Improvisation Mastery: A Journey Through Comedy, Authenticity & Leadership with King of Improv Neil Mullarkey & his New 'Good Book', "In The Moment"

Described as ‘the king of improv’, in reality Neil Mullarkey is more than that. The middle of three brothers, Neil is the one with the least conventional career choice. Perhaps you could say it all started at Cambridge where Neil was President of the now-famous Footlights Club. Or perhaps it started in a more public arena when he and Mike Myers founded the original Comedy Store in London. Perhaps it is starting now as Neil Mullarkey takes the lessons he’s learned in the genre of Improv and introduces them to the wider worlds of business and business schools.

 Neil Mullarkey is a curious combination of the searching academic and the pragmatic comic. He is at pains to tell us that the origins of Improv are not in Comedy but in mental welfare. He is happy to talk about Skinner, Pavlov and Herminia Ibarra. He is happy to use terms like ‘operant conditioning’, ‘provocative therapy’ and ‘affiliative humour.’ And at the same time, he is happiest eating meals with his wife and children, ahead of on-song running an Improv Workshop or eating Sushi on his own.

In the next breath, he will tell you he would be happy with a note in the history books which simply said “He made some people laugh.” His words to live by are ‘Say yes to everything and work out how to do it afterwards.’ Why else would he leave London and travel to the Ustinov Studio in Bath to appear Live on stage, totally unscripted, streamed as it happened - whatever happened! - on both Facebook and YouTube? In fact it was a great success - two lovers of Improv working together to delight an interested audience. Two table tennis enthusiasts keeping a fascinating rally going spectacularly well for a good hour.
“The only real mistake is to stop trying.” So says Neil Mullarkey, performer, thinker, writer. Fascinating stuff! Very generous, very authentic and occasionally very emotional.
A treat in store! 

Neil's episode is a treasure trove of insights - not just on comedy, but on authenticity, leadership, and the importance of embracing failure. Drawing wisdom from esteemed individuals such as Herminia Ibarra and B.F. Skinner, we explore facets of life that transcend the boundaries of showbiz. Neil's candid anecdotes on how he applies these life lessons to his personal journeys - like his unexpected stint as an umpire for the English Open Table Tennis Championships - are sure to leave you inspired. 

As we navigate through Neil's experiences, we also discuss his intriguing thoughts on provocative therapy and his unending love for improv. Get ready for a heartfelt tribute to Neil's late friend Andy Smart, a celebration of his upcoming charity event, and a deep dive into the stories and inspirations behind his book, 'In the Moment.' This episode, filled to the brim with humor, wisdom, and engaging anecdotes, is designed to leave you ent

Tune in next week for more stories of 'Distinction & Genius' from The Good Listening To Show 'Clearing'. If you would like to be my Guest too then you can find out HOW via the different 'series strands' at 'The Good Listening To Show' website.

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Transcript

Chris Grimes: 0:00

Hello, this is Chris Grimes, your host and curator of the Good Listening to Show Stories of Distinction and Genius.

Chris Grimes: 0:05

Before we get going with today's show, very excitingly, it's one of the live theatre show versions of the Good Listening to Show, which is also available as an events, festival or theatre show and one for an in-house show for clients to showcase your business too. So, yes, have a look at wwwthegoodlisteningtoshowcom. That's the new website for the show, and there are a number of series strands as to how you too can get involved by being in the show. There are lots of business benefits too, because you get to reach a large global audience of about 1.3 million care of my weekly show on UK Health Radio, which is broadcast globally across 54 countries. So, yes, if you've written a good book, if you'd like to showcase your business or if you'd like to host an in-house event with a difference, then the Good Listening to Show is available as a live theatre or events show. Enjoy today's show. It's with Neil Malarkey from the comedy store Players talking about his new book In the Moment, and his was the second of two shows recorded live and with audience Q&A. That evening, my previous guest had been Rosie Cavalliero, award-winning actress and comedian who was actually defying the laws of physics by being in the show with me live that night because, as I was speaking to her, she was also going live on UK national television, on BBC One, with her new sitcom, the Power of Parker. Both shows were live streamed to Facebook and YouTube simultaneously and there was a Q&A for both guests too. So, yes, enjoy tonight's show. Neil Malarkey, bar, theatre Royal, talking about his new book In the Moment.

Chris Grimes: 1:40

Hurrah, welcome to another episode of the Good Listening to Show your life and times with me, chris Grimes, the storytelling show that features the clearing, where all good questions come to get asked and all good stories come to be told, and where all my guests have two things in common they're all creative individuals and all with an interesting story to tell. There are some lovely storytelling metaphors a clearing, a tree, a juicy storytelling exercise called 5-4-3-2-1, some alchemy, some gold, a cheeky bit of Shakespeare and a cake. So it's all to play for. So, yes, welcome to the Good Listening to Show your life and times with me, chris Grimes, are you sitting comfortably here? Then we shall begin.

Chris Grimes: 2:36

Ladies and gentlemen, men, men, men, men, men and people on YouTube and Facebook, would you please say hurrah and we're here. Good evening, marvelous. There is a rule in comedy improvisation where if you can't top it, stop it. So that's given us a bit of a tough task now. So that was a very, very jubilant beginning. Thank you, so welcome.

Chris Grimes: 3:08

If you've just tuned in on Facebook and YouTube, facebook, youtube, youtube, facebook Doesn't really matter, they're streaming in. There are billions of people down the old camera lens and hundreds of thousands of people here at the Bath Theatre, royal Eustonoff Studio. Let's have another cheer, please. If you've not seen the show or heard the show before, where have you been? But it's the show in which I invite movers, makers, influencers, mavericks, personal heroes, to a clearing or serious happy place that they're choosing to all share with us their stories of distinction and genius. And with that imperative in mind, who is going to fit right into that beautifully? Would you please welcome my first guest of the two that we're doing this evening, if we'll pardon that particular expression. Ladies and gentlemen, would you please welcome the king of improvisation all the way from Londonium, mr Neil Malarkey. Again, that's not the end of the show.

Chris Grimes: 4:19

We've still got more to do Believe me, would you like a kiss, or you would like?

Neil Mullarkey: 4:23

a I'll have a glass of water. Yes, decancer water. Thank you, I've got somebody to do it for me, because whenever I do things on stage speeches and stuff I have a little rider which is where you have, say, I want jelly babies and towels and stuff, and I would say, please send somebody pour the water for me, because otherwise you're going yes, especially if it's fizzy and it goes all the way and you're trying to do, you know, a bane humor and you're covered in water.

Chris Grimes: 4:52

Yes and well done. You've not covered yourself in water. All is going smoothly. So you're extremely welcome to the show. Thank you very much. Thank you, I know you know who you are, but just to blow a bit of happy smoke at you, you're obviously an English writer and comedian and actor and, by the way, to keep clapping, that's good. When I googled you, by the way, rotten Tomatoes actually are talking about you rather sadly in the past tense, they're saying, was an actor who had a successful Hollywood career.

Neil Mullarkey: 5:20

That's okay, but I don't do much acting these days. It's a lot of hard work. You have to wear makeup and everything and learn lines, so I sort of said goodbye to that. And then, in 2021, we filmed a thing called the Pentaverate for Netflix, which was written, created by Mike Myers. People might have seen that on Netflix the Pentaverate.

Chris Grimes: 5:41

Yes, and indeed Mike Myers was your alma mater friend of old You've been in I think. It's two of his films, obviously, which were Austin Powers the first one.

Neil Mullarkey: 5:51

International man of Mystery, which I gave him the title In the stage. Has anyone heard of the stage? The stage is the newspaper for people in show business, so occasionally there were adverts for actors. You know, do you want to go on a cruise for three years and get paid diddly squat? But they're also adverts for acts, mostly sort of show acts. You might be on that cruise and one was called Mr Smith or something. Breckett's International man of Mystery, not just man of Mystery, international man of Mystery. So I showed this to Mike and he took it to be the title of the first Austin Powers movie and I'm also in the third one in Austin Powers Gold member.

Chris Grimes: 6:30

Gold member. We're all going to sing that in a moment, obviously. So, yes, and Mike Myers was co-founder with you of the comedy store Players, is my understanding, and you have got the dream gig because you're in central London every Sunday without fail.

Neil Mullarkey: 6:45

Without fail. Well, we did fail for a year, and a bit because of you know what, beginning with Pan and ending with Demik, so the comedy store Players. In October it will be 38 years we've been doing it. So Mike and I were doing a double act called Malarkey and Myers Crazy title I like the billing there.

Neil Mullarkey: 7:03

Oh, yes, that's right. Others occasionally say Myers and Malarkey, but no, no, no, it was alphabetical, I think. And so the comedy store Players was founded by us to Kit Hollerbarker, who'd worked with Robin Williams in San Francisco, and a guy called Dave Cohen and Paul Merton they were. Those three were doing a show at the same venue as us at the Edinburgh Festival in 1985, before most of you were born, and they said, oh, let's do some improv because Kit had done it and it sounded fun. So the comedy store, let us do Sunday nights. The other nights were stand up, or actually sublet it to discos, because comedy was still fairly alternative, comedy was fairly new in those days. And we've been doing it every Sunday ever since, really apart from that break because of the you know what the thing beginning with P and Indian yes.

Neil Mullarkey: 7:47

So Mike was there in 85 by summer 86, you went back to see his, his family. His father was not Wells and also he was offered the chance to join the Toronto main stage of Second City Theatre Company. Have you been in the touring company? We may get onto this for a while. Chris tends to ask me one question. I could finish an hour and a half later but. Second City was the improv troop in North America. Yes, and Mike taught us improv, the same sort of improv he'd learnt in Toronto with Second City.

Chris Grimes: 8:17

And, if I may, I'm sort of following if you'll pardon this particular expression in your slipstream, because I'm part of instant wit, which has been going back 10 years. We've been going for donkeys years like 30 years now In fact. My co-director, stephanie Weston's in the audience, the student being marvelous. But we're 10 years behind you and you are always the sort of you know, the pinnacle of wow that's the comedy store and I've seen you at least three or four times in that venue.

Neil Mullarkey: 8:40

We're very lucky that we still have this venue. There can't be many performers who've got a guaranteed gig once a week for nearly four decades. It's incredibly lucky. Also, we're very lucky because we invite the most brilliant performers to come play with us. So Greg Proubs was in town the other day. You might remember him from Whose Liners. Anyway, he dropped in and it's people who are much younger than us. They're happy to come and muck about with their co-chairs and it's an incredible privilege to be able to stand on stage for two hours, say the first thing comes into your head and get paid for it. So it's a bit like Whose Liners anyway, but there's no Clive Anderson and there's no editing and or TikTok, and they have Improv on TikTok, where the audience gives suggestions and we act it out there and then it's a wonderful form of theatre which before I'd been in it, I couldn't believe could actually work.

Neil Mullarkey: 9:29

Yes, Two hours with no script.

Chris Grimes: 9:30

No, it's a cheat. That's a new format you've done, then if you're doing on TikTok as well, I haven't. Young people do that.

Neil Mullarkey: 9:38

We film some of our bits yes, I'm sure you do it and put sort of TikTok friendly segments. Have a go on that, by the way. Is that right?

Chris Grimes: 9:49

That was quite nice so we do that.

Neil Mullarkey: 9:51

But there are people my niece, of course who's actually a doctor in her twenties, said oh, she watches quite a lot of Improv on TikTok. So it's young people trying different ways of just improvising in the street and so forth. So it's a really wonderful form of expression really to do things that have very little prep.

Chris Grimes: 10:09

And you're pushing on an open door, because I love improvisation too, and we can't obviously pass much of the evening with noticing you've written a book as well, which I'm going to talk about.

Neil Mullarkey: 10:18

Oh, have I really? I happen to have a copy in the moment, in the moment.

Chris Grimes: 10:25

Yes, and you're doing a lot in the corporate arena, which is what we'll get you to talk about too.

Neil Mullarkey: 10:30

Yeah, well, actually about the turn of the century, I was beginning to think oh, what am I going to want to do with my life? And actually it's getting the sense that theatre and art could have something to say to people who had jobs in organizations. And improv is all about listening, working together. I don't know what I'm going to say, I don't know what you're going to say, but together let's co-create something. Nobody's got sole responsibility, but we both share the joy of where it'll go, and that is a very applicable skill. At little did I know how applicable it was.

Neil Mullarkey: 11:03

It's interesting because actually, bath has many memories for me, because I was thinking of coming to Bath Business School to learn how to do business, to do an MBA. The master of business administration and one of the professors there said oh hello, aren't you the Neil Malachi I saw doing improv at the Bath Fringe years ago? I said yeah, and she said why do you want to come here? And I said I think I better need to know about business before I can teach business people improv. And she said really, do you Such a good question? Yes, and I talked to her. I talked to her former boss, who had been a drama lecturer before becoming a business lecturer, then had retired and he said oh no, you don't want an MBA, you'll talk like them. And he said management is easy.

Chris Grimes: 11:47

Alan Bennett, it was.

Neil Mullarkey: 11:48

I think it came from Yorkshire. But he said management is easy. Have a plan, communicate it, and that's very simple, and that's very simple.

Chris Grimes: 11:58

Collectively save you tens of thousands of pounds.

Neil Mullarkey: 12:01

Well, I did say, ian, please recommend me some books. And so I've read about 10 books to understand a little bit about how. What I thought was helpful because improv is about dealing with difference, uncertainty, where's it going to go? What's the customer going to think? Suddenly they do different things, suddenly the government changes the regulations, suddenly new technology comes in and that thing now works differently. You're all the time working with uncertainty. So to have that mindset was helpful. And also, every conversation you have is a bit improvised, isn't it? There's no script, is there? If there were, it'd be quite a dull conversation.

Chris Grimes: 12:39

It's like this our thinking unfolds as we go along. Yes, and Ian Forster.

Neil Mullarkey: 12:44

I think said. I don't know what I think until I see what I write. So much of our life is improvised, but most communication training is scripted. How do you present that kind of stuff? Anyway, I've leapt ahead.

Chris Grimes: 12:58

So look, let's get you on the open road.

Chris Grimes: 13:00

then Let me cue raking you through the structure and the story scale of the Good Listening 2 show. So there's going to be all the lovely stuff. There's going to be a clearing, there's going to be a tree, there's going to be a juicy storytelling exercise called 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. There's going to be some alchemy, some gold, some storytelling apples how do you like these apples? And there'll be a cake and some Shakespeare at the end too. So let's get you on the open road. So what is? Where is a clearing for Neil Malarkey? Where do you go to clutter free, inspirational and able to think?

Neil Mullarkey: 13:28

Well, you have asked me this question and I thought I'm going to give two answers. This may well be not allowed, but there's a place which is the comedy store stage. When I'm on stage with my fellow comedy store players and we're in flow, the audience gives suggestions and we are taken hold by the winds and the gods of improv. We're in flow, the muse comes. It's wonderful. That's a very busy, crowded environment 400 people on stage in the audience six on stage and it's kind of busy and indoors.

Neil Mullarkey: 14:00

On the other hand, just getting the train here today from London to Bath, I realized how much I adore the English countryside. So I love being in the mix with lots of people performing, having a crowd bouncing off other people, but I also love solitude, I think, especially since lockdown, when solitude was quite difficult to find. Sometimes I just like walking on my own as I got older, just walking and not having to get somewhere on time. I remember sometimes when I used to do I do quite a lot of international work and in those days when you went to New York your phone wouldn't work because you didn't have coverage.

Chris Grimes: 14:41

I remember.

Neil Mullarkey: 14:42

And now you can. And it was just lovely to think nobody can get me and you're off to Zambia tomorrow.

Chris Grimes: 14:48

and you said that the dream is that you've got three days of work.

Neil Mullarkey: 14:53

It's not such a dream now because of course, what's gonna happen with my aged in-laws and my own mother, so that's a bit weighing. But it will be nice to be not having to answer two timetables. I quite like that. I like just walking and thinking. I don't have to be anywhere for an hour or two or half an hour or three hours. But I particularly love the English countryside. I used to live in Sussex and my heart just lifts looking out of the window as I see that particular stone that you have on the way here, those little villages that cotswoldy look. So I like that as well. I like the solitude and I like being busy. And, dare I say, this could be many of the answers, the paradox that I couldn't do without this, and I occasionally seek out that.

Chris Grimes: 15:39

And there's that lovely Nietzsche quote. If in doubt, walk it out. So it makes the idea of being absolutely walking.

Neil Mullarkey: 15:43

Well, actually absolutely St Augustine, I think, said something that no problem can't be solved by a walk.

Chris Grimes: 15:50

Ah, we've got all intellectual. That's lovely what?

Neil Mullarkey: 15:53

have we gone? I always was darling.

Chris Grimes: 15:56

So then we've got I'll, either I'm gonna turn up with a tree now. So it's either gonna be in your train carriage or on a walk or on the comedy store.

Neil Mullarkey: 16:04

It's like a tree let's go with the clearing in a wood, with blue bells on the floor, and it feels like nobody's around except for you, me and the thousand people we have here Love it and everyone at home.

Chris Grimes: 16:19

Yes, don't forget the Facebook and YouTube people as well. So, yes, I'm now gonna arrive with a tree, a bit waiting for Godo-esque existentially, and I'm gonna shake your tree to see which storytelling apples fall out. I've already said this, but how do you like these apples? Would you like an apple to clutch?

Neil Mullarkey: 16:33

Okay, thank you. It's a little bit like the poison apple in Snow White, but it's a prop. Don't eat it. It's a prop. It is a prop, isn't it? Although? One of my favorite things. There's a scene in Laurel Hardy where there's some wax fruit and he starts eating it. Stan Laurel a lot of Hardy can't believe it, but Stan's quite enjoying the wax fruit, but I won't eat it.

Chris Grimes: 16:52

Yes, he's my all-time comic hero, Stan Laurel I know he's actually the secret.

Neil Mullarkey: 16:55

He is mine.

Chris Grimes: 16:57

Well, snack. Do you want a high five? No, do a high five later.

Neil Mullarkey: 17:00

A virtual one A virtual one.

Chris Grimes: 17:02

So, yes, I'm now gonna arrive, then, to take you through the five, four, three, two, one, which is five minutes, to have thought about four things that have shaped you, three things that inspire you, two things that never fail to grab your attention, and that's borrowed from the film Up, where Some Random Squirrels Are Gonna Come In Squirrels, don't throw the squirrel in yet. And then a quirky or unusual fact about you that we couldn't possibly know until you tell us. So how would you like to interpret the shaking of your canapé, or canapé new?

Neil Mullarkey: 17:27

block. I'd like my canapé to be shaken. Are there canapés? I don't even like a bit of finger food.

Chris Grimes: 17:33

I love a bit of finger food. Yes, a finger buffet.

Neil Mullarkey: 17:35

So are we doing the four?

Chris Grimes: 17:36

things, the four things that have shaped you.

Neil Mullarkey: 17:37

first, Four things that have shaped me. I can't get away from my family and I don't want to my family. They shaped me. My school friends shaped me, my college friends shaped me. And this thing improv theater, which I've done for nearly four decades, has definitely shaped me, both on stage and off.

Chris Grimes: 17:58

Lovely, lovely answers and then. So that's the four things really concisely.

Neil Mullarkey: 18:02

Any of those you wanna go into a bit more depth of yes, if you like. So my family. I've got a mom, a dad and two brothers, and they have always been very supportive. My father has passed away now and he always said study at school and then university, something you love, don't think you've got to get a job. And so I took him at his word. So I did math, physics, chemistry, all of those.

Neil Mullarkey: 18:28

Because I thought I'd be a doctor. I thought I'd be a doctor, but then I was in the school play in the lower sixth, the school play, and I smelt the joy that we're experiencing now. Then audience laughter, and that's what I wanted to do. And then I was in the play the next year and I wanted to be in the Cambridge Footlights. So the Footlights is where Monty Python, stephen Fry, hulory, olivia Coleman, sasha Brown, cohen, many Emma Thompson, many famous writer performers and others. So I got to be president and by the second year of my university I'd gone away from math, physics, chemistry. I was studying economics because I had to do something before my dream, which was to study social and political science. I wanted to study the thing about how people react and interact as individuals, as groups. I love how we become who we are, how we're shaped, and then how groups work together or don't. So I did social science about. There was social psychology, how children become who they are. There was a paper which I couldn't resist called Deviants.

Chris Grimes: 19:38

Excellent.

Neil Mullarkey: 19:40

Deviants, which was basically about how society others, certain people, other rises. If you're not in the mainstream, how do we see you? And of course, in the 1980s that was different from how it is now. But there was an essay, for example, on is there such a thing as a criminal personality? Is there? Are we all doomed to have no?

Neil Mullarkey: 20:01

self-freedom but are we all just frizzlers of our past, Anyway. So my father said do you want to do this? Yes, I do want to do showbiz, dad, I do. And he said, OK, do it. Whereas my brothers one was a chemical engineer, one was an accountant Very proper jobs, and it was funny because soon after I graduated I was on the dole Is it called that anymore? Supplementary benefit, income support Not very much money, but more than they get now and my rent was paid, which is unthinkable now, perhaps. Anyway. So I heard my mom on the phone to one of the family friends oh, yes, Neil, Neil, yes, he's trying to break into show business. And remember, she asked him what are you going to do? Because I was thinking, oh, it's easy, Just go to Edinburgh and get on Radio 4, easy, he's great yes.

Neil Mullarkey: 20:49

And eventually that did kind of work and she thought are you going to just send off applications to those adverts? In the back of the stage and he's dancing girls on a cruise to Norway.

Chris Grimes: 20:58

Perfect casting.

Neil Mullarkey: 20:59

Simwa. In fact, one of my friends had got a job as assistant director of the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry and they said come on, a Russian for the panto Panto. Yeah, funny, funny buttons, I can do that. It was an audition for the chorus, so it was first thing. So we all looking around, everyone's in leg warmers and stuff, and then on come this choreographer. Now, first of all, we do a bit of this and she was saying words I didn't understand. There were obviously choreograph moves. I let myself out gently and my friend said oops, I got it wrong.

Chris Grimes: 21:30

So a life in pantomime was not for you, it was not for me.

Neil Mullarkey: 21:33

So that's my family. They've always supported what I do, been slightly mystified by it. My school friends that's when I realized laughter was wonderful. We laughed a lot Monty Python we still laugh, without even really saying much. Now. That's when I became a little bit of who I am now, opening up my eyes to where the world is. Perhaps some of my values and my sense of humor, for sure. My college friends. So I had some college friends in my college and I had some footlights friends as well, all of whom have shaped who I am, my sense of humor and just this again, when I'm with my college friends it's just I don't have to be anything other than who I am, which I'm still trying to find, but I know I'm that person that I was then, even though I'm fatter, older and grayer, and I feel very much at home with them and something about that period in your life forms who you are Later on, and perhaps I'll talk about how we do develop. But those are the things.

Neil Mullarkey: 22:33

And then this thing came along Mike Myers was selling tickets for a show. Mike Myers, I should say, was selling tickets for show, as in the ex Cambridge Footlights. We'd gone on tour to Australia came back. We're now a year out of Cambridge, so next year's lot could use the name Cambridge Footlights. So that's Steve Punt, hugh Dennis, nick Hancock.

Neil Mullarkey: 22:54

So we put on our poster X Footlights and we're playing a tiny theater in Notting Hill and there's a bloke selling tickets for us. He's in a wheelchair, not because he's a wheelchair user but because we'd use all the proper chairs on stage. We thought it'd be funny why the audience was coming in to be eating crisps and stuff like that. It wasn't really, they just thought we were odd. Anyway, so he was Mike Myers Now in 1985, he wasn't anybody famous, he'd done pretty well in Toronto, done child acting, and he'd been in Second City and he had a character called Wayne At that stage came from Scarborough, which is not very glamorous suburb of Toronto. Years later he'd moved him to Chicago, aurora, anyway. So Mike made me laugh, mike Myers I hope some people too young here Shrek Austin Powers, wayne's World.

Chris Grimes: 23:46

Great connections.

Neil Mullarkey: 23:47

There you go, exactly Because even Shrek now is a bit old, although I can reveal there's a new Shrek on its way soon and you see it in a voice.

Neil Mullarkey: 23:55

Shrek again. Yes, he is, of course he is, anyway. So Mike and I did a double act. Well, the first one I said what are you doing? He said I'm writing sketches, 1985, I said nobody's doing sketches, it's all alternative companies Stand up, punchy, political. And then I took him to see some stuff and they said let's do some stuff. And we did sketches which were very well received because they were quite different and energetic, and other comedians liked us because we weren't treading on their toes, I think. And we looked like we wanted the audience to have a good time. Yes, and we're holding to heck to them.

Neil Mullarkey: 24:32

And so then he was talking a lot about what he'd learned with Second City, this improv thing which actually, just to digress for a moment, improv, this thing where the audience gives suggestions to the actors, didn't start with performers, certainly didn't start with comedians. It started with a social worker in the 1920s in Chicago and she was helping children. They were a bit shy, perhaps they were disadvantaged, perhaps they weren't even native speakers. She created exercises to give them the confidence to speak up, and it was her son who said, wow, these exercises could work as a form of theater in their own right. So by 1959, he'd created Second City Theater Company in Chicago Second City because Chicago's Second City of America, I guess. And he told me about the ethos of this improv. It was all about treating what the other person says as an offer to accept the offer. Yes, and if I say good morning Mr Johnson, you're Mr Johnson, and you say good morning Mrs Johnson, or good morning Mr Squirrel, or would you like this table and the egg and bacon, whatever? And oh, yes, I'll have egg and bacon.

Neil Mullarkey: 25:44

So you gradually build up the scene together and Del Close was one of the founders of this thing in the 1950s and he was talking very much about how we co-create, how we collaborate, and you could imagine somebody in an improv scene wants to write the whole thing and he said don't do that, bring a brick and together we will build a cathedral. That sense of collaboration through the uncertainty all we know is that we're doing it together really affected me, as well as going on an improv workshop for a couple of weeks with Desmond Jones, the Desmond Jones School of Mime. He taught I think he taught lots Greyster, because a movie taught people playing gorillas how to move. In fact I know Tarzan because Tarzan had been brought up by gorillas. Anyway, he'd also worked with Keith Johnston, who was one of the gurus of improv here in the UK at the Royal Court is a writers theater, but in the 70s Keith Johnston said we can make much better theater without writing. So I learned in that time as an improv.

Neil Mullarkey: 26:47

Mike was talking a lot about how we endow somebody with something. So if I say, chris, it's great that you got out of jail, that's a scene, there's a story there, rather than going hello, who are you, what's going on? And also things like there's a squirrel, a squirrel, what's going on. It's more fun than squirrel look.

Chris Grimes: 27:07

Can I just commend you for the? Bring a brick and we shall build a cathedral. I thought that was lovely. I know.

Neil Mullarkey: 27:11

I've said it virtually every week since I read it and it makes me tingle every time because I'm not good enough on my own. I've done some stand up. I find it very lonely, but also I find in life I'm not good enough on my own and there's nobody from whom I cannot learn. Having children as well, my goodness, they teach you things. But people of all ages, and, dare I say, educational achievements, can teach you so much, whatever their story is. So anyway, where was I?

Neil Mullarkey: 27:46

Improv, this thing that Mike introduced me to. We formed the Comedy Store players. We did it for years and have done it for years. It became the thing I really wanted to do more than anything else. I did have a sort of moment at our 10th anniversary in 1995, where I was always the one who used to book who's on, make sure there's six people on, and I got a bit tired and I thought I was also feeling a little bit fed up because I could see that spending. We used to do Wednesdays as well two hours on a Wednesday, two hours on a Sunday doing stuff that then gets forgotten fluffy, frivolous improv. There's other people at home spending those four hours writing novels, film scripts, theater. Why wasn't I doing that? So I said I'm gonna leave. I'm gonna leave, I'll stop. Make use of that time better. Paul Merton took me for lunch and said don't leave, you love it, take three months off. So I said, all right, three months off. After six weeks I was ringing up saying has anyone dropped out?

Chris Grimes: 28:48

Maybe I could come. So you had an impro sabbatical, I had a sabbatical.

Neil Mullarkey: 28:52

And actually the moment for me was realizing not that I'd spent too much time doing improv, I hadn't spent enough. And that was the moment where I realized, actually I want to do more improv. And the way to do that and to teach this beautiful art form, which was all about vulnerability, all about dealing with failure and not knowing, all about sharing. Spread that beyond the stage. These skills can work offstage. They indeed started offstage with a social worker, giving people chance, young people chance to feel they could contribute, and that has been-.

Chris Grimes: 29:28

I really hadn't appreciated that when it came from the 1920s actually, that was something that needed to mean this. Well, we could now be. Then, please, onto the three things that inspire you.

Neil Mullarkey: 29:38

So, three things that inspire you Three things. I'm gonna get cheap by saying people because I'm inspired Three things. I'm gonna say Andy Smart, yes, formerly of the comedy store players. He died of a heart attack and this is where I have to have my glass of water. Two months ago he was such a funny man, such a funny man and just full of life. Full of life. He ran with the bulls in Pamplona you know that thing somewhere in Derbyshire where they play football for about a day with a massive ball, about 300 people over a river. He'd turn up every year and commentate on Talksport for it. That thing where they'd roll a cheese down in Cheddar and people get really badly injured. He'd always be tanking alone.

Neil Mullarkey: 30:27

But, he'd be saying, yes, I'll be there. He ran with the bulls about 50 times. One time he was in a restaurant. He ordered oysters for starters. What do you want for your main course Oysters? What do you want for your pudding Oysters? By the end he had 48, and the patron came out and said if you can eat two more ie 50, I'll give you them for free. And the eight 50 oysters. And the whole restaurant applauded him.

Neil Mullarkey: 30:54

He was just a funny, funny man and he's written a book called Hitch in Time which is about how he decided to hitch around Europe in the period where he was leaving university becoming a comedian. It was all about he dreamed of being a comedian. Now, for me the Cambridge Footlights was fairly easy. People had done it before. We used to stand out at the Edinburgh Festival. He went not to Cambridge, he started on the street. He was doing. He was part of the Vicious Boys who then won Best Street Act in London in 1984. So he inspired me because he would, and at his funeral he'd written some notes to his children that they'd found, which is and many of them were just wonderful recommending bars across the world. But one was just say yes and then find out how to do it and just made me laugh. He never failed to make me laugh on stage. So that's Andy Smart, and indeed I could say all the comedy store players, really, and our guests. The other one, two more One is Frank Farrelly, who is the father of provocative therapy.

Neil Mullarkey: 32:00

So when I was in this period of thinking comedy, improv, could bring more to life than merely the hours or two we spend in the theatre, what about the rest of your life? I've always thought comedy is a unifying force, when done right, which is mostly. Aren't I rubbish Anyone else rubbish? Yeah, me too. Rather than look at him. He's not in our gang, he's a deviant, he's not in my gang, so I can laugh at him. That's othering, that's bullying. That's what they call disaffiliative humour. Affiliative humour is we're all in this together, crikey. How are we going to do this? Well, we did that, didn't we? We were a bit rubbish, but we were OK Bringing people together. So, frank Farrelly, I went along to a day at the comedy store.

Neil Mullarkey: 32:49

I'd seen a poster. They could have a day about the theory and science of comedy. So there were sociologists, psychologists, neuroscientists, and there was Arnold Brown who was one of the comic strips. So in the 80s there was the comic strip Alternative comedy Rick Mail, jennifer Saunders, dawn French, a Debmanson, and this 50-year-old accountant from Glasgow, arnold Brown. Yeah, arnold Brown, and his catchphrase was why not, why not? If there's anything you don't understand, then assume it's intellectual.

Chris Grimes: 33:25

I've got a cult following me.

Neil Mullarkey: 33:26

I've got a cult following. At the moment it's the Jehovah's Witnesses. So he supported Frank Sinatra once at the.

Neil Mullarkey: 33:34

Glasgow, whatever Ibrox Park, we've all done this. Yeah so, arnold, there was a note saying he joined up with a doctor, a proper doctor, to kind of look at how comedy and health were related. And I wrote to him and said, can I play? And so he became the Academy of Laughter and Health Dr Bran Kaplan, who's a GP and a homeopath, but he called himself Dr Fishhead because he had a fish like that and a tie made of fish and Arnold Brown. We were called the Academy of Laughter and Health. We did two gigs. One was at the New End Theatre in Hampstead, a former mortuary. The other one was at the Freud Museum, which was where Sigmund Freud ended up in London in.

Neil Mullarkey: 34:17

Hampstead. But then Brian Kaplan, the doctor, said this guy I met the other day, he does provocative therapy. And he played me a cassette of Brian being interviewed by Frank and again there was a moment of transformation Provocative therapy. Frank Farrelly was a professor of psychiatry and he worked especially at Madison, wisconsin, in North America, mendota State Mental Hospital. So really severe cases murderers, suicide watch Just people with you know they had to be locked up for their own safety and he had Hitherto studied a thing called client-centered therapy, carl Rogers' counseling, which was just for the funsters here, which is I can only understand you if I put myself in your shoes, put myself in your shoes, understand why you feel this way and you can see that's an ethical way of empathizing.

Neil Mullarkey: 35:13

But there was one Friday he was a bit tired and he was talking to this client and the client was going yeah, my life is rubbish, it's terrible. And Frank went oh, shut up, you'll never get out of here. And the client went yes, I will. And it was the first time the client had gone with something authentic and assertive and actually lifted their body. He thought I'm onto something. So he experimented with things like you want to give up smoking? Oh no, you want to smoke more. You should be smoking more. That's the trouble. And the client goes huh, what Do I want to give up smoking? And his whole ethos was the client has it within them. The answer is within them, and all I'm doing is teasing out what the answer is. I'm satirizing their self-limiting beliefs. And people would say to him how do you become a provocative therapist? Because there'd be other things like I want to give up smoking. Oh no, you'll never do it, mate, don't bother, don't bother. And so there are various interventions.

Chris Grimes: 36:17

It's a culling out of your loser, exactly.

Neil Mullarkey: 36:19

And also there's research that says that people like with your name will never give up smoking. Your name's Kristen. There there's some research and they go what? And the whole thing was to kind of he said holding up a hall of mirrors to make them really think about and feel and you could see when. And I went to see him. I went all the way to see him because my literary agent said I can sell a piece in the paper. I wrote a piece and they didn't sell it.

Chris Grimes: 36:43

But I met.

Neil Mullarkey: 36:43

Frank and his wife and he was just fascinating, and so this is basically. He described it as teasing people back to mental health by provoking them to do so, and provoke means for provoke, for the voice.

Neil Mullarkey: 36:59

Yes, Help them find their voice. And of course, it teeters on. It might look like you're bullying them, but you're not. You're doing it and you always describe it as with open heart, chakra and a twinkle in your eye because you have a contract. In fact, what you do is you do it for this period and then you stop and then say how did that feel?

Chris Grimes: 37:20

Yes.

Neil Mullarkey: 37:21

And say we do this in front of therapists and executive coaches and somebody would volunteer, and then they film it and stop it and say how did you know? What did you notice? And so the person could then talk about the process. Yes, and I was absolutely thrilled by this because I'm teasing people back to mental health Seem to be a wonder Are you connecting that in this book as well?

Neil Mullarkey: 37:40

I do mention about it. Yes, I do, and I use it in my work. Yes, things like just gently, if people say I can't do this, I might say, well, you can't do it yet, and then tell me about the thing. And then I said you've just done it, you idiot. You've just done it. What are you talking about? Who's that person you're pretending to be? So just gently, realizing that they may have a script internally that may not be actually the one that's helping them.

Neil Mullarkey: 38:12

So, yes, I talk about Frank in the book, definitely, because that was, first of all, opening my eyes to the possibilities of improv beyond the stage. And secondly, I went to see him in the Netherlands and there were lots of coaches there. I mentioned them before. Executive coach. I'd heard of coach football basketball, yes, but there are now coaches in business. I didn't understand what that was, but then I realized that this was just part of what was going on. People in business were looking outside to coaches, but also to people in the theater and the arts, to say how can we use what you do so successfully?

Chris Grimes: 38:46

to help us. It's a profound suite of transferable skills that are incredibly powerful.

Neil Mullarkey: 38:51

This was one of my things. I heard on the radio Somebody from Asheridge Business School, which I'd heard of, which is near London. In near, I was going to say near Luton, but that would be wrong, it's north of London. Anyway, he said theater is this place where matters psychological, emotional and mental come together. And I thought, yeah, that's right. So I wrote to him and said can I come play? And I got a gig at a business school. I know you work there as well, but it's a proper business school.

Chris Grimes: 39:22

And they allowed and that got you on the open road and on the path of opening up like a front. That was one of those things I said. I can do this actually.

Neil Mullarkey: 39:28

I'm allowed in to this, the temple of business, business training. And gradually other leads came. Somebody approached my voice agent to say hey, neil seemed funny in the comedy store we're pitching for the Visa account. You know Visa credit cards. Can he come in and do 20 minutes stand up comedy on credit cards?

Neil Mullarkey: 39:48

Luckily, my voice over agent I don't know why they approached her rather than somebody else said you can't just magic stand up comedy out of nowhere, especially one topic. But Neil and I talked to her about my process of I think this is what I went to and she said Neil looks now to teach improv to people in business. There was a management consultancy. My wife was at a hen night sitting next to somebody who was in communication for management consultancy and she said yeah, that's a great idea, because before we've had people come in who are actors, who are teaching you how to project and everything. Trouble is when you're a management consultant, the audience is tough. You need to improvise. They're heckling you. They may not be throwing things at you, but no matter how well you project your sonnets in Shakespeare, they're asking so what mate? What about this thing?

Chris Grimes: 40:35

you haven't thought of. You can't turn up in a cravat and expect them to be impressed.

Neil Mullarkey: 40:39

Exactly, or with a whole pack of stuff. They do that. Here's the answer to everything. And the client goes. Well, what about this? And they go. That's not in the pack.

Chris Grimes: 40:48

Let me talk about this and it links beautifully to the provocateur idea, because you go in as an outsider, almost like a maverick, an outlier, as I do, where you sort of get in there.

Neil Mullarkey: 40:56

You're an outsider, you don't know the rules, or you pretend not to, and I can say well, the boss clearly is an idiot, aren't they Clearly? That's the problem. Just get rid of them and they're going well, no, no, no, no, no, yes, yes, yes, yes, or Call it out.

Neil Mullarkey: 41:08

Or well, the thing is, marketing are all immoral. People Sales are even more immoral. That's the problem. And they're going well. No, actually. And I said, well, why can't you talk to each other and realize that you're all in one team, that kind of thing, sort of holding up, sort of silly stereotypes of different jobs and functions, to say, well, what's really going on here? And how easy it is, for example, for people in a job to say, well, of course, every meeting we just rubbish, it's all his fault, it's all their fault. And I'm saying, well, it's all his fault. Why is it? You're in the system, you're in that improv scene. Deal with it. Hmm, you've got something to do.

Chris Grimes: 41:55

What was it you said before we came on? I?

Neil Mullarkey: 41:56

don't know if the audience home heard it, which is if you. If you can't top it, then stop it. But why are you in a meeting that everyone knows is a bit rubbish? Why don't you take some responsibility? Rather that very, and realize? This is where provocative therapy came in, which is it's very, very comfortable to sit back and say, well, of course I can't change anything, it's somebody else's fault.

Chris Grimes: 42:17

It's sometimes called bystander syndrome, isn't?

Neil Mullarkey: 42:19

it.

Chris Grimes: 42:19

I think somebody else is listening. They'll sort this shit out. Yeah, exactly.

Neil Mullarkey: 42:21

And, of course, I'm much happier spending all my energy Slagging it off behind behind their back. That's a much more comfortable place than saying Crikey, could I do something here? My third inspiration is is doc the professor Herminia Ibarra, her minion, her minna Ibarra. Her minna Ibarra, like I suppose, she is a human American professor of business at London Business School. I Say her just because she's a very clever person and she was at insiad, which is a French business, but the one where I applied when I was thinking about doing an MBA.

Neil Mullarkey: 42:59

I applied to Bath, I applied to insiad. Insiad was, you know, one of the top ones in the world as good as Harvard, I think and they turned me down flat because you had to write essays. And I was writing essay saying I want to make the world A better place, I want to use my communication skills to enhance Understanding of humankind. You know, maybe I could work for the United Nations. And somebody said you idiot, they want you. You want you to write. I want to be the chief executive of Hewlett-Packard, I want to run my own business, I want to be running a business of 45 billion pounds, and so she was at insiad. And then I met her at a party in London and she was moving to London Business School and she was just so open and kind. Now she's. She's a proper researcher, she's written proper books and is in demand across the world.

Neil Mullarkey: 43:47

And I say her just because she's invited me to talk at London Business School and it's very open to people who are not academics like her and she speaks such sense and she talks about working identity and you're in your life and your working life. You're not the same person all the time. And she talks about authenticity. Everyone here want to be authentic. She says what does it mean really? What does authentic mean? Because it sounds it's a little bit of a buzzword like purpose and disruption and so forth. But she said what about being authentic to your future self? Isn't that great? Because she had some examples. For example, somebody's just been promoted and they're really leaving a team and they go. I don't know really what to do. I've done this before, oh dear. And she's saying for the sake of your team, you've got to put on a slightly different pair of shoes, being in control. Yes, play a little role. Yeah, that may help them, not because you're Saying, look at me, but for their sake, you've got to slightly step up. It's, it's a little bit fake it till you make it. But she did things like, had examples of where somebody just Saw a good leader and thought, well, shall, I have a go at that, and it worked. And for the sake of their team and indeed for their own development, they became a better leader. And I Often say so.

Neil Mullarkey: 45:10

There are some people here who are not as old as me. There are some people here who might be in their teens and I'm pretty much the same as I am. And I'm pretty much the same I was when I was 15, except I'm not I Been influenced by those people you asked me about. I've learned a lot. I'm Essentially the same. Yes, I wouldn't want to decry that person, but he's done some very stupid things. That young man and that old, that middle-aged man. I'm always thinking, oh, thank goodness I don't do that anyone. I realized that was what I did the other day. Yes, exactly.

Chris Grimes: 45:44

I've done some very stupid things. My dad is still with us and is famous for saying that inside every old person Is a young person wondering what the front has happened.

Neil Mullarkey: 45:52

We're all a work in progress and I meet such wise teenagers and such wise 20 year olds and such foolish six year olds like me, anyway. So she talked and she's got a book called act like a leader, think like a leader, act like a leader, think like a leader. That's the wrong way around, isn't it? Because most of the way we see the world here in the West Sophocles think and enact, whereas in other traditions it's by by doing we learn, by doing we think. And she talks about Act like a leader, think like a leader.

Neil Mullarkey: 46:27

So an example was her was. She was a Harvard and Found that people didn't really like a lecture. She didn't enjoy it, and somebody just came and sat, a friend said. And he said just a tiny thing, just walk about a bit, go in there to go in amongst them. And it just gave her the power Mm-hmm, that physical thing of owning the space, checking up on actually writing things, or are they on tinder? Are Are the students really doing and doing what they ought? And just by moving about, that tiny tweak gave her confidence internally. Yes, so that sometimes the external can affect the internal.

Chris Grimes: 47:03

She'd been a mentor to you in helping you write your books as well.

Neil Mullarkey: 47:05

Well, certainly she's been kind enough to give a good quote, but I borrowed a lot of her Mm-hmm Research stuff about. She's looked at how we get on In life in all in business. I say, yeah, how does a young leader become an experienced leader? How do new leaders stretch themselves? And her thing has generally been why not try stuff out, be aware that the identity you have is merely the identity that's kind of grown on you in the decades or the years till now. It's it's as much a mantle as what you could in the future. So all slightly prisons of our history. So so she's kind of saying, yes, you've been defined at the age of 11 or 31 as this, and that's my thing especially. I help people with presentation and everyone's terrified of presentation generally, because at some point in their life they stood up and read out their essay and the teacher said no grimes, not very good. Oh, you're there exactly.

Neil Mullarkey: 48:02

Yeah there's somebody kind of giving them and and they hold a moment of bad feedback for For a very long time and I can. I will say who was that? Well, they know nothing.

Chris Grimes: 48:12

It's like an internal depth charge man. Yeah, exactly All I say they're absolutely right.

Neil Mullarkey: 48:16

You're absolutely rubbish. What I mean? What even bothering to do this? Maybe you can get a job where you just sit in the cupboard and it kind of go. And I know I want to do it, yeah, yeah, and I say, have you done it? Well, yeah, I did. You know, I did a best man speech, a best girl speech. Did you rehearse? Yeah, like Like Billy. Oh well, why not for this? All right, oh yeah, and I said, why did you do it for your friend? Because it mattered. I said, doesn't this matter? Yes, interesting, so puts it, put the energy in, so things like that.

Neil Mullarkey: 48:47

So hermenia, to me she represents business academia, which is lots of people are professors of business who are, who write books that don't necessarily have an any application to real life. She does, yeah, it's real research on real people. She follows them through, and she was very open to me with my completely different world, to coming in to teaching some of her, yeah, students who are very successful business people. But I come in with a slightly different sludge and then they came to the comedy store and even now I get net message on LinkedIn. I remember the session you did at London Business School. I even met her at the comedy store players. Wasn't that joyous.

Chris Grimes: 49:27

Just say her name one more time.

Neil Mullarkey: 49:28

It's quite doctor hermenia Ibarra. So like Herman. Yes, so her hermin, yeah, ibarra. So barra, as in barra barra club. I'm trying to think of her as in barracuda. There we go.

Chris Grimes: 49:43

Oh, you're improvising yeah hermenia Ibarra Ibarra Cuda.

Neil Mullarkey: 49:48

So, hermenia, I'm gonna keep going Her, her, her, her as in pronoun, minia as in Minium, but female Minia. Ib, ib Ibsen, and then barra barracuda. Yes, hermenia Ib, actually, she has a quote on the back of my book which is called, in the Moment available from all good shops.

Chris Grimes: 50:10

You showed us the back cover, which wasn't so impressive. There you need to show the front cover.

Neil Mullarkey: 50:14

The front cover is Mike Myers, the back cover is hermenia Ibarra and other wonderful people.

Chris Grimes: 50:19

Lovely yes round of applause, please. And now Moving along, this is a bit of a catch in number two, please, when we sort of got into a nice little. It was a beautiful rabbit hole we were in, but now we're on to the two. What are your squirrels? You know? What are the two monsters of distraction that are never going to, that never fail to distract you irrespective of anything else.

Neil Mullarkey: 50:40

Well, in my head I was walking past something and I couldn't stop. I had to stop and couldn't go on. That was sort of how I pictured it when you, when you described it to others. And I can't go by a cricket match without stopping. I just have to see at least one ball. It could be just kids in the street, it could be the village green, it could be on the telly and the test match. I just need to see. How's it shaping up, what's the bowler like fast? Oh, that was a good one.

Neil Mullarkey: 51:07

Whistle past the wiki or just you know it's a stick and a tennis ball in the most unusual. I just have to stop and see and I'm looking back. How's it going?

Chris Grimes: 51:19

That's the thing I can't walk past, and I also can't walk past a sushi shop without the watch you said you had some sushi on the way here.

Neil Mullarkey: 51:30

I went to Yo Sushi by the station here in Bath and then there was Itsu and my goodness, I was like I've been in both.

Chris Grimes: 51:36

No I haven't.

Neil Mullarkey: 51:38

I should have done that. I do love sushi and when I first had sushi it was incredibly expensive. It's in posh restaurants, posh hotels. And then Yo Sushi came along and popularized it with the. It was on a little conveyor belt and then it became more available through Wasabi and Itsu.

Neil Mullarkey: 51:56

I'm hoping they're going to sponsor me where it was sort of reasonably priced, because at that stage I was gluten-free so I couldn't eat bread and meals on the run were either chips not very healthy or sushi. So I do love sushi. A really good tuna or salmon sashimi is. I was almost going to go sexual then, but it's just a beautiful feeling and so I can't. I'm thinking well, when is dinner? If I just had lunch on, I can have a meal now, can't I? That's my sort of I can't.

Chris Grimes: 52:33

Delicious, wonderful squills. So I like in your life, a lot of fish have to die to make you happy. In my life, a lot of chickens have to die, is that right? Yes, I eat a lot of chicken. So now we're on to one quirky or unusual fact about you, neil Mulachy. We couldn't possibly know about you until you tell us.

Neil Mullarkey: 52:47

Well, I wonder you won't know that I qualified as an actual table tennis umpire, oh A gasp of horror.

Chris Grimes: 52:55

I love ping pong and I could probably.

Neil Mullarkey: 52:56

Ping pong dear please.

Chris Grimes: 52:59

Dear, dear, I could still beat you, though that's what I mean Really. Yes, we're going to take you back home. No, come on.

Neil Mullarkey: 53:06

So there was a teacher at my school who ran the tuck shop but also ran the table tennis club and was the referee of the English Open Table Tennis Championships and then at the World Table Tennis Championships in 1977 at the Birmingham NEC, and who was his assistant. What?

Chris Grimes: 53:23

Oh, wow.

Neil Mullarkey: 53:23

And so all the umpires had this kind of lovely blue blazer that John Collier made especially, and my mum knitted me a pullover in that self-same colour.

Neil Mullarkey: 53:37

I love that, so that would be sort of you know sort of official. So anyway, mr Wright, he was called. Yeah, we had table tennis Friday evenings, saturday mornings. He got in the England number two women's table tennis champion, karenza Matthews, to come in coach us and I realised I wasn't going to play for England. I played in a men's league and, you know, was pretty good in the schoolboy championships, represented my school, played against somebody who thrashed me and then went to become the national champion. So I thought, you know, it was kind of get to these events, not as a player but as an umpire. So he had got us as ballboys doing the scoreboard and then I qualified as an umpire. See, there was a written test and there's an actual Wow, you had to umpire a county match.

Chris Grimes: 54:22

Would you say you're very handy with the bat. Then I'm handy with the bat, yeah. So we should bring this on. We should bring this on I very well, one of my more famous stories is that I was once at JPMorgan giving a talk and I said I'm Chris Grimes, I can help you communicate better and I can probably beat you a ping pong. Then I got on with the talk. 45 minutes later somebody put their hand up. I thought it was going to be some salient question about pace, pitch, you know, resonance. Whatever he went, I'll give you a game. And then there was a break. That happened. We went outside, I beat him, I went back in Everybody knew and I slept really well that night. Was it a proper table? It was. Everything was proper, did you?

Neil Mullarkey: 54:55

have your bat.

Chris Grimes: 54:57

Yes, I travelled with him.

Neil Mullarkey: 54:58

My bat had me For you, because mostly bats that are free are rubbish, aren't they? They don't have enough sponge on them.

Chris Grimes: 55:05

By the way, your lovely character, elvorn Spencer, I was really enjoying it's. Don't be needy, be succeedy. I know you know this, but you said of him his biography is that he studied the philosophy of table tennis and anti-social French at the University of the Isle of Wight. Is what you said about that?

Neil Mullarkey: 55:19

Yes, so I do this character who's kind of a provocative therapy writ large. His motto is don't be needy, be succeedy. So he's a motivational gurus from near Luton and he's everything. I dent admit that I am. He's full of himself and a terrible failure, but he pretends that he can help other people be succeedy. So he goes round saying I can help you, yeah, you're a loser, and that kind of stuff. And then you gradually get a window on his life which is sad and lonely, because a lot of these motivational speakers they telling you how to run your life or business and they're not there in their own car crash. And so I love playing this character. I put on a ponytail and a little goatee and orange suit and I can be the devil, and it's really, as any actor will tell you, it's great fun to play a villain, except he's a saddo villain and he's got his own book, hasn't he, Mr Elvorn Spencer?

Chris Grimes: 56:09

It's called don't be needy, be succeedy. See what he did there he reincorporated, that's good he does.

Neil Mullarkey: 56:14

Motivational reps Yo, I is not JLo, I is Elvo. I is the badass cyber coach. I is the shaman for the layman. It's a no brainer. I'm your management trainer. Think of me as a safe container. I is your tutor for the future. I hope it suits you. I do alchemy from the balcony of your psyche. My mission is the fruition of intuition. My mission is your lack of ambition. Yo, I is not JLo. Thank you.

Chris Grimes: 56:39

Oh, and, by the way, you've given me a delicious segue, because you just mentioned the word alchemy. I did didn't I?

Neil Mullarkey: 56:45

I was realised we're now going to talk as moving it along please Question number 17, please.

Chris Grimes: 56:50

We're now talking about alchemy and gold. Yes, you're giving me this by the bucket load anyway, but when you're at purpose and in flow at Neil Malarkey, what are you absolutely happiest doing?

Neil Mullarkey: 57:00

I think I'm happiest running a workshop with people for a day. Actually, I'm happiest round the table with my family. Is that allowed? You can have two lovely answers there. So my two children, my wife, we just laugh yes, and it's wonderful, and we had that with my family and that's my real happiest.

Chris Grimes: 57:23

How long ago did your father die from my last go, my?

Neil Mullarkey: 57:25

father died of Parkinson's disease seven years ago Died with Parkinson's, it's probably the more proper way to say it. So we had that with three boys, my mum and dad. We just laughed, and that's my favourite, favourite thing. Karen would have thought I was going to say I find a lot of families don't eat together and we make a big thing of it, which means my children eat vegetables, because they see us eating vegetables and a lot of sushi. If you're cooking sushi, well no, my wife hates sushi, so that's another reason I can't go by, because she doesn't like Indian food either. So any opportunity I have to these kind of these illicit foods, these contra bands when I'm not in the family environment, I will go for. So we sit around, we laugh and that is my joy. That's when I'm truly happy, how old are your children.

Neil Mullarkey: 58:16

They're 14 and 18. Wonderful, but we've always eaten together, even when there were 14 and 18 minutes. So yeah, so professionally is doing a workshop I get, I introduce people to this beautiful gold which is improv. Well, you don't know, but if you trust the process, you listen to your fellow player, you build on what they get give you beautiful things happen, stories emerge, humor happens, laughter. The quietest person becomes a funny person, not because they're doing gags, but because they're open and they're enjoying the vulnerability. So that's what. And I get to know them in a day. So that's what I love, my sort of at home life being around the table. I don't have to rush somewhere.

Chris Grimes: 58:57

None of us has to go and do homework upstairs, which sometimes you know weekdays, so it's a weekend probably, is it a circular table, so you've even got a theatre in the round going on with the comedy revitalization.

Neil Mullarkey: 59:06

We really want a lazy Susan. I have to tell you I'd like a lazy Susan. We don't have it, we just pass it. We actually bought a house. What is a lazy Susan? Sorry, you know, in mostly Chinese restaurants, but other places, Ah yes.

Chris Grimes: 59:19

It's a roundy thing.

Neil Mullarkey: 59:20

You put it on the thing and you send the rice round, yes, and then you can have fun by sending it too fast, but you take a little bit of rice.

Chris Grimes: 59:28

That centrifugal rice, the centrifugal thing.

Neil Mullarkey: 59:30

It's called a. I don't know why it's called a lazy Susan. Maybe Susan was lazy, but we'd like one of them. We actually have a square table because the people who we bought the house from somebody and they said this table's too big to get out it was actually made in the house. Can you buy it? Oh, boat builders.

Neil Mullarkey: 59:49

Well actually it's a sculpture and a piece of granite. Oh wow, so it was stuck together in the house. Yes, so to get it out you'd have to break it, which is virtually impossible. Are you going to convert that to a lazy Susan? Well, we want one on top.

Chris Grimes: 1:00:01

More on top yeah.

Neil Mullarkey: 1:00:01

But we just so we pass it round. Anyway, it was funny because they said can you buy this table? I said yeah, all right, and they said this is what we paid for it. Oh right, you don't get a discount. No, we love it. It's lovely because you can put hot things on it.

Chris Grimes: 1:00:14

Oh yeah, straight down so that's.

Neil Mullarkey: 1:00:15

It's been absolutely wonderful. So that round the table, then running a workshop with people I get to know who are slightly scared of my world, and then by the end they're lapping it up and they're saying I want to be a comedian, I want to do improv for the rest of my life.

Chris Grimes: 1:00:29

Marvelous answer, and I'm right there with you. So now I'm going to award you with a cake, please, Mr Malaki. So this is where you get to put a chair on the cake First of all. Do you like cake? You like sushi? I?

Neil Mullarkey: 1:00:39

like cake very much In my gluten-free days. I would scour the world for gluten-free cake and there is plenty of. There are plenty of options. Palenta cake.

Chris Grimes: 1:00:49

You know, you know non and you said when you were gluten-free and you moved past that and you're now back on the gluten table.

Neil Mullarkey: 1:00:54

I just eat gluten. You know a mainline gluten.

Chris Grimes: 1:00:58

I was off wheat, gluten and dairy, so it put you back on it, because normally, when you're off it, you're off it, I got better Marvelous, so we're going to give you a cake of choice then. So what flavor cake do we want specifically? Palenta or human?

Neil Mullarkey: 1:01:12

No, I think I might go. I might go with Victoria's Sponge, Would you?

Chris Grimes: 1:01:15

like to hold this.

Neil Mullarkey: 1:01:16

I tell you what I'm going to go. It's my family, my children. I've learned to make a brilliant courgette cake. Ooh, that sounds boring, doesn't it. It's basically banana cake with a little bit of courgette in, so it's really moist and tasty. The courgette is kind of shredded, yeah, and you've got some bananas in there and it's just joyous.

Chris Grimes: 1:01:35

It shall be yours. And then this is the final story of Selling Matter For when. Now you get to put a cherry on the cake, and this is stuff like and we'll do it one at a time. What's your favorite inspirational quote that's always given you sucker and pulled you towards your future?

Neil Mullarkey: 1:01:47

Always given me. Well, this afternoon I realized I hadn't got one. So you love one of them, so I thought oh, there's that one the other day.

Neil Mullarkey: 1:01:53

So it's interesting because in December I'm going to do a charity event at the comedy store called my Big Fail, where we get people who are very successful to talk about how they made a hash of things. We did it last year and it was great success. We had people from business, from the third sector and so forth. Just that thing of I made a hash of it and it's such a wonderful thing to purge that. And so I was preparing this for an event I did recently for an innovation festival, because failure is very much part of creativity, of innovation. So this is from BF Skinner, who was a psychologist about. He did about conditioning you know Pavlov's the dogs. So he would get there's food. He'd ring the bell. They come and have the food every day for some time and then at some point they would salivate because there was food. At some point there was no food. You just rang the bell and they started salivating.

Chris Grimes: 1:02:48

I'll see if I can make you think of sushi. It's called operant conditioning.

Neil Mullarkey: 1:02:52

So when I was at university I wrote a whole essay about why men and women were different because of operant conditioning, that girls are put in pink and boys are put in blue. Boys are given guns, girls are given dolls, and I got a very low mark Because I haven't really.

Chris Grimes: 1:03:05

You're ahead of your time.

Neil Mullarkey: 1:03:07

No, I think there's more to it than that, dare I say, shall we say. And I just read a chapter on it and it was kind of the ladybird book of operant Anyway. So BF Skinner was that we get conditioned. He's there, we get so used to certain things. Anyway, the quote's really quite irrelevant to who he was. He says a failure is not always a mistake. It may simply be the best one can do under the circumstances. The real mistake is to stop trying.

Chris Grimes: 1:03:37

Love that.

Neil Mullarkey: 1:03:38

I like that, yeah. So I keep trying and I let myself off. I'm pretty forgiving of myself. That's what I did at the time. It wasn't perfect, but at the time that's what I knew. That's all I could do. And improv teaches you that no improv show is perfect, no improv sketch is perfect.

Chris Grimes: 1:03:58

Yeah, the shares go up and down in an improv show.

Neil Mullarkey: 1:04:01

Yeah, and it come away and I say to people they say, well, we good, well, how was it? And I say we generally between eight and nine and a half out of 10, we never get to 10. Just because that's the nature of it, and I love that in some faiths, when they build a temple, they always put an imperfection in, deliberately to show that only God is perfect. Human beings are not perfect. We're flawed, so let's embrace them.

Chris Grimes: 1:04:28

Oh, a nice juicy silence there. What's the best piece of advice you've ever been given?

Neil Mullarkey: 1:04:36

The best piece of advice that I really struggle with this and I'm struggling now. Actually, it might be my wife. When I was thinking about doing an MBA, I was thinking about stopping doing the comedy store players so I could. And this was after I'd come back and I had my sabbatical and I said maybe I'll go and live in Bath, for example. What a beautiful city, isn't it really lovely? I was just walking through it and saw something. This is turns out. Also, my grandparents are buried in Bath. Oh right gosh, as it happens, because my father grew up in what was then probably Somerset. So I love Bath.

Neil Mullarkey: 1:05:10

So the chance to go and study in Bath was too much to resist. In the end I did and she said do you really want to give up the comedy store players? That's the one thing you love. All the rest, with auditions and reading a script and thinking I should audition for this, I'd be told to go on my age and it'll help my career, but it's really not a very nice script. So he just said don't give up the comedy store players. And that was the best piece of advice.

Chris Grimes: 1:05:35

It's like a factory default setting which I'm understanding you're bringing to the equation Even your book in the moment. It's the idea of being present to just let's be in the now and see what happens. So I love the. I mean similarly, whenever I do an instant wheelchair, that's like a factory default reset as well. So that's very relatable. And what advice notes would you proffer to a younger version of yourself?

Neil Mullarkey: 1:05:58

I suppose it will be. Nothing is forever, and especially mistakes. Any decision you make, you can, it can lead to something else. So the choices you make are not final until you die, and that may happen tonight.

Neil Mullarkey: 1:06:14

Maybe that's I should eat my own words, but basically I wanted to be a doctor. When I was doing my A-levels, I wanted to be go to Cambridge and I got to Cambridge. I thought I'd be somebody who'd write and perform sketches and I realized improv was the thing that I loved. I thought I'd spend most of my time doing showbiz. Then along came the idea of working with people. I thought I didn't think I'd have children. I was lucky that that happened. So all things occurred, despite what you thought was the final state or the continuing state. Nothing is not changeable. To be terribly ungrammatical. Everything can develop and evolve. No decision is final.

Chris Grimes: 1:07:03

Lovely, and now we're ramping up to a bit of Shakespeare in a few moments. This is a very authentic prop. By the way, this is the actual, not first folio, the one that he wrote. No, shakespeare didn't sign it. Do.

Chris Grimes: 1:07:14

I have to do some Shakespeare. No, you can if you like, but it's actually borrowing from all the world's estate and all the men and women billy players. And we're going to talk about legacy momentarily, yes, but just before we do that, can I please pass the golden baton please? So who in your network, now that you know and have experienced this from within, who do you think you'd most like to pass on the golden baton? To have an experience like this in the listening to show?

Neil Mullarkey: 1:07:37

Well, I think you should ask Ruth Bratt. You won't know who she is, perhaps or maybe you will, but others may not know. Ruth Bratt is a wonderful performer. If you have seen a TV show called People Do Nothing, an award for Young People's Comedy it was on BBC Three. I'll tell you later, Ruth Bratt. So she plays Roche short for Rochelle. She's the girlfriend of one of the main characters. Dj is running this kind of low brow radio station. If you were traveled on British Airways a few years ago, one of the characters was one doing that video where he was trying to get Joanna Lumley and others to act and he was kind of that guy. So she's the girlfriend in that. She's also one of the creators and mainstays of a thing called Showstopper, which is an improvised musical.

Neil Mullarkey: 1:08:23

Now, despite all I've said about failure, yes, you can do anything. The one thing I can't do is sing yet. Yet and I was told by somebody get off the stage, you can't sing. By the musical director of the Cambridge Footlights pantomime, which I was directing Get off, you can't sing. Get off, you can't do singing. And so I can sing in my heart, in my head. So one day I'll learn. But she can do she's.

Neil Mullarkey: 1:08:50

I mean, if you know who Josie Lawrence is, she is an amazing person who's a brilliant, funny improviser, can sing improv songs like nobody's business. A few years ago she said I've done this show in Edinburgh. Ruth Pratt should come and be our guest and she has a guest with us many times she's also so she's part of Showstopper. She's done various things at the Edinburgh Festival acting, writing. She's in Ricky Gervais's Afterlife. I think she got cut quite a lot, but she still gets paid Nothing. That's her work and she's just a wonderful person, thank you. She's got wonderful stories. She, in a few years ago, decided to learn to do pottery. She's brilliant at pottery now. So there you go, thank you. But just why not? Why wouldn't you want to do a thing and learn to do a thing?

Chris Grimes: 1:09:40

Perfect, thank you. So now we're onto the Shakespeare and inspired, as I said, by all the world's esteemed, all the bit-a-bit-a-bit players, how, when all is said and done, neil Malarkey, would you most like and I've got a lovely sound effect I'd like to do now how would you most like to be remembered?

Neil Mullarkey: 1:09:56

Well, I'm going to borrow this from Frank Farrelly. I'm still doing this. Oh, we can cut that bit out, so do you want to hold back too while you're doing that? Okay, how would I like to remember? I'm going to borrow this from Frank Farrelly, the father of provocative therapy. He said he'd like to remember by the words he made some people laugh, sometimes Lovely.

Chris Grimes: 1:10:18

Where can we find out all about you on the interweb, and particularly where can we go and find out about your book, please, okay, yeah, yeah, I was going to read out a bit, wasn't I? You can do that too. We can put it on a metaphorical plinth at this moment. Okay.

Neil Mullarkey: 1:10:30

Well, it feels wrong, though. Anyway, I've told you most of what I was going to say in this bit, but it was that I ran an improv workshop in Bereson Edmunds and there were agriculture workers, lawyers, and I just realised teaching them how much fun this could be and the broader applications. So I talk a little bit about improv. I've got chapters on meetings. Make meetings better, wouldn't we Like that? Creativity, collaboration, the human connection, and luckily I wrote this after the pandemic. So on those remote hybrid meetings, teams, zoom, you can still use improv, you can still have fun. I treat them like an improv game. What's going on in your background? Oh, there's a bicycle. Oh, there's an Amazon deliveryman. Oh there's a. It's a biggy person.

Neil Mullarkey: 1:11:18

In your case there'd be a chicken, but there could be a Not for long.

Chris Grimes: 1:11:20

Are you kidding?

Neil Mullarkey: 1:11:21

So lots of stuff about how to make, how can you get on bed in life, in work, serendipity, how we don't embrace serendipity in organisations, whereas in theatre and art we do all the time. Something happened by chance, oh, that's good, keep it in. So the book is called In the Moment. Basically, it's how we To use some improv skills so thinking on your feet and so forth, adapting work and somebody else, and also I have my cake and eat it.

Neil Mullarkey: 1:11:50

There's times when you need to be fully prepared, organised, when doing a presentation, for example, or a meeting where there needs an agenda. There's not much time. You've got to get the budget sorted. There's plenty of time you've got to prepare. But also the moment could be the moment In an improv moment two, three seconds, but also the moment, as I may have implied in my story, that's six months where you thought actually, what is it I want to do? That year, that five years where slowly adorning comes upon you and a moment can be something you look back on and realise it was a moment, a moment in history, and so basically it seemed to be when are the moments that need to be prepared and when are the moments you need to borrow the skills of Nehruel's improvisers like us. So it's called In the Moment. You can get it on Amazon, cogan Page, waterstones, wh Smith, but NeilMalakicom is how people get hold of me. I'm on Instagram Neil Malaki. I'm on Twitter Neil Malaki. I'm on threads.

Chris Grimes: 1:12:55

Oh go you, Neil Malaki. And with a name like Malaki. You were born for a life in showbiz and titting about, well tell that to my brothers.

Neil Mullarkey: 1:13:02

One is an accountant, one is a chemical engineer and my mum was a math teacher. You've got away with.

Chris Grimes: 1:13:07

Malaki.

Neil Mullarkey: 1:13:07

She wasn't born in Malaki, so yes, it wasn't nominative determinism. I stepped out a little bit of the family route, but of course we all have to find who we are in a way. So people did think it was a made-up name, but it's my real name. If I knew you better, I'd show you my credit cards.

Chris Grimes: 1:13:28

As this has been your moment in the Sunshine and the Good Listening to Show stories and distinction of genius. Is there anything else you'd like to say before we go into a bit of a segue into an audience Q&A? Is there anything else you'd like to say at this point?

Neil Mullarkey: 1:13:39

No, I'd like to say thank you for having me. Isn't he great? Thank you and thank you. Thank you to everyone on Facebook and YouTube land for listening if you have, you might have turned off 10 minutes ago and to everyone here. You've been so generous. Thank you very much and we'd love to answer some questions.

Chris Grimes: 1:13:59

We've got a few general polls in a moment, but now we'll move on to a Q&A, if you'd like to do that. So what questions might you have for our illustrious guest, neil Malarkey?

Neil Mullarkey: 1:14:09

Oh, there's a microphone and everything and everything.

Chris Grimes: 1:14:14

Oh, yes, yes, yes, thank you, I'm going to come among the people. There you are Good evening.

Neil Mullarkey: 1:14:23

Where does that?

Chris Grimes: 1:14:23

saying I can't be doing with all that Malarkey come from. Thank you.

Neil Mullarkey: 1:14:28

I did a show called All that Malarkey. If you don't know this, sometimes you say All that Malarkey, all that Nonsense, and there's that phrase All that Malarkey. It's not spelt my way, it's M-A-L-A-R-K-Y. I looked at this and there's nobody actually knows. So I did a show called All that Malarkey. So anybody called Malarkey, I said you can come for free, whatever the spelling is. And I looked in the phone book in London small fringe theatre, probably even smaller than this, so there's about 10 Malarkeys in London. 25 people turned up, you know quarter of the audience probably, and they made names, whatever. They had birth certificates. Oh, they said we're x-directory and there were architects and the people, all sorts of walks of life. So we don't actually know.

Neil Mullarkey: 1:15:13

There were various things. If you look on the internet, it could be that there were some builders in New Jersey. It seemed to be that this phrase only came to be in the common parlance in the 1920s and started in America. Maybe there were some Malarkeys, which is an Irish name, who were builders who give an IOU that was worthless. This is a load of Malarkey. Somebody says it's from the word lark, larking around. So sorry, I can't help.

Chris Grimes: 1:15:39

That was a very good answer, though. Thank you, you didn't know. That's very good. Anybody else have a question please? Yes, do you still have the umpire's jumper made for you? That's a lovely question?

Neil Mullarkey: 1:15:52

I don't, and I remember giving it away because I grew out of it and that's very sad. It is sad, yeah, I don't, but I have my mum's love and my love for her and she's 91 now. So one of her biggest regrets she can't knit like she used to, but she's still a demon with the jigsaws. But she knitted everything so much for a long, long time. This is going to get sort of soppy.

Neil Mullarkey: 1:16:18

She bought a doll for when my niece visited who's older than my children, and whenever the doll, whenever my niece visited, the doll would come out and my mum knitted stuff. My son was born three weeks premature, very, very small, and we didn't have clothes that were small enough for him. But my mum would bequeath this doll and the clothes to my daughter and the fitted my son so he could wear, because he was born very premature, very small, and to keep him warm he had to wear a bonnet, little boy, and the bonnet from the doll kept him warm Because, you know, his stomach was tiny and he had to keep warm. Otherwise you need gold purple.

Chris Grimes: 1:17:10

It is wonderful, isn't it? It was wonderful. Anybody else for a question please? Yes, we've got at least two more. Very exciting. Yes, sir, Thank you. Did you play cricket?

Neil Mullarkey: 1:17:20

And what?

Chris Grimes: 1:17:20

was your favourite cricketing moment.

Neil Mullarkey: 1:17:24

I did play cricket. I was always good in the nets, but in the middle when the actual game, I was a bit rubbish. I used to play in the comedians team, so Arthur Smith you might have heard of Arthur Smith. So he'd have a team versus a team run by my friend, chris England. So anyone seen a play called An Evening with Gary Lineco? It was written by Chris England and Arthur Smith, so it was Chris. It was Arthur Smith versus Anne England XI, because it was Chris England. And every year there'd be a prize-giving in the pub for most amusing moments and there was always a prize for best catch while smoking a cigarette and Andy Smart won it regularly On the boundary. There we go. So those are my favourite cricketing moments. And Bill Bailey used to play Hugh Grant. It was fun just to have those Sunday afternoons where nothing really mattered. We were all a bit rubbish. Bill Bailey was a mean fast bowler, by the way. So yes, andy Smart catching the ball while smoking a cigarette, but kids don't smoke.

Chris Grimes: 1:18:34

Next question.

Neil Mullarkey: 1:18:35

Good evening.

Chris Grimes: 1:18:36

You've highlighted the values of improvisation skill and the relevance of it. Does the comedy bit become a big pressure?

Neil Mullarkey: 1:18:45

No, because actually the initial thing of improv was not comedy, it was social worker, and then it became theatre. How do we make theatre? How do we make stories? And fairly easily, comedy just was an easy byproduct. So if you've seen the comedy store players and I urge you to come and see us, but there's lots of improv in situ with go and see an improv show then you'll know that the comedy just arrives through the trust and the vulnerability. It sounds awfully soppy, doesn't it? But I'm at the comedy store, the audience is paid to beto laugh. So there is a bit of pressure, but it's exactly the right pressure. It's like a sushi chef being asked can you make sushi? That's what we do Make comedy sushi.

Neil Mullarkey: 1:19:35

We do funny things. We can't help it and it's not always on purpose. There is a thing sometimes we call it gagging. When somebody inserts a joke to a sketch that spoils it. It's funny how it'swe're frowned upon, and gagging is both a joke but also stopping somebody else to speak. So the pressure is very light. The pressure is very light. The only time there is a pressure is sometimes the Wednesdays before Christmas.

Neil Mullarkey: 1:20:03

You used to get office parties who didn't realise that what we're doing is quite fragile that on stage, if they're muttering, do you want a beer? Who wants a lager? That's really off-putting, that's the worst kind of heckle. If somebody shouts out chicken, that's fine, I'm like, yes, of course I'm a chicken, that's fine, we can play with it. There's a general hub-up. So, yes, there is a bit of pressure, but it's fine, it's good pressure. It means that we don't worry if there isn't a laugh every 30 seconds, which stand-up comedians might, because we know that actually what's happening is the story Lay the foundations of the story and then humour comes later, like sitcoms, I daresay.

Chris Grimes: 1:20:45

Wonderful. Are we done with questions, do we think? So? Just a quick announcement Thank you for being here, also onnot on LinkedIn, on Facebook and YouTube. And, yes, check out the website for the show as well. I didn't show you that, by the way. Squirrels they're will-beams squirrels, and apparently they do that when they're looking at a really precious bunch of nuts. Thanks for coming. So this is next Rosie Cavalier, more squirrels coming. So look at the website, which is wwwthegoodlisteningtouchowcom. By being in the show, you also get to be on UK Health Radio, where there's an audience reach globally of about 1.2 million across 54 countries. So check it out. And if you want to be in the show too, there are a number of series strands as to how you can do that. So if you've written a good book, for example, or you might want to talk about what you do and get an audience to be really clear and find out all about you, then that is where you should go wwwgoodlisteningtouchowcom. So, ladies and gentlemen, min min min, would you like to say anything else? Lovely man?

Neil Mullarkey: 1:21:53

Thank you so much, everyone. Thank you Chris, Thank you to everyone who's been doing this stuff to make sure that the people on the live stream are watching this as well. Thank you.

Chris Grimes: 1:22:01

Thank you for that segue too. I'd just like to sincerely thank the wonderful Chris and Pete from Spiralux who have done all of this. I walked into Spiralux looking for someone to help stream and then, by a brilliant coincidence, chris was someone I used to supply teach when I was in the wilderness years being an actor at Fulton High School, and he didn't quite do this, but he was like, oh right, mr Groimes, and then he was keen to help me from that point on. So he's an absolute legend. So can I have a quick round of applause for them? Applause and again oh, thank you so much.

Chris Grimes: 1:22:36

Ladies and gentlemen, you have been listening to the Good Listening to Show. Thank you very much indeed, neil Malarkey. Applause, whistle. Thank you very much indeed. Good night. You've been listening to the Good Listening to Show here on UK Health Radio with me. Chris Groimes oh, it's my son. If you've enjoyed the show, then please do tune in next week to listen to more stories from the Clearing. If you'd like to connect with me on LinkedIn, then please do so. There's also a dedicated Facebook group for the show too. You can contact me about the programme or, if you'd be interested in experiencing some personal impact coaching with me. Carry my level up your impact programme. That's chrisatsecondcurveuk On Twitter and Instagram. It's At that, chris Groimes. So until next time. For me, chris Groimes, from UK Health Radio and from Stan, to your Good Health and Goodbye.