OTB Football
JOHN BISHOP: ‘It’s like Ronnie Whelan’s foot… wasn’t a foot!’ | OFF THE BALL BREAKFAST
27 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Off the Ball Daily, a home for your favourite podcasts from Off the Ball. It was one of the dream conversations, but Naz was trying to hold on to that. He said to me at 11 years old, you know, I want 10 million if you win 40 million. Brendan never got that. He never, ever got that. This is that dream talk.
Subscribe to the Off the Ball Daily podcast feed right now. Off the Ball Breakfast. Ireland's sports breakfast show. Right, we're welcome back. Gone with serve. Are there other games on? No, it's just there's quarter finals now, you see. So everything has its own setting. The new John Bishop, it's not John Bishop, the new Bradley Cooper directed movie is called Is This Thing On?
It is the story of John Bishop's life in a way. It's not a biopic in any way, but it's inspired by real life events. Bishop wasn't there. Was he on the Late Late on Friday? Yeah. I didn't see it because I was actually at the movie. Good? Hmm? Good? Yeah. Yeah, really good. Because, like, most of the films that are out at the moment are, like, superhero movies.
Like, oh, that's a very famous actor. Oh, he's in the Marvel Universe now, too. Great. And it's like... Hamlet? Yeah, Hamlet. Haven't seen it. Good? I also haven't seen it, but Erika Saad, she went during Man United Arsenal, and she said it was sensational.
Chapter 2: What is the movie 'Is This Thing On?' about?
Oh, right. Yep. Sensational. Rosita Boland reviewed it in the Irish Times yesterday, panned it. Who? An Irish Times journalist. Oh, sorry, okay. Sorry, I wasn't trying to call you out there. Yeah, no, apparently. And obviously Jessie Buckley was... Mescal, of course, overlooked. Too modern was the... She kind of thought it was fair. She thought it was fair enough. Right, okay.
Yeah.
But I don't know. Don't buy into that hype. Will Arnett is the star who plays the role of the comedian who actually has a story like John Bishop's. You were talking about this on Friday. Yeah, we were talking about this with Mor Nav, so I interviewed him that afternoon. The movie, he played this guy called Alex Novak with Arnett, and he actually went and did stand-up as Alex Novak.
So people were looking at him queerly in the audience. We know you as this, and he was doing the stand-up. And the first time he did it, he explained what he was doing, and then the feedback after that from a stand-up comic there that night is, don't explain what you're doing, just go as Alex Novak. So what you see in the movie is a lot of the sets.
So it is, I guess, a case of John Bishop being the source inspiration for the film. So a lot of the big events in the movie really did happen to John Bishop, but other storylines within didn't. So basically you're chatting with John Bishop himself about the differences there, about what did and didn't happen. There's a bang a sports movie off this, which we should... It's very tenuous.
It does star one of the... It does star... There's a brilliant cameo from one of the most famous American football players of all time, Peyton Manning, who plays the athletic director of a college who is trying to recruit Laura Dern, who is the ex-wife...
of Will Arnett and she was a volleyball star for America in the Olympics and is now co-opted onto the American volleyball coaching team for LA 28 so you know tenuous yeah that's not a John Bishop story but like there's the same things happen to him a lot like I mean how he starts to stand up is amazing like it is an amazing story like he's first of all he's 60 this year which is remarkable when you look at him
He was in the middle of separating from his wife of 20 years. They had three kids together. At a loose end. Went to this pub last night, which is an open mic night. And he was like, what's an open mic night? It's like if you put your name down, you get in for free. Otherwise, four pounds cover charge. It's $15 in the movie.
four pounds in real life, didn't want to pay it, went in, put his name down, expecting there'd be loads of people on the list and he never would get called. He got called very early, went up, and never done it before. Rest is history. He was the second on the bill. The first person was somebody doing chicken impressions. Chicken impressions, yeah.
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Chapter 3: How did John Bishop's life inspire the film?
We're not divorced or anything. I've just killed her. but I knew I was gonna miss it, so I've kept her head in the fridge.
It's a terrible joke, but as I said that, the head that was meant to be in the fridge, I could see it in the audience, and I was on stage, and when you're on stage, there's always a little drift of light, and I could see it, and we were literally at the final stages of the divorce, and I remember thinking, that's gonna cost me another 10 grand. That joke's not worth it.
And then she, but everything else that sort of transpired after was really very realistic. You know, the air coming up to me going, you know, what's all that about? And it just, it was so, it was so good to see. We had the special screening in Liverpool. Will's a Liverpool supporter. So we went to the match last week and we were at Burnley and we had a little screening for friends and family.
And one of the people who came was Denise, who was married to Melanie's dad at the time. And in the film, they have this bit where they sneak around, seeing each other for a bit. And so at the end of the film, she came up to us going, were yous doing that? And I was like, well, yeah, of course we were. She said, behind everyone's back.
I said, well, obviously you're not going to split up and just go, let's get back together. You've got to have a test drive, haven't you?
You're one of those frustrating people in that you took the stand-up comedy not realizing that you had this skill for a long time in your life. But you were like pharmaceutical sales and in charge of the UK and Ireland as a territory. So you were flying it in life. But your former life was also as a footballer.
So as a midfielder for Southport, I think you have 68 games and 10 goals from midfield, I think. I was wondering, in the movie when Will Arnett makes a debut, so to speak, and goes down the stairs, Like, why am I nervous for him? I'm properly nervous for him, like, but I wondered... I mean, I was nervous for him, and I love the end.
Like, is it replicated in, from what you remember of playing football, the idea of going on stage, even to this stage, playing football?
It's so funny, though, you know, like, because the way I came to stand-up comedy, I never thought it would be a job. Yeah. And the way, and it's always been the same, right from the outset.
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