00:00:00
I was lost in the drift and really what I first wanted to do was to take my life
00:00:11
the director is a writer I'll probably miss things out you master of language and for nights my night I was a deeply
00:00:18
difficult child my parents sent me to a psychiatrist when I was 14. I started doing weird things
00:00:25
I was sent to prison so the best I could do after a disastrous childhood I decided was now
00:00:32
concentrate on getting into Cambridge that changed everything ladies and gentlemen Stephen Frye
00:00:39
I want to please people and if I don't please them I get upset I've done it wrong age 37 you star in a play the play
00:00:47
gets some pretty harsh reviews I was lost and adrift and really what I first wanted to do was to take my life Stephen vanished on Monday leaving a number of letters for friends that
00:01:01
started my journey into my mental health when you were 55 it was your third suicide attempt Fred that's right can you take me back to that moment [Music]
00:01:17
before this episode starts I have a small favor to ask from you two months ago 74 of people that watch this channel
00:01:23
didn't subscribe we're now down to 69 my goal is 50 so if you've ever liked any of the videos we've posted if you like this channel can you do me a quick favor and hit the Subscribe button thank you and enjoy this episode
00:01:37
[Music] I'm I'm so fascinated by um people's foundations their earliest years their context because it seems so apparent that that ends up shaping who we are and who we become and our
00:01:54
orientation in life so as I read through your story in your earliest years it was it was an unthinkable roller coaster
00:02:01
ride of twists and turns but what do I need to know about about Stephen Fry's earliest years to understand the man
00:02:07
that sat in front of me well to use the language of the time I was a disruptive deeply difficult screwed up child that's kind of the language they used then and
00:02:21
I think to give myself some I went to credit I would probably in later years have been diagnosed as having attention deficit hyperactivity disorder I was
00:02:33
extremely difficult to keep still and I found it hard to focus I was I'll say um at vain as it may sound I think um intellectually Advanced for my age I
00:02:47
was very quick with language and with speech and just seeing things and remembering
00:02:53
things in particular so I never had to revise and so in that sense I had a lot of spare time but on the other hand socially and where it matters to a child
00:03:04
I never fitted in or felt fitted in because I was bad at all the things that are valued when you're a child I couldn't catch a ball you know I sort of did the the sort of uncoordinated hand
00:03:17
clapping method of trying to catch which is always mocked and like just as you've done and the Cry of Uncle would follow
00:03:25
me short for uncoordinated and worse kind of words we certainly don't use now to describe it
00:03:31
should we say a dyspraxic figure in terms of you know physicality I was just you know I was growing too fast and Too
00:03:37
Tall and very thin hard to imagine now uh and I wasn't musically very gifted particularly uh and I couldn't draw so
00:03:46
all I had was my passion for language and and I loved it and I played with it and I told stories and I tried to make
00:03:53
myself less unpopular put it that way by by it was a boarding school I was sent away at the age of seven in Britain which is not a huge country it's about as far as you
00:04:05
can be from home though my parents were in Norfolk on the east coast and I was sent to gloucestershire on the west
00:04:12
um uh to a prep school from the age of as I say seven which to some people sounds a bit cruel and weird to send a
00:04:18
seven-year-old boy 200 miles from home and just have them there but you have to remember two things one
00:04:26
that was what happened as far as I was concerned my father had gone to a similar School my mother had bought it
00:04:33
since she was four um but that was because she was a Jewish Refugee in in England and her father
00:04:40
wanted to hide her away from the impending Nazi invasion and so that that was a particular reason but my brother
00:04:47
had gone at that age and of course by definition everyone at the school was in the same boat
00:04:53
so you just thought that's what happened I mean if you take a child and put them in a Cupboard between half past two and
00:04:59
three in the afternoon and um shout at them through the keyhole every day they'll just think oh that's
00:05:06
what happens you know and then you welcome them out and give them a big hug and say that was your cupboard time you
00:05:13
know what I mean anything you do to a child regularly is the normal World essentially until they see other
00:05:20
children having a different experience but so class locked I guess I was Without Really noticing it grew up in the countryside in a large house not Downton Abbey but you know we had
00:05:32
gardeners and people coming into clean and that sort of thing servants I suppose staff whatever word you want to
00:05:38
use um and it was deep in the countryside and the other boys that I knew very few
00:05:45
girls but I did and it did no girls and even they went away to school so all the
00:05:50
boys I knew were going away to school and the parents you met say when are you going off to prep school then Stephen okay when I'm seven and they go very
00:05:57
good uh and that was it because I didn't know any other children I mean that sounds monstrous but that's just the way
00:06:03
things what are you stuck to your own um it wasn't outright snobbery or anything it just was this was the world into which I was born so you don't really question it particularly
00:06:17
and through most of my prep school time age 7 to 13 is a prep school in Britain I was very disruptive I passed exams very easily
00:06:30
I tried as hard as I could to get out of any form of physical activity I gave myself asthma attacks and all the rest of it in order to be put off games because I just hated them particularly
00:06:43
rugby and the muddy cold horrible things running and the Collision of bodies and
00:06:48
bones and was just so vile um I wanted to sit and read a book you know by the side of the field and humor
00:06:56
particularly then as I moved to 13 and went to the big school you know the public school as it's known though of course then anything but public they're private um and that that was scary because at
00:07:10
600 boys um rather than the prep schools 90s so it's a much less of a little nest and
00:07:16
much more of a oh but I was 13 and so when you're 13 as you know too well chemical starts start to boil and bubble inside you and things begin to happen in
00:07:27
your mind and soul and um I was not prepared for the astonishing cataclysm the catastrophe the Glorious catastrophe of love it had never
00:07:41
occurred to me that it would it would be what it was which is silly because we grow up hearing nothing but love songs
00:07:48
and what did the Beatles do go on about Love Me Do and please please me and then money come my love and hold my hand and
00:07:55
everything's a Love Song and suddenly when you fall in love all those lyrics make sense and you realize there's nothing else in the world and nothing else is even slightly as important and
00:08:06
of course I was in love with another boy and I was aware that that was probably not the right thing and it it threw me out of everything
00:08:14
really I I just stopped being able even to pretend to be a normal well-behaved Schoolboy I started doing weird things like climbing the roofs of all the
00:08:26
buildings the big chapels and churches and the classrooms and so that was the first school from which I was expelled
00:08:31
I'm going to compress the story because it gets kind of goes on and on and on I was then expelled from another one and
00:08:37
then kind of another one and then I left and went to London left home went to London
00:08:42
and the the major problem there was I was in a pub it was getting a bit chilly I saw a coach like the look of it a half inched it stole it and left the
00:08:58
pub and then discovered there was a wallet in it oh my goodness and two credit cards
00:09:04
so I went absolutely nuts around Britain with these credit cards staying in Grand
00:09:12
hotels and buying things and traveling and so on in those days they didn't even have magnetic strips on the back of
00:09:18
credit cards for for you know that you just have to roll them on a piece of carbon to to take an imprint so there
00:09:26
was it was very easy to use them fraudulently as long as you looked vaguely convincing
00:09:31
I I was aware because my father once lost his Barclay card that it was the bank that paid not the poor fellow whose
00:09:37
cards I'd stolen so I didn't feel guilty in that rather pathetic way we do when we try and square our dishonesty and you
00:09:43
know um eventually I ended up in Swindon of all unlikely tons I think I was going to
00:09:49
meet a school friend and the idea was going to go to the reading Festival um so I stayed in the hotel in Swindon and that's when uh a couple of I got back to
00:10:00
my room having been shopping there were a couple of men in the room which I thought was rather weird uh and being
00:10:06
used to hotels by this time I assumed they were like cleaning or maintenance people I said no it's all right don't
00:10:12
need anything and then then said my name only Not My Name the name that was that
00:10:18
the name of the fellow whose credit cards I had stolen let's say his name is Mr Smith and I went yes and they said
00:10:25
Wiltshire CID held up there and suddenly I realized that the jig was up I was sent to prison uh on remand I was said to a Young Person's institution
00:10:37
on Rahman while they waited there were Seven Counties I think that had paperwork that I'd traveled in with
00:10:44
these cards that had to be caught up with um you're 18 uh 17 just turning 18 that's right yeah by this time so it was interesting because I was reading about your as I read through those first 18
00:10:56
years of your life I saw someone with clearly huge intellectual potential but also which doesn't seem to be very
00:11:03
common with someone who exhibits those qualities someone who was kind of like rebelling against Society had this sort
00:11:09
of I think in your own words an addiction to stealing things um and is that and I couldn't quite
00:11:14
figure out why but what I'm understanding now is because it comes back to that feeling of being an outsider and kind of rebelling against
00:11:20
the society that you weren't able to fit into I think that's exactly right and I
00:11:26
I my parents did send me to a psychiatrist when I was 14 15. he was odd enough A Member of Parliament under
00:11:32
Junior Health Minister as well as a psychiatrist um so a very Grand Harley Street office
00:11:38
you know with one of those enormous Montblanc fountain pens the size of a small submarine with which slowly writes things down and uh he was slightly
00:11:49
annoyed my parents weren't uh in the Diplomatic service because apparently the way I I behaved and the things I did were very typical of people from unsettled families and you know with
00:12:03
sort of constantly moving and and so on but he he prescribed me something and later I found out when I was doing a
00:12:09
documentary about mental health and I went all the way back to my school and spoke to my old school Master he had a
00:12:15
copy of a letter from that psychiatrist in which the psychiatrist had written bipolar question mark which I knew
00:12:22
nothing about at the time that was when I was 15. so there was clearly some mental they recognized there was a
00:12:28
mental Kink if you like a hundred years ago had been called a moral King basically they're just saying he's a bad
00:12:34
lot you know but we were on our way to being more understanding about children's Behavior but yeah it's that
00:12:42
whole mixture my love of literature and stories and wanting to be involved in the in the world of ideas desperately to
00:12:49
learn more and to understand more and to share ideas um uh a cheap wish watching Parkinson
00:12:56
every Saturday night to be famous I'm not sure how that could happen it seemed absurd and a deep deep like a like hot
00:13:07
lead leaking in the stomach whenever I contemplated my sexuality this feeling because all I I read and read and read
00:13:13
around it you know you go to a library in those days because there was no World Wide Web so you use what was known as
00:13:19
the bibliography at the at the back of a book which would recommend other books that were sources for that book and so
00:13:25
you would build a web of connections of so I read a biography of Oscar Wilde and that led me to biographies of other
00:13:31
figures in his Circle and other figures later and so on and I saw there was this extraordinary tradition of literary
00:13:38
artistic people um who were who were Queer as we'd say now and of course the ones I was reading about were were born in mostly into an elite part of the society that allowed
00:13:50
them to go and live in North Africa or Italy or Greece or somewhere where it wasn't quite so dark and you know oppressive uh but the average person you
00:14:04
know who was born queer had a miserable outcome it was illegal and you the police would treat you dreadfully and the newspaper articles and and so I saw ahead of me a life of Shame and secrecy
00:14:16
and all abstinence and you know sorrow and just you know there was no possible way
00:14:23
the world would be open and free for me it would just be the best I could do after a disastrous childhood I decided in prison was now concentrate on getting into Cambridge become an academic forget
00:14:37
anything about the world because the world wasn't for me and that would be enough and it would also repay my parents for the extraordinary stress and distress I'd I'd given them and so I uh
00:14:51
when I was put on probation finally at the end of the prison thing having served quite a bit in Roman I was just
00:14:58
put on two years probation went home told my parents I would look after myself in Target got jobs got myself a
00:15:05
moped went into Norwich did a course and amazingly got a scholarship to Cambridge
00:15:11
officer yeah so that changed everything it is the most remarkable turn I think that I've ever I've ever seen in someone's life I think I've
00:15:23
never seen someone who has a series of sort of criminal um engagements gets expelled from school multiple times I read at 17 there was there was a suicide attempt after an
00:15:35
argument with your father that's right which led you to be in hospital as well you end up in jail
00:15:41
and then from jail you go to Cambridge it doesn't seem like that it doesn't seem normal and while I
00:15:47
was at Cambridge for the first year I was on probation still Jesus I remember saying to to one of my uh Tutors or
00:15:53
supervisors I said oh look at the date I said I'm no longer on probation and he said you weren't on probation thinking I'm in some sort of academic probation you know that I hadn't done good enough
00:16:06
essays that I've been given a warning that I better work harder he said you're not on probation I said well actually I I told her he said what the hell you get
00:16:14
out why didn't you tell us I said well why didn't you ask me well it never they never asked so but it is extraordinary how everything turned because you know
00:16:27
in the first kind of week I met Emma Thompson who was an undergraduate reading the same subject English and I
00:16:33
then saw her in a play and I was just knocked out I couldn't believe it I had considered maybe I should do some acting at Cambridge I started doing that and really enjoyed it but did lots of other
00:16:44
plays as well and I wrote a play called Latin it was a comedy and that went to Edinburgh and it won a
00:16:53
prize and and Emma um came to see it and brought someone along to watch it that she thought um might enjoy it which and I didn't remember this experience but that person was Hugh Laurie and he
00:17:04
apparently came and watched the play and and said hello briefly then at the end of my second year
00:17:12
I was approached by Emma who said I'm going to come around and introduce you to Q There you have met him and I said
00:17:18
no I haven't and she said yes you have um anyway she took me over to his college and not on the door on the door
00:17:24
opened he was sitting on the bed with a guitar in his lap and he said hello and I said hello and his girlfriend was there making cup of tea and he said I'm just writing a song and he started to
00:17:37
play a bit of the verse of the song and I said oh it's fabulous and I sat down next to him we started to work on on the
00:17:43
lyrics of it I did some ideas and then we'd built it up into three or four verses in the courses and the song was finished and then he picked up piece of paper we started to write a sketch and
00:17:53
Emma and Katie were just staring at us and said what's happened we didn't you know we barely didn't ask each other our names we just immediately just fitted I'm sliding my
00:18:05
fingers into each other there to give an example um it was I I described it's like
00:18:11
falling in love but in a platonic comedy love um we just seemed to gel straight away it was most extraordinary so from that moment on we started writing stuff together
00:18:22
um for our show and I thinking that either I was going to stay at Cambridge to be an academic
00:18:28
or maybe I was going to go to a drama school afterwards and join the Royal Shakespeare society and hold Spears and
00:18:34
Bellow speeches and now there was this strange possibility of using comedyism as a a way of going forward and maybe not staying at Cambridge at all but
00:18:45
trying to you know tread the boards in an amusing way why acting I I said I sat here with Maisie Williams who's the the young Game of Thrones actress indeed I know yeah yeah and I I find you know and
00:18:57
then I read this book called um the body holds the score and it talks about six ways that we can help our mental health in things like yoga and all these kinds of things but
00:19:09
one of them is acting and it talks about the role that you know this kind of separation from Identity and how that
00:19:15
can be liberating and wonderful and when I when I heard you describe your first acting experiences you use words like
00:19:21
Blissful and amazing and as if you'd found your place in the world it's true I mean it is also it is the
00:19:27
acknowledgment the the love or the sense of attention you get from an audience that you're uh it's not I mean of course a kind of vanity but it's not that you want to be praised exactly it's just you
00:19:40
want to experience that moment and keep experiencing it it's not that oh look you must write marvelous things about me or come up after the show and tell me I'm a genius that's all embarrassing but
00:19:52
but the moment you're on stage and you feel that people are looking at you and not admiring you Stephen but that they
00:19:59
are you have won them over they are following the story of the character you are and they are
00:20:05
sucked up into it and you've made it it's a wonderful feeling but something even more Primal than that because I can
00:20:11
remember when I was very young five maybe and my brother was seven going to a pantomime in Norfolk and the usual thing happened buttons comes out and goes hello boys and girls who'd like to
00:20:23
come up on stage with me now and sing a song my brother dived under the seat and made noises like a piece of dust so that
00:20:30
no one would notice him like most children he was damned if he was going to get up and make an exhibition of
00:20:35
himself in public but I stood on my tiptoes with my arm up so high that I nearly split the membranes of my underarm you know me me me and we both had the same parents we both
00:20:48
had the same DNA more or less not identical but not identical twins but I mean really we're pretty similar in
00:20:55
terms of our birth and and our parentage and and environmental upbringing and yet
00:21:02
he would rather have cut his arm off and go on stage and I would cut my arm off in order to go on stage and that's just something that was built in and that was when I was yet too young to be
00:21:14
self-conscious to have if you like those kind of issues of self-worth and uh um you know wanting to lose myself somewhere else it was just a a young show-offy I want to be up there that's
00:21:25
you know you see a stage you want to be on it and much of what you say about the mental health aspect is true but it is
00:21:31
also the case and I'm sure you've should have heard stories about this that even when you're in a very
00:21:37
long-running play when you're in the wings for the first night you know there's you are trembling you are white
00:21:44
your heart rate is really up and and you step on stage and you do it but the weird thing is six months later if it's a long run you're standing in the wings you're talking to the stage management
00:21:56
people like that you're going yeah oh yeah yeah I'll see you after this scene and you go on doctors have done this
00:22:02
they've wired people up your heart rate is as high on that night as it would have been on the first night it's just
00:22:08
you've got used to it um the comparison and it's not a comparison of quality or value is with
00:22:14
an RAF pilot every day that they're they're flying up like that and and it's they love it they
00:22:22
just made for it I mean it's frightening and they hate to see their companions killed and and so on but
00:22:30
the awful thing is when it stops suddenly the war's over every single day you were in a Spitfire you were facing death you were doing such amazing things
00:22:42
and now there's nothing and so many are in a Long play of course it's nothing like being in the Air Force it's of no
00:22:49
importance to anybody except other people but nonetheless it does cause the similar kind of shakes in your body and
00:22:56
the excitement and then that's the end of the Run Stop and it does explain I think a lot of the
00:23:02
substance abuse in the addictions and the kind of unhappinesses and breakdowns and short-term marriages and and relationships that that are also common in the acting world I mean it may be
00:23:14
true that there is something good for mental health but I don't think anybody would say that as a group act as exhibit
00:23:21
mental health of a of a happier and better kind than other groups of people um so so you know it's it's a complicated story really isn't it it's so interesting that that sort of
00:23:32
anti-climax I think I've referred to that before is like gold medal depression we tend to set ourselves
00:23:38
goals if only I could live in that kind of a village and you know in the south of England like a quite near a station
00:23:44
and nice little house but not too expensive and yeah and then you get it and so yeah you live in the suburbs
00:23:50
hooray um oh oh maybe that car that that new one there that Tesla or whatever I'll
00:23:56
get a then I'll be happy you don't literally say then I'll be happy but there's a kind of sense of that's all I
00:24:02
really want and each of these goals is met and it isn't it as the the line of tier said that's not it that's not it at
00:24:09
all and and we go through life thinking that's not it that's not it at all there
00:24:15
is something in all of us a whole a need for connection and love and truth and and a sense of something beautiful beyond and we can if you're religious you call it heaven and if you're a
00:24:30
humanist you you know you call it a full and achieved life um of friendship and you know elements
00:24:36
of sacrifice and so on but you know you know that there's a hope for it but but if you if you mislabel it and think that
00:24:44
it's connected with money or cars or mortgages or jobs or status you're never happy because of your status because of things you've achieved you happiness comes from
00:24:58
somewhere else and of course I've yet to meet anyone who can tell you where it comes from regularly where it can be tapped like some resourced Ah
00:25:09
that's where you get your happiness we know there's fake happiness from a so a blow of a drug or something like that and that couldn't be a more fake happiness
00:25:20
um and there's the happiness of sitting around a table with friends that's beautiful fleeting moments with friends
00:25:26
and family where it's all working and people aren't shouting at each other and you can just look at each other I I was
00:25:32
at a memorial service and for a very dear friend the composer Leslie brickers you know who wrote feeling good and Pure
00:25:40
Imagination for Willy Wonka and Goldfinger and a lot of great songs he was an amazing songwriter and and I remembered I had a this diary entry when I was just getting to know him with it
00:25:52
there was a party I think it was his birthday and it was full of people someone from Super Famous and
00:25:58
extraordinary people but he I remember just catching sight of him and thinking he looked so like a Persian
00:26:06
cat just looking from one friend to another with his huge smile on his face just being happy to have his friends
00:26:14
around him it's a simple thing and yet it's the best thing and and we Chase we Chase things that give us less time to see our friends we we we chose work
00:26:26
targets and we chose Journeys and holidays and things with individuals and so on that but
00:26:33
and I think we grow away from it I think the older you get that the less you appreciate friendship
00:26:38
which is really sad when you're in your 20s you tend to do things as a group you go on holidays as a group because you
00:26:44
haven't yet got married and partnered often paired off so I don't know if you agree with me but I do think maybe that
00:26:50
one of the one of the jobs of getting older well I'm convinced it when the job is getting older is not to become
00:26:57
nulled you know like a tree when the tree is Young you can bend it it's you know a green stick as they call it you can bend it and shape it and so on and once it gets old you know and it starts
00:27:07
getting that bark and if you tried to bend it it would snap and and we become a bit like that coming
00:27:14
back to the the the first point you said there about the goals we should be striving for I found that really interesting if not if not striving for a
00:27:22
gold medal or this thing or that thing how does someone you know listening to this now what kind of goals do you think
00:27:27
would protect them against that gold medal depression what kind of orientation it's an interesting point and of course
00:27:34
I I you know obviously understand that there are people who need to meet goals in order to pay debts and you know that
00:27:39
there are certain amounts of money they have to have to pay for the heating and their mortgage and all the rest of it I'm obviously not suggesting that that's
00:27:46
valueless because you need to keep a roof over your head and everything else but in terms of one's own personal sense
00:27:52
of fulfillment and self-worth and achievement um I'm more and more convinced that it
00:28:00
comes from how you treat people and how they treat you back and how you how you would try to be a better person I know it sounds really silly I'm not a religious figure at all
00:28:12
um but but I'm very interested in religions um and I can understand that in some
00:28:18
cases religions help cement a sense of community I where I don't like it is where it's exclusive of course or you have to buy into a certain set of ideas and uh so-called truths in order to be
00:28:31
part of that Community but I can understand how looking at a wider sense of of life and
00:28:41
it's really about when you're falling asleep at night and this may just be me can I fall asleep at night and feel I've been a reasonably okay person that day
00:28:52
is this someone I have to apologize to next morning did I was I short and sharp with someone was I a bit mean was I lazy did I did I lie and rare because I
00:29:04
wanted my own way there um and that's not suggesting I'm a saint and I always manage it to but I do have a very loud voice in my head philosophers call it a deontic or
00:29:16
deontological voice this sense of obligation that is peculiarity it seems of our species as far as we know the image I was used
00:29:27
because they look so cheerful an Amazonian tree frog perched on a branch with its big grin
00:29:34
isn't thinking oh God I was a terrible Amazonian tree frog yesterday I really let myself down I was mean I was unkind
00:29:41
I must try to be a better Amazonian tree frog what we admire about animals is they spend a hundred percent of every
00:29:48
day being themselves and we as humans are fully aware that we don't we are not fully ourselves we lie we hide behind we pretend we fail and we
00:30:02
judge ourselves now that peculiarity of humanity has tried people have tried to explain it in different ways obviously
00:30:08
the Genesis myth is that it would be at a fruit it gave us the knowledge of Good and Evil and the sense of Shame of our
00:30:16
physical selves or all those things that separate us from animals because humans
00:30:21
since we were cognitively conscious have been aware that we're animals because we can see that we defecate and eat and sleep and mate just like other animals and sometimes very quite close
00:30:34
to the other animals if we depending what part of the world we live but we can also see that we have these
00:30:40
other things that animals don't who gave them to us where did they come from what do they mean and how do we live up to
00:30:47
them are they a curse or a blessing do they make us many gods or do they make us the playthings of God's a cruel kind
00:30:54
of you know little as flies to wanton boys to the gods are we they kill us for their Sport AS Webster put it and you know so and and there's that's those
00:31:05
oldest questions still still really obsesses particularly now of course because in the age of AI we're able to be Gods ourselves we we are making sentient
00:31:18
beings and we will have to decide whether like the Greek gods we give them fire or deny them fire and um maybe they'll kill us but will they
00:31:31
have what we have this sense of I try to be good I mean you try to be good didn't you try
00:31:37
my best yeah that's yeah you failed it's right and and we all like that but we don't pay much attention to that and yet
00:31:43
it's the most extraordinary thing about us it really is and and um as I say I'm you know I'm not in my room I'm not a model of moral probity and uh um rectitude of any kind but I do
00:31:58
have a that loud voice and I've always had it and when I was a when my grandfather died
00:32:03
and this is very but and I first learned to play with myself I was terrified that he was
00:32:10
watching me because he died and I thought I can't do this because my granddad is watching me and it's just
00:32:16
awful and in a sense that in there you have it in one image that's what Humanity's been cursed with since our birth the big daddy in the sky is watching you and is it's making you
00:32:30
self-conscious and you're holding back from your true nature because oh I can't do that in front of God you know and
00:32:37
um somehow we have to square that and give ourselves permission to be who we were born to be and allow ourselves to
00:32:44
live the full lives that we feel that we're on a journey to but accept also that we will feel that we let ourselves down and that we're guilty of this and guilty of that it's a you know very
00:32:57
tempting to be more like you know someone like Samuel Beckett and the absurdists and just say there is a meaning to any of this it's absurd life
00:33:05
is absurd and meaningless and no very well that in in philosophy there are very very few professional philosophers who believe in free will
00:33:16
but we all live as if Freeman exists and we all have to live as if we are accountable for our actions otherwise
00:33:22
Society falls apart but if deep down we know that that really there is no free will I I mean the most extreme examples are in a sense the easiest to see it
00:33:34
what a psychopath is is not just a matter but it's a matter who is cunning and who plans coldly they're killing
00:33:41
they choose to kill so you may say they're the most evil kind but no one on this Earth has ever chosen to be a psychopath it's a condition you don't it's like saying oh he's an asthmatic we
00:33:55
must we must we must lock him up well you know choose to be asthmatic you don't choose to be Psychopathic the case
00:34:01
is psychopathic you're harming a lot of people and causing misery so clearly we've got to find a way of removing them
00:34:07
from from the natural orbit of humanity but you know it's just I don't know I don't really know what I'm talking about but I'm having fun from that point on that point of the psychopath how how possible do you think it is to really
00:34:20
change um who we are it's a bit of a strange question but and I'm very cool good question past the age of you know 18 you know the the imprints have been made
00:34:32
into our character identity our sense of being our search for validation as you've described and I've seen through
00:34:37
your story and mine how possible is it to change who we are and are we anybody or are we just a byproduct of our sort
00:34:44
of DNA and our experiences that's such a good point I mean we are it is in that sense we are a story and the story is is um a mixture of of different elements
00:34:57
um and a story is a myth it's it doesn't happen you know it's a bit I'm sure you've read
00:35:03
the the no evil Harari yeah that wonderful chapter where he just sort of proves that Peugeot doesn't exist it's a
00:35:10
myth you know it has a symbol it has a people working for it but there is no such thing as Persia there's a Peugeot
00:35:17
car but that's not Peugeot and and so on and similarly there is us um now if I cut my toe off I'm still
00:35:24
Stephen I'm just even I'm missing a toe if I cut my head off I'm dead so obviously you know I'm the remains of
00:35:29
Stephen but if uh if I start in start cutting more and more bits when do I stop being myself it's it's it's such a an extraordinary idea we're aware of our
00:35:43
own self and unless we have particular problems on the neurodiversity scale for example uh we also fully understand other people's selves and that they have a self and that therefore they have
00:35:56
their own will and their own desire and the child his other appetites would be similar to ours so you know if we're
00:36:03
both not eaten for a day and someone brings in a tray and there's a cake on it we'll look at each other and we'll know we each want that cake you know we've projected into the other's mind I
00:36:13
mean in the most simple way theory of mind kind of shows us that um but uh what that self is how it can be in any way
00:36:25
Quantified it can't be removed from the body as far as we know I mean obviously there are superstitions and people talk about astral projection and so on there's no evidence that's ever been
00:36:36
done um you can in a metaphysical way reach yourself into other people's selves even after you're dead Shakespeare does that every
00:36:47
day to different people reading his sonnets or or Jimi Hendrix or John Lennon does who whoever you know I'm
00:36:54
reached by David Bowie when I turn on Starman I feel his self is connecting with me his art yes his poetry his vision but also the self he talks to you
00:37:05
that's what art does and and and in that sense you are Immortal indeed that was Shakespeare's Obsession so long as men
00:37:12
can live and eyes can see so long lives this and this gives life to thee you know he was aware that there is there is a way that we communicate Beyond language
00:37:24
um the the actual sand in the throat of of words being said vibrating the ear is
00:37:30
one way for language to get into us the other a very recent invention only five thousand years is is reading characters
00:37:37
on a page and writing them uh but they but the other way is is more is is harder to understand isn't it but we do connect with people who are dead who are away
00:37:49
from us um whom we remember and there self is as real without a body as the self of someone who has a body
00:38:03
so in that sense there is an immortality but it's held together by communal memory and by means of communication
00:38:10
like print and if they die then the selves of the past die as well didn't they since you were a young man at the core of you what do you think has actually
00:38:22
changed if I went to the very core review and I could I could see it I don't know hold it in my hand what would
00:38:28
be different at the very core of you between the age of you know 20 25 and today let's say
00:38:35
I think I'm much calmer I think I'm more accepting of things um I feel less need to prove myself it may not sound like
00:38:48
that the way I've been rattling on um I I of course have found a kind of permanent love I kind of that's very ungracious but I got married nearly
00:38:59
eight years ago um and that that's changed things between to be married especially talking
00:39:05
about that child early on who knew he was gay and and saw ahead of him only a life of Exile and shame the the prospect
00:39:13
that I could ever actually be married and live happily and and for it to be of no big deal to anybody I mean there must
00:39:21
be people I suppose in the world who think it's disgusting but don't you don't often bump into them
00:39:27
um so that that's made a big difference and uh I'm ambitious only for an ex if there's an exciting project
00:39:37
like this film I told you I'm learning polish uh at the moment to to to to to be in a film and I'm very excited and
00:39:45
ambitious about the film not because I wanted to win Awards and be a huge success but because I really am I
00:39:51
haven't done anything quite like it for a very long time and so that's a thrill um and otherwise I you know I suppose I just I don't need
00:40:05
I don't need to connect to people in the way I used to I used to be slight really shy enough to need cocaine to stay up at night and to go to parties
00:40:16
there was you know quite a few years of that 15 years 15 years that you've done far too much research continue but yeah and and I mean I look back at it and I think I cannot believe I'm such an ass
00:40:28
but on the other hand there are friendships I made that I don't need to regret and things I discovered and learned about myself and so on but
00:40:35
mostly of course it was a very very wrong course fortunately not a fatally wrong course either in literal terms or in terms of career but um I realized that I am a very very quiet domestic
00:40:48
soul I don't like going out I don't like parties I I said I said to my husband a
00:40:54
couple years ago I said I don't think I've ever met a person or read about a person that I hate as much as I hate parties he said that's a bit strong do you hate parties more than you hate
00:41:07
Hitler I said well that was just a sort of weird moment didn't it I I do go to parties but I don't standing up talking to people with a
00:41:17
drink in my hand it's just mind you have Agony because I tell you another secret which you may have uncovered but it's an
00:41:23
embarrassing one is that I have a condition called prosopagnosia it means face blindness it means I will see you
00:41:29
in the street two days time and I will blank you because I won't recognize you I'm afraid and and it's absolutely
00:41:36
heart and gut wrenching because you are convinced that people think you're looking down at them and you don't care about them you haven't bothered to remember them because they're unimportant to you and it really isn't
00:41:49
that I remember names all the time most people the other way around yeah remember faces but not names but I and
00:41:56
it it is I have a little card in my wallet that says being a prosopagnosis society and I give it to people I say oh
00:42:02
God I'm so sorry but look believe me um you know like so I did an event for mind last night and there were some
00:42:08
wonderful people in it I was moderating it the the mental health charity and now I was thinking in the camera on the way
00:42:14
home I said if I see any one of those people we had this wonderful conversation the chances of my
00:42:20
recognizing their faces are so low it's awful and and you know you teach yourself various things like the color of what someone's wearing on a particular day or if they have a you
00:42:31
know earring or some sort of jewelry or something external to the face but it's a it's a very odd one so that makes parties even more difficult as you know Intel are now sponsoring this podcast
00:42:42
and last week I introduced you to Intel Evo platform the badge of approval for high spec laptops that pass Intel Zone
00:42:48
strip requirements and enable you to be more productive on the go as someone who spends most of their life on the go it's Intel Eva that really caught my eye when
00:42:55
we were discussing this partnership the idea that Intel gives your laptop the seal of approval for you on all things
00:43:00
like all-day battery life fast charging and high performance makes my life easier when I'm buying a new laptop
00:43:05
because I know that if it's got that Intel seal of approval then it's going to be able to keep up with me they've
00:43:10
basically done all the hard work and research for you and confirmed it's going to be able to keep up with your
00:43:16
busy life on the go head to intel.co.uk EVO to find out more about intelivo platform also for a limited time you can
00:43:22
currently get 15 off all Intel Evo devices at johnlewis.com the code is Evo ceo15 that's e-v-o-c-e-o15 until December 11th so
00:43:33
head over to John lewis.com to check out the Intel Evo designs and get your 15 percent off terms and conditions apply
00:43:38
see more details in the description box age 37 you star in a play which again called cell mates I believe that's right um the play gets some pretty harsh
00:43:49
reviews to say to say the least from a lot of the big newspapers as such um and that's another real no moment in your life usually so can you take me back to that moment yeah it was pretty
00:44:01
Grim I mean I I we're done previews of it in Guildford and maybe what Guilford and Richmond I think before coming into the West End into the
00:44:12
Nell Khan theater as it is now the Albury as it was I think and I was with Rick mail whom I loved and sweet funny
00:44:19
man he was brilliant and and Charming is always the rest of the cast were nice it was written by Simon gray a British
00:44:26
playwright he also directed it and I was playing George Blake the spy the British spy uh who was sent to
00:44:33
Wormwood scrubs and then amazingly escaped um I was never comfortable in the play and
00:44:40
I was beginning to feel lost and adrift and deeply unhappy and I couldn't understand why the good play wasn't that much of a disaster I mean you had good audiences and they applauded at the end
00:44:53
and some people said yeah I don't think it's his best play but it's a lot you know it wasn't an absolute catastrophe
00:44:59
choice at this point because his important context you're well established yes yes in your in in
00:45:07
writing in yes things like Blackadder and jeeps and moisture and Fry and Laurie had happened and my books had
00:45:13
been selling so I was you know in in the public eye was well known um anyway one Saturday there was a
00:45:19
Saturday night uh I guess the Press night had been on Friday or something like that so we then had a Saturday
00:45:25
night and then on Sunday there were the Sunday papers of which I saw some and some of which were deeply unkind to me and uh and that that did make a
00:45:36
difference I mean I I've said I didn't go just because I didn't like the reviews it wasn't wasn't entirely that
00:45:42
that would have been a bit weak and and certainly was a weak thing to have done anyway but uh it was a whole
00:45:50
concatenation of something wrong in my head I just suddenly saw myself as in the wrong Place doing the wrong things and I wanted to get away from everything I
00:46:02
knew and really what I first wanted to do was to take my life and I I did run the car engine in the lookup garage of
00:46:09
the flat where I was in London and then realized it was a catalytic converter that he wasn't really going to do much
00:46:16
harm to me and then there was stuff of it and I was just coughing a bit and um uh and and that's quite a significant
00:46:23
decision to make following I know I know I just wanted out really that's it I just wherever I was I wanted to be somewhere else and and if it was nowhere that
00:46:34
would be that would be a first that was the most perfect place to be I just didn't see the as anybody listening
00:46:42
who's had the misfortune and the terror of considering taking their life suicidal ideation as it's known in the
00:46:49
trade as it were they were probably concur with me that there comes a moment where you just start saying to yourself
00:46:55
what's the point it's a strange phrase because you know if anyone could say that at any point
00:47:02
but there's some moments when when you say it it seems so truthful that there's simply no point in anything around
00:47:09
oneself and that's how it seems uh anyway so I got in the car and drove to the South Coast to Dover I think it was or no folkestone
00:47:20
and got on a uh a ferry to zebruga in in Belgium and then ended up in Bruges In Bruges like uh
00:47:31
like Colin Farrell and Brendan and um I then wandered a little further east into Holland and then into Germany and
00:47:42
Hanover and Hamburg and you didn't tell anybody you were no no and this was 93 or so there was no World Wide Web as such it was just beginning to happen Tim bernersley in Switzerland was beginning
00:47:54
to develop the the World by way but there were these things these these things called commercial online servers
00:48:00
like CompuServe and America Online rather than direct kind of internet connections and
00:48:07
I had been connected to those for some time and not taking my computer with me I guess so I was in a hotel in Hamburg and then I've got a message from my
00:48:20
friend Hugh he said oh better you must come home um be in touch at least and so I kind of sent him an email on this computer thing
00:48:32
and I agreed that the it was nonsense I had this in my head this idea that I would
00:48:39
go up from Hamburg and Hanover up schlesville which is the border with Denmark and go up into Denmark and somehow in the north of Denmark I would sit on a rock in a thick white pullover
00:48:50
with a pipe clenched between my teeth writing impossible poetry and teaching English to to Danes and be forgotten you know and just live the rest of my life to have a total fantasy
00:49:03
um but no you you said come on it's fine come home we really want to see you everyone wants to uh and so I I drove
00:49:10
back overnight to to Amsterdam and my father had got a flight to scrip on we met in a hotel in in Skipper and um then go to flight little little airplane back
00:49:23
to to South End what did you say to your father that day in Amsterdam when you met him I said you you've spent your
00:49:30
life getting me out of terrible and embarrassing holes and this is probably the worst of them and he said no it's fine it's all okay and he was just
00:49:38
wonderful I watched a news report of your um absence really yeah I watched it upstairs before we had this conversation of the I think it was maybe BBC News or one of the big stations that reporting
00:49:50
that you would uh you you were basically missing yeah a big picture of you on the screen and saying that you would you
00:49:57
know the way that they'd framed obviously is they said you did this play they showed some of the headlines some of the reviews and they said he's
00:50:03
Stephen Fry's vanished oh my god um everyone was very of course I never saw any of that I did see a photograph
00:50:08
someone certainly years later of police on the roof of my house in Norfolk which was slightly disturbing looking for
00:50:14
signs of me and obviously feeling the worst oh it was a strange event but in some ways it was a cleansing or a necessary step I suppose because as a
00:50:27
result of it I went to see psychiatrists and started to try and work out why why my mind was taking me into such impossible Dark Places or you know when
00:50:41
I had so much to be thankful for I mean what the hell you know I had enough money I was well regarded in my
00:50:48
profession why should I come to such a crisis just because someone didn't like my performance in that play is not really good enough um and and not that hypersensitive so
00:51:04
and that started but I suppose we have to call my journey into my mental health and
00:51:11
um and a few years later I can't remember when quite a few years later probably about eight or nine if not ten
00:51:17
years later I made a program at the bbco two two two uh episodes I think it was called The Secret Life of the manic
00:51:23
depressive uh in which I tried to explore this this peculiarity of this darkness that can
00:51:31
shroud a mind so completely but also that is part of a of an illness that I hadn't really understood I'd heard the phrase manic depression and I'd never really heard the word manic
00:51:43
um manic depression is is two illnesses depression which is a dark depressed lowered as in depressed state and Mania
00:51:51
is is an elevated state of energy and and full of full of bounce and vigor and a desire to communicate with people and depression is the exact opposite you
00:52:03
just want to lie in bed and pull the duvet over your head and never speak to anybody whereas when you're in a manic
00:52:08
State you're always on the phone boring people so there are two poles and hence it's also known bipolar there's the the
00:52:14
one pole of of of mania hyper Mania and the other pole of a depressed state and so I wanted to find out more about it and that's where I went back to school and discovered that the psychiatrist when I was a boy had
00:52:27
written by polar question mark and I discovered that so many people lived with this problem and I also discovered
00:52:33
something quite extraordinary because I asked everyone I spoke to I did a little button with my finger I
00:52:40
said I'm drawing a button on this table with my finger if you press this button you will never get a depressed episode
00:52:46
again one of those awful terrible depressed episodes but nor will you get a manic episode one of those heightened
00:52:52
elevated jubilant episodes um do you want to press the button and almost none of them wanted to press the button and and it it reminded me of a
00:53:04
thing that wh Jordan the poet had written but don't take my Devils away or my angels will fly away too and and
00:53:13
I don't know whether that's a true thing but it's a fear that we have inside us that even an illness like like manic
00:53:20
depression and how serious it can be is part of us and and gives us a secret power gives us something extra
00:53:27
um it's dangerous because because it is I'm highly the word doctors uses is morbidity in in other words you know people especially
00:53:38
if it's undiagnosed if you start finding that you're crashing in moods and becoming miserable and and everyone's
00:53:45
finding you a pain in the ass or you're absolutely wild and full of crazy plans and you know buying things you know going on shopping sprees or being sexually exhibitionist or inappropriate
00:53:58
and people find that even more annoying um and if you don't know that it's actually an illness then you just mask
00:54:05
it with alcohol and narcotics of one kind or another and they must get pretty successfully but they have their own problems to say the least and people can then slide down and leave their families
00:54:18
their families can no longer tolerate their substance abuse for example and they they end up on the streets and then
00:54:25
there's a lot of Discovery for them to know that they first have to get off the substances that that have been masking
00:54:31
the problem and then to face the problem and and it's a really as we know now a huge endemic problem it seems in in our
00:54:39
culture and Country amongst young people it's expressed with a rash of self-harm
00:54:45
that is is just so so upsetting to see children are hurting themselves and and if you ask them why they do it it's what's the same answer is it's to just to displace the other pain inside them
00:54:58
it's because the pain in there is worse so you do that to take away from it and that for a child is is just
00:55:06
heartbreaking to imagine post-diagnosis of manic depression what were you advise to do and what did you do to make life better with the understanding now
00:55:20
and the awareness that you had this this condition well firstly I went on a sort of uh
00:55:26
exploratory journey of of medication um a psychiatrist tried me on a number of things sodium valparate which has since become somewhat of a some of us
00:55:37
have a disgraced pharmaceutical particularly when when it's been given to people with um various forms of
00:55:43
epilepsy um and then lithium and I was on lithium for quite a number of years and and then
00:55:49
slowly I became aware of some of the kind of folk wisdom that has been around in our species for a very
00:55:56
long time but which was initially very irritating I'll give you an example um there are certain kinds of people who if they hear someone's depressed say well go go walk it off you know just go
00:56:08
for a nice walk and you think hang on this is an illness just saying go and walk it off and yet once you've confronted it and
00:56:15
once you've tried to control it once you've understood what it is a chronic condition I.E a bit like asthma or diabetes something that's with you and that may not go away and may come back
00:56:26
again and isn't necessarily under your control you then do discover that there are Therapies in life like exercise gardening making music knitting I mean
00:56:40
it doesn't almost matter what it is it is like as I say a folk wisdom of taking yourself out of yourself and also
00:56:47
believing in the future incredibly important the first thing I did I think that was a breakthrough for
00:56:53
me was that I lost some weight I mean I'm always fighting weight but I was really pretty pretty big back then and I
00:56:59
managed to lose about four stone now it's not that losing four stone is in itself a vast achievement but it tells me that I can control some part of myself my physical body is not is not a
00:57:13
rogue that will look just do whatever it wants to do I can say no I'm going to make you a bit sleeker and if I can do
00:57:20
that with my body maybe I can do things in my mind maybe I am you know captain of my soul master of my destiny and all
00:57:27
of that so yes I started walking every morning uh you know when I was in London around Regents Park and listened to audiobooks and just choose all kinds of
00:57:38
books that either I hadn't read for years or I'd always meant to read you know whether it was Dostoyevsky or
00:57:43
Agatha Christie it wasn't about high literature necessarily it was about just having a story in my head and walking
00:57:49
and walking and looking and saying wow it's seven miles this morning that's amazing you feel you're doing something
00:57:54
so it's really been a slow process of allowing myself I suppose to to be who I am and not to fight for my place at the table I suppose I've
00:58:05
accepted that um through immense Good Fortune I am where I am I don't need to say yes to
00:58:12
everything that I'm asked to do I don't owe it to the you know to to myself to to have to work all the time um and so I am sometimes capable of
00:58:26
saying looking to myself in the mirror and saying you quite happy today aren't you Stephen and
00:58:32
then I'll go no don't say that it's the worst thing you could say you've got almost 13 million followers on Twitter
00:58:38
what's your relationship you've been with social media because you know up and down I mean Twitter he really is a
00:58:45
cesspool at the best of times negativity and abuse and trolls so reflecting on the you know the experience you had when you were 37 with that critical feedback I mean Twitter is not not a great place to be if you want no indeed it isn't I
00:58:59
mean it is supportive too I mean I I I've learned how to use it in a way that is not likely ever to upset me anymore
00:59:06
there was a time when I was fully engaged with it and yeah you call it a cesspool and and I've used similar
00:59:12
images in the early days it was like a lovely swimming hole in the in a in a in a Glade in a lovely wood somewhere where people of Good Will and from from Iran
00:59:24
would swim about and you'd bump into them and go Hi how are you and you just chat and then suddenly you notice result
00:59:30
there's a turd floating on what the hell's that doing there and then suddenly there'd be a bit of broken glass when you put your foot down and or
00:59:36
old rusty pram or something and you realize that did you become as you say a kind of cispool and and that's a
00:59:42
terrible shame it's immensely useful to have that many followers because it means you know I can satisfy a few publicity requirements with one stroke
00:59:53
of the pen as it were just by by tweeting about them and it will reach a bigger audience than if I spend four
01:00:00
hours doing a profile with the journalist who always want to get under my skin and ask annoying questions so
01:00:06
it's a lazy good publicity uh tool um I'm I'm slightly worried uh that that I don't know that I may have to leave it if Elon Musk takes over I'm not really sure that I want to be involved in his
01:00:21
Twitter it doesn't sound like a nice happy place um I mean I've consider I might just
01:00:27
simply stop using it in any other way except things for Charities or work that that
01:00:34
you know but rather than engaging in people I just I'm not sure I want to see some of the tweets that float up from
01:00:40
the kind of people that musk encourages I mean that I may be wrong it it and it's not that I want it to be a left-wing thing not a right-wing thing I mean I'm funny
01:00:51
um of course aware that it should reflect Society uh as much as possible but uh um but you know what I wanted to do in this in sort of ways go on one of those doesn't Piers Morgan do something is it
01:01:04
GB news he does or one of those things yes um and you should I've sort of wanted to
01:01:09
go on now you'll have to hold your ears now sort of go hello how are you you old [ __ ] it's [ __ ] great to see you
01:01:16
and him to go true you can't say that oh I thought this was the home of free speech isn't it I thought I thought it
01:01:23
was just a [ __ ] home counting Free Speech but it isn't oh so free speech is negotiable dude there are bits that you can't say and bits that you can you know because that's that's the point I mean
01:01:36
free speech is of course important but it's not it's not the end point the end point is
01:01:42
human beings living together in peace and Harmony and happiness as much as possible without war and violence and
01:01:48
envy and resentment and bitterness and or starvation and poverty and all those sort of things that that's the end point
01:01:55
and it's probable that that endpoint is better arrived at if we live in a society where you're free to speak and share ideas and think freely and you're not told what to say and so in that
01:02:07
sense free speech is very much one of the key things on the way to it but for some people key speech has become the
01:02:14
end point I want to live in a society where I can say anything it doesn't matter if people are starving in the gap
01:02:21
between rich and poor is wider than it's ever been uh the only thing that matters is I can say what I want well that's
01:02:28
that I just don't think that's what John Stuart Mill and all the original figures
01:02:34
who wrote on Liberty and Free Speech I don't think that's quite what they meant and I didn't think it's what I see as
01:02:41
the the you know the be all and end-all but um so you know I'm worried that there will be a rise in the kinds of anti you know kind of racist and
01:02:55
transphobic and indeed anti-feminist on the other side and all kinds of other nastiness will prevail and
01:03:03
musk would go yeah that's that's what we call Free Speech I'm a free speech absolutist he called himself
01:03:10
it is it I mean it is concerning it is concerning generally I I've made the decision that I just don't I don't tweet
01:03:16
so I just post the podcast when it comes out and that's it yeah because you know it's a losing battle you referred to
01:03:21
like pieces of [ __ ] floating past in the in the once lovely Lake and then a piece of glass I'll end up having an argument
01:03:27
with a piece of [ __ ] and I don't or a piece of glass and I just don't want to I I think what what I think of is like
01:03:33
if at school you're a captain of the chess club and you put the team up on the notice board and you pin it up on the notice board and you then go away what you don't do is put the notice up
01:03:44
and then hide behind a pillar and listen to how people respond oh I see the CH once you put that up for he said wanker
01:03:51
isn't he and all that you know I mean just put your notice up and walk away yeah yeah and now to the credit you can
01:03:57
have settings where one of the settings I have on my Twitter feed is that I can't see any tweets tweets directed at
01:04:05
me from anybody who hasn't got an email address verified hasn't got a phone number verified it doesn't have a profile picture brilliant so I I don't
01:04:11
get many tweets because you know it filters out a lot of the stuff so my notifications are pretty nice you know
01:04:17
they're pretty straightforward and it's because in the past it has been a distraction I don't want to fall into holes you know and spend hours of my
01:04:23
life wasted trying to chase down a troll um exactly with this journey of mental health I know you're you're the president of mind I believe which is a
01:04:30
phenomenal charity that everybody um everybody probably knows for the work they've done and the important work they've done over the last decade is
01:04:36
mental health has risen in public sort of Consciousness um I one of the things that I think
01:04:45
about a lot is how the battles we fight for our entire lives there's all sometimes a frustration around
01:04:51
our inability to cure ourselves of those things so you know I sit here with people or I speak to young people and even in my own life I've come to realize that a lot of my like real deep battles
01:05:02
maybe they'll never come a day where they're cured but my traumas these you know the ways that I react to something
01:05:08
my triggers maybe they'll never be cured and as I read through your story even up until
01:05:14
10 years ago I could see that you were still having moments of real lows yeah real depressive lows like
01:05:20
you know I listened to I think a podcast episode you did where you said when you were 55 it was you I believe your third
01:05:26
suicide attempt yes that's right yeah you know no I think I mean it is in that sense what doctors call chronic like asthma you you can you know have an inhaler on you and usually be sort of
01:05:39
safe and you know what you're allergic to what triggers an asthma attack but you never stop being an asthmatic and
01:05:44
the day could come when you least expect it when of course it's always the day you've forgotten your inhaler where
01:05:49
suddenly you just get this enormous attack and you can barely breathe and it might have been 10 years since you last
01:05:56
had such one I'm sure anyone listening who has lived with asthma will know what I mean and and it's a bit like that with
01:06:03
with you know you you at your peril do you think you've conquered it you're living with it and
01:06:10
coping with it and managing it and most of the time one manages it but sometimes you
01:06:15
you hear it the the the the you know the the hoof beats uh back in the in your brain of of the coming storm and you do everything you can to
01:06:28
avoid it and tell friends now I mean that's it's so much easier said than done I I have a theory I call it my genital wart theory is we we all say how
01:06:41
important friends are gosh we need friends friends the people you can say anything to aren't they but actually they're not if you had a genital wart
01:06:49
um you wouldn't show it to your best friend you say oh Tom here have a look at my blog see you there we go shut up
01:06:55
simony wouldn't show it to your mother you know it was your sister you know and that's family but you show it to a
01:07:02
stranger a doctor so can you look at this and tell me if it's normal or all right they'll go oh that's fine don't worry and you feel okay so if that's
01:07:09
true of some little physical part of yourself it's also true that the mental part of yourself that although you have
01:07:14
family and friends who are supposed to be there for you it's actually very difficult even though you know it's the
01:07:20
right thing to do to share with them what you're thinking it's very hard they'd be upset nearly always when you
01:07:27
have a crisis if it gets as far as suicide obviously even more so but anyway they said why didn't you come and
01:07:33
tell me they're actually angry with you you know I'm there for you why didn't you come well because I was a genital
01:07:40
wart in my mind as it were and you just feel and you have to try and overcome that but yes it I have to be aware it won't necessarily go away it's it's
01:07:52
um the other thing I often say is it's like the weather and and and um the weather is real you know you can't ever since I'm going out it's not really snowing and it's not a blizzard
01:08:05
outside I'm going to wear a t-shirt t-shirt you have to accept that the weather is real
01:08:10
but you also have to accept that you didn't cause it I didn't make it snow it's it and and nor do you have to uh
01:08:17
sort of Welter in the problem of thinking well that's it it's knowing that gonna snow for the rest of my life
01:08:22
it's always going to be cold it will actually pass again nothing to do with you you can't make it pass and this
01:08:28
those are the storms in your head the mistake is not to think it's real I'm just imagining it no it's really
01:08:34
raining in your head it is oh what did I do to make it do this you didn't make it right it's not your fault
01:08:41
and oh it'll never go now it will some will come out you don't know when it's not under your control those are three
01:08:48
things they're not absolutely hooray but they're just enough if you cling onto them to make you realize sort of what's
01:08:55
going on that it's out of your control that it's real and that it will pass and what is the minds it talked about the Hooves of the horse coming is there is there words associated with with those
01:09:07
moments is it because you said earlier on about what's the point yeah that is often the one what is the point and it's
01:09:13
also just a it's like I mean all of us who had it and I'm sure many of the people listening will have different you know metaphors and comparisons it's it is
01:09:25
like something being sucked out of your sort of energy sector and that you feel drained and you're convinced your face
01:09:30
has gone white and sometimes you look in the mirror and it has gone white there has been a physical response to it utterly white and people who love you
01:09:38
and know you well see it in your eyes straight away so so my husband will say whoa what's the matter I'll go I don't
01:09:46
know I don't know I'm just going to go and lie down I just don't know he would have seen it instantly and I look at
01:09:51
them myself in the mirror and think what what is he seeing it is a common thing and I noticed this during the um during
01:09:59
the uh the documentary uh if you take a magazine and you know cover half your face and look at your right eye and then cover the other half and look at your left eye or even take a photograph in
01:10:12
that way and then look it's amazing how I I found people with who've had mental health histories that have not been happy have them often have
01:10:23
a more extreme difference in their left and right eye then if you look at my left and right eye one is rather cold and calculating
01:10:30
and one is warmer and friendlier that's usual with people I think I don't know any empirical science behind it but I did notice that almost everybody I
01:10:41
interviewed had an extreme version of that and I don't know what that means or whether it's anyone's ever ever done any
01:10:49
research onto it but there are you know there are signs and signals that come um uh it's you know like some people get I get itchy under the chin when I'm going
01:11:01
to have an asthma attack for example okay unmistakably itchy under the chin but with
01:11:06
with Mania which is often worse I mean I interviewed someone who with Mania you want to concentrate you
01:11:13
want new projects you've got Amazing Ideas in your head you're risk taking an entrepreneurial and grandiose
01:11:20
um and and I interviewed someone in America who who's uh I interviewed the wife that the the husband sadly did take
01:11:26
his own knife and so I was talking about life with him and she said it's a terrible thing to say she said but I was
01:11:32
always happier when he was depressed than when he was manic when he's depressed he's just you know lying
01:11:37
curled up in a ball obviously I didn't realize it was going to take his life to go that far that but when someone's manic they are just
01:11:44
out of control they're so embarrassing they would do some weird things and she said she said you'll laugh but it was
01:11:50
awful at the time he had a car a nice car it's like a one of the original Mustangs or something and he took it
01:11:57
apart piece by piece on a large piece of cloth in his garage as an American would
01:12:02
say and each piece he you know he put the pencil or a marker he did a little Mark for where that piece goes and he wrote what the name of the piece was so the whole thing and he started chroming
01:12:14
all the bright worker making it all perfect and the all the engine parts were out and then he had a change of
01:12:20
state uh and it moved away from this optimistic bright Mania and he just kicked the cloth and all the pieces and everything just piled into a heap of junk and the car couldn't be rescued and
01:12:33
there's a sort of metaphor for something there I don't know what it is but she said that you know that that's the
01:12:38
problem but when I've had many I had a manic episode right in the middle of someone's Memorial it was quite
01:12:44
extraordinary and and it frightened me because the power of it was so intense and I I I ran home and I called my doctor my psychiatrist
01:12:57
Billy I said Billy I'm I have to tell you I've had visions and I feel the closest I can describe it to is like Joan of Arc I feel irradiated by
01:13:09
some extraordinary Power and Light it's the most extraordinary thing and I just don't know what I'm gonna do he said I'm coming around he came around and he said this is very
01:13:21
dangerous day he could see me and I had I had I'd started cooking and I'd started um tidying I'd done three
01:13:27
different jobs and the cooking thing I'd done a plate with quails eggs halved it's so elegantly around the edge of the plate it was so beautiful everything's amazing I said I didn't know why I've
01:13:39
come but I have never been happier and More in charge of myself he said no you are not well you are really not well I
01:13:45
can see you it's in your eyes absolutely kind of off the scale and I want you just to take this and he gave me some uh
01:13:51
what was it called um it'll come to me it it and it sort of calms you down it's an antipsychotic
01:13:58
essential I suppose or an anxiolytic or something like that that was that was one of the more extreme manic moments
01:14:03
I'd had and and actually was pretty frightening because it took me a long time to get done from it and and I am
01:14:09
the last person in the world to say that they feel like Joan of Arc you know like someone who has had some extraordinary
01:14:16
Transcendent you know religious experience um but that's that's how I felt you've
01:14:22
you've accomplished so many unbelievable things in your career in spite of all of these struggles that we've talked about
01:14:29
um the list is actually too long for me to to even I wouldn't know where to start um as I looked down onto this little
01:14:35
iPad in front of me at all of the Milestones the the books the the roles you've played the the scripts you've
01:14:40
written Etc why why and how why and how you you know and it's always a difficult question because it requires us to abandon humility for a second potentially and
01:14:54
and say something nice about oneself but why why you I think the first reason and it would be the same if you spoke to a certain kind of musician is because I write and and I have always written
01:15:07
since I was a little boy I used to write stories and when I then was at Cambridge and there was this thing of Comedy it
01:15:14
was natural as with you and on my own to write monologues and sketches to perform
01:15:19
and because I'd written them I I sort of wrote them for myself to perform but the writing was at the bottom of it all
01:15:27
um and then acting jobs on their own came along which I didn't write or other people wrote or I could just sort of add
01:15:32
bits of writing to but I was always a writer and if you look at musicians the reason we venerate Bowie and Elton John and you know Leonard Cohen who everybody they write their music doesn't
01:15:45
matter how fantastic their voices are yes we love Nat King Cole or someone who's just a beautiful voice but
01:15:52
the pantheon of great artists are those who create their own work they write it they write the songs they last forever if you write the song Paul McCartney or whatever you know I mean you should just
01:16:03
think even something like when you see that postcode Lottery and that who's that knocking at my door and you think
01:16:09
that's Paul McCartney when he wrote that cannot have been thinking but he wrote and every day he writes to this day because it's that's what he is that
01:16:19
somehow that's the voice in him telling him that's what real work is is the writing and the creating and I love
01:16:26
acting and I love presenting and um reading audio books and things like that immense fun but the real work is always sitting in front of the blinking cursor
01:16:39
and and and and writing things um and everything else is is gravy and fantastic gravy at that not because it's easier and and oh no I'm not sort of saying uh acting as easy it's just
01:16:52
for some reason in my head you know the Protestant work ethic the Jewish ethically what you like is the one that
01:17:00
says you know sitting alone concentrating until bubbles of blood full come out of your ears that's work
01:17:08
acting as Shakespeare called it is play he was a playwright and he called actors
01:17:14
players do you think we're all artists this is a really good question and I always used to say no I I was very friendly in the Heyday well I still am uh with for example Damien Hurst in in
01:17:27
the 90s though was very much an obituary as a Groucho club and uh and and and you
01:17:33
know the Tracy Evans and the um and the Damien Hurst would come in along with the Oasis and the blurs and
01:17:39
and so on it was very much the the place where those incredibly energetic and new
01:17:47
kinds of artists were were dissembled and you know I'd get drunk with uh Damien a lot
01:17:52
and I would sometimes say I want to be an artist and he'd say you are an artist anybody could be an artist I said no
01:17:58
they can't so what do you mean I said and I would say I'm an I'm an Entertainer I'm frankly a bit Bourgeois I want to
01:18:05
please people and if I don't please them I get upset I've done it wrong for for me the aim is to see Delight in the face but for you it's to make
01:18:16
something that matters to you and if it disgusts people or horrifies them you can you're often full of Glee it's not
01:18:22
you deliberately make them to hate it there are enough people who love it to make you extremely rich the time he was
01:18:27
only slightly rich but no of course is worth a huge amount and I said that's what a real artist is and my other artist friends not not all from that same generation Maggie handling was a wonderful painter uh in suffocum and
01:18:40
she's done my portrait several times whatever and she's a reality [ __ ] there's a toughness about her a refusal
01:18:46
to compromise an absolute what's Central is her and her work and that's true of artists artists are bloody minded they bite the hand that feeds them I'm pretty easy going uh if a
01:18:59
you know a commissioner wants me to do something I'll ask him how he'd like it done I'll try and put my my own voice
01:19:05
into it my own tone into it but I don't have the artistic drive to make it something out of me there's a fantastic confidence and supreme
01:19:16
almost contempt for society that artists have um and that's why they're so unpopular with the daily mails in the Bourgeois people because they don't please they
01:19:28
don't provide what is comfortable or easy and what people would like or pretty or no you know it's always oh
01:19:34
doesn't it's disgusting or throwing a pot of paint into the Public's face that was said 150 years ago you know it's
01:19:41
always been thus and artists are special I think um I mean I like makers or craftsmen
01:19:48
artisans you know that who make beautiful things whether it's shoes or you know Tom Daley knitting a nice
01:19:54
pullover whatever it might be is is a beautiful thing to see but art is to me at least and it may be a part of the kind of education I've had and that has privileged art above all things but art
01:20:07
is special to me and it has a special place and does special things um it usually very simple and and that's
01:20:15
the that's the genius of an artist we die we the flesh this case we have dies and
01:20:22
rots and we know this and most people don't particularly like to be reminded of it
01:20:28
artists find it the most fascinating thing in the world so even if it's Van Gogh with showing the petals falling off
01:20:35
the sunflower there's death in there and as for Francis Bacon and indeed uh Damon
01:20:41
Hurst and and on almost all painters they paint death they paint the truth about what we are becoming and painting
01:20:48
is sometimes the last Bastion against death I'm going to make something permanent because everything else dies
01:20:55
that's again Shakespeare's sonnets you know this will last everything else will die but this poem will stay here I made something permanent against death Decay
01:21:07
entropy all the horrors of of the universe the drag is done you know my nipples are dropping two inches every year as as gravity takes hold and it will for all of us and and art keeps
01:21:21
them propped up if you like I I very much I've been going back and forward about this point about art because I've realized as probably as I've got older that um expression in
01:21:32
some artistic form whether it's knitting that jumper like Tom Daly does is so great for our mind absolutely and um you
01:21:39
know you've talked about a few things there even when you're talking about social prescribing just some way to express ourselves through the medium of
01:21:44
music or painting or creation seems to be it seems to be so human and so innately um important to to all of us um
01:21:55
but at the same time I hear what you're saying regarding artists and their conviction to create from their own
01:22:01
perspective versus to conform yeah I guess I guess maybe the difference there is that's a being a great artist yes I
01:22:09
think it's true yeah there are there are qualities and degrees Yeah there's a spectrum of I mean there are people have
01:22:16
tried to Define I mean an artisan a Craftsman I couldn't make the same thing again and again identically and it's genius you know they're making four chairs each
01:22:27
chair is the same an artist never does the same thing again they might have a theme that they do so you know you can
01:22:33
get a lot of artists who you know uh who who who like to paint a particular subject
01:22:39
um whether it's bedding field Terriers and famous and Scottish artists used to do crazy HSN um
01:22:46
um he liked to do little Bedlington Terriers and he liked there's usually a star somewhere but everyone is different
01:22:52
everyone is a is a variation on a theme whereas an artisan is happy to make things that are perfect and the same each time uh a Craftsman and but they're
01:23:04
both good for the mind in fact probably being a Craftsman is better for the mind there's I remember Rowan Atkinson said
01:23:11
to me once years ago he's a very wise man and indeed and thinks a lot very very very thoughtful and and he said and
01:23:19
I'm sure he wasn't the first to say it and there are many different name for this he said but it only ever works on
01:23:25
stage if you are relaxed but it only ever works on stage if you are concentrating if you concentrate without being relaxed you're just stiff and you're trying too
01:23:37
hard if you relax without concentrating you're all over the place but when both happen at once you are master of time and space and you are in control you're concentrating on every detail and every
01:23:49
second of the audience's response and your timing is perfect and yet you are relaxed enough to allow them to enjoy it
01:23:56
without feeling any strain Sportsman call that being in the zone and it's immensely important to get that
01:24:05
blend and one of the ways to create it is I think not to do art because that's just too frightening but to do crafts and and that can include painting it
01:24:16
could be painting by numbers it can be just a general sketch where you're not trying to make it art but once your
01:24:22
tongue is stuck out you know you've got that concentrated but relaxed on you and it comes as I say it could be knitting
01:24:28
carpet making it can be anything you choose but something or a jigsaw even but something where you've made a change
01:24:36
to what was there before you brought materials together that weren't there before and you've done it in a way that
01:24:41
has just given you that you've listened to the radio or or the television's on in the corner or you've got a playlist
01:24:46
going and it's it's a it's a magical thing yeah and and if if anyone's thinking of how they might do that one of my favorite films is a film called Running on empties Sydney lament film
01:25:00
with the River Phoenix and Judd Hirsch and those others in it and uh it's about this family that are on the run because they attacked her a weapons laboratory during the Vietnam
01:25:12
war and unfortunately there was a security guard in there who got killed although they didn't they tried to do it when it was empty so they've been on the
01:25:18
lamb from the FBI for like 15 20 years but that's the back story anyway that means that they they don't have much and
01:25:24
they're constantly having to go on the move when the FBI might be close and uh the river affinity's character is a musical genius as it happens not as relevant to this story but he meets this
01:25:35
girl and they start to fall for each other and at one point they're walking on the beach and he's picking things up and says oh this might do and she says
01:25:42
what's that and he says in our family for Christmas or birthdays we're only allowed to give something we've found or made
01:25:54
and I I almost wept at how beautiful an idea that was I know it's so obvious we live in a ridiculous crass commercial world where we score everything by its monetary value but to say we're only
01:26:06
allowed to give each other things we found or made and so we'd found this Stone and this piece of wood or whatever
01:26:12
Driftwood where it was he was going to make something out of it and his parents would be thrilled to have it because you've given them time and concentration
01:26:19
but you've also had the pleasure yourself of doing the making so maybe someone listening will say to their
01:26:24
family hey Christmas is coming up we're only allowed to give each other things we've found and made and especially at
01:26:30
the time of of of you know financial crisis who wants to go into this slightly sick making nonsense of just
01:26:37
going into shops and spending vast sums of money that you know and shiny things and when you might just find a piece of
01:26:45
Driftwood or something that looks like a hedgehog and turn it into a pipe holder or a soap dish you know that's all I'm
01:26:52
saying it sounds so cheesy no it's beautiful it's a really really beautiful idea and it's very much aligned to
01:26:58
to the relationship I have with my partner to be honest we you know I'm sure I'm
01:27:03
sure everybody knows I have the means to buy whatever but indeed I can't think of a recent Valentine's Day birthday just
01:27:11
had my birthday where anything has exceeded the 100 pounds because it's all like scrapbooks and really sentimental
01:27:18
personal stuff and thankfully I'm with someone who wants that and would actually be probably disgusted if I got
01:27:24
them a shiny thing I generally I've said this before my partner would be genuinely disgusted if I got a shiny
01:27:29
thing or like a designer thing like the look I would get you know so I I it here's a question if you if you're if the good life in your own subjective definition of whatever that means if the
01:27:41
good life your best life was a I've asked the question but I'm going to ask a variation of it to you was a recipe
01:27:48
constituting of a bunch of different ingredients what do you think you need or is missing from that list of ingredients for you to have the dish of a good life
01:28:01
wow that's an amazing thought I mean there is a part of me that obviously feels I
01:28:08
say obviously that feels in another world if I'd time things right I might have had children and and that's an experience that enormous number of my
01:28:19
fellow humans undergo and it clearly gives pleasure I have many God children now
01:28:26
nieces and nephews and great nieces and great nephews um and but I'll never experience the the
01:28:33
a child growing up and and and and that I mean it's slight sadness it's um it allows me fantastic um ironic sarcastic in fact
01:28:46
conversations with people sometimes where song has always nonsense about global warming you know and I'll go no I'm with you I don't have children either so I don't
01:28:57
care what happens to the world and they'll go well no I've got kids I said oh do you hate them then you hate your
01:29:03
children so you don't want them to have a nice world oh well I don't know I mean yeah that's fine and they'll go oh look
01:29:08
don't beat you and I get well silly of me but but it does um yeah I mean that's probably the biggest hole in my in my life experience I've been fortunate enough to have done so many
01:29:22
things and to experience so much and met so many people I've been thrilled to meet and had opportunities that are just
01:29:29
unbelievable really and of course I've had opportunities I suppose to have had children I mean you know I could have
01:29:34
sorted something out I could have and you know Elliot and I could you know we talked about it a bit but we never
01:29:41
we never talked about to the extent of right so we're going to a clinic tomorrow to talk this through to some
01:29:46
expert you know we never quite got that far it was always just yeah it would be nice wouldn't it
01:29:52
um and uh so that's probably the I mean otherwise of course there are there are regrets in life because um as you get I'm now from the 25th of
01:30:04
August nearly your birthday almonds I was my birth 24th of August so from that day onwards I was closer to 70 than 60
01:30:11
which was my 65th birthday on the 24th of August so as you move towards uh uh The Seer the yellow leaf as Shakespeare put it oh
01:30:26
Joe yes sorry I'm still at the um oh God am I late oh [ __ ] I am yes you're quite
01:30:32
right the driver is worried about getting me back in time I understand thank you darling bless you we're having such a good time I had no idea how the
01:30:45
time was passing please apologize for me interrupting I know I know you yeah you bet I'd really appreciate it thanks and I'll I'll text them and I'm in the cab on the way there gosh I'm sorry no
01:31:11
worries at all yeah listen Stephen thank you thank you so much for your your time we do have a quick closing tradition
01:31:17
just where the last guest asks a question for the next guest that's right so I'll just rattle this one off to you
01:31:23
um and I absolutely can't read their writing what is it that motivated you once you
01:31:32
do you have any idea we already have it ah what is it that motivates what is it that motivated you once you already had it oh do you mean once you've reached a
01:31:43
goal why do you keep at it you got to the point in your life where you would achieve so much most people would be satisfied with retirement and wrapping
01:31:50
it all in what then became your motivation in your life does the honestly pleasure the fact that I still
01:31:56
enjoyed it so much that when I met new people who wanted me to do a new thing like this this dinosaur
01:32:02
um program I'm doing dinos yeah uh living you know doing this new technology being with the Dinosaurs so
01:32:09
exciting it was just a whole new thing for me and and I'd never done anything like it and so I just said yes and even
01:32:18
though it meant like am I going to get it how am I going to get a week to be in that studio and do this and enough stuff
01:32:24
and prepare for it and so on it turned out to be a wonderful program and a unique kind of Technology demonstrating
01:32:31
these dinos so so that is an example it's just and similarly doing this Apple TV show which I'm doing now in America called The Morning Show which is good fun and
01:32:43
just occasionally it's it's the thrill of the variation you know so it's the variation between doing a documentary and then suddenly having to spend four or five months just working on a book
01:32:55
and then uh then doing some [ __ ] piece of uh uh TV or film with big stars in it uh feeling like oh I'm in Hollywood you
01:33:07
know it's not that I'm calling the morning shows like because that's the least slushy thing I've ever done I've
01:33:12
actually had the privilege of seeing all of the above other than your upcoming movie which which hasn't been shot yet but when I saw dinosaurs it was um it
01:33:18
brought me right back to my childhood and watching Jurassic Park with ore and as if I was stepping back in time to a
01:33:24
place in in our history thank you so much for your time Steve and I really appreciate it you're someone that's a real pleasure and do I have to leave a
01:33:30
question for your next if you could that would be amazing going to give you the book that I ever see you thank you
01:33:35
Stephen quick word from one of our sponsors I've got a tip for all of you that will make
01:33:40
your virtual meeting experiences I think 10 times better as some of you may know by now Blue
01:33:45
Jeans by Verizon offers seamless high quality video conferencing but the reason why I use blue jeans versus other
01:33:51
video conferencing tools is because of immersion their tools make you feel more connected to the employees or customers
01:33:57
you're trying to engage with and now they're launching one of their biggest feature enhancements to impact virtual
01:34:02
events so far called Blue Jean Studio actually used it the other day I did a virtual event using the studio which I
01:34:08
think about 700 of you came to TV level production quality all done by one person with very little technical experience on a laptop so if you've got an event coming up and you're thinking about doing it virtually check out blue
01:34:19
jean studio now let me know what you think because I genuinely believe I know this is an advert and I'm supposed to
01:34:24
say this but I genuinely believe it's the best tool I've seen for doing really immersive simple but high quality
01:34:31
production virtual events for many years people have been asking for a coffee flavored heel and quite recently he'll release the iced coffee caramel flavor of their
01:34:42
um ready to drink heels and I've just become hooked on it over the last couple of weeks I've been on a really interesting Journey with huel which I've
01:34:49
described and talked about a little bit on this podcast I started with the berry ready to drinks then I moved over to the protein salted caramel because it's 100
01:34:56
calories and it gives you all of your essential vitamins and minerals but also gives you the 20 odd grams of protein you need and now I'm balanced between
01:35:03
them both I drink mostly the banana flavor ready to drink I've got really into the iced coffee caramel flavor of
01:35:10
fuels ready to drink and now I'm drinking that as well as the protein make sure you try the new ready to drink
01:35:15
flavors that the caramel flavor is amazing the new banana flavor as well is amazing and obviously as I said the iced
01:35:22
coffee caramel flavor has been a real Smash Hit so check it out let me know what you think on social media I see all
01:35:28
of your tags and Instagram posts and tweets about huel [Music] thank you