that you boil with herbs.
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Chapter 8: What closing thoughts does John have on embracing randomness in life?
Oh, yeah. There's no judgment in that at all.
Oh, good. Good. I'm glad. And indeed, indeed, the phrase there's no judgment in that at all is a good summary of what I do on stage. No, no real thought has gone into this. This is an improvisation. This is selfishness is what we're watching. Yeah. I don't know. I just, I find, I find I've always just found I'm not an ordered person.
Like the place is, you know, messy most of the time in order to be able to clean a house, for instance. The house needs to be a particular size. Otherwise the space I will just let go to ruin entirely. It doesn't mean anything to me. So this is big enough or small enough? Small enough. Like if it's small enough, I can go, oh yeah, no, no. Move object. Make sense object not there.
If the house is bigger, it's like, no, pile it to the fucking sky. I don't know.
Yeah, well, then you have room for, like, sometimes when I dream of living in a bigger place, I'm like, I can just have a room of stuff. Like, in America, it's not a big thing here, but basements.
Yeah, yeah.
My mom just has an unfinished basement, meaning, like, there's no carpet. And there's just, you know, all of our old stuff downstairs, like, you know, from when we were kids, old cookbooks. She just has, like, this basement full of stuff. Fuck a junk drawer. I want a junk room.
Yeah. Well, like during during it was during the pandemic that I went, all right, there might be something to whatever whatever's going on upstairs, because I used to be told, oh, you know, like, you know, you don't clean, you know, you're quite messy. Right. And I could never understand why my houses were messy or why stuff was there.
And then during the pandemic, there was a moment where I stepped over the same pile of laundry about 75 times. But I was like, oh, it's because I don't register it as being there.
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