Name: Russell Howard is the English Pete! | You Made It Weird!
Uploaded: 2025-04-02T14:01:02.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Russell Howard is the English Pete! | You Made It Weird!' from Pete Holmes on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-04-02. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Russell Howard is the English Pete! | You Made It Weird!' from Pete Holmes on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-04-02. Transcript available.

Russell Howard is the English Pete! | You Made It Weird!

You made it weird, yes you did, you made it weird, yeah.
You made it weird, with Pete Holmes.
You made it weird, yes you did, you made it weird, yeah.
What's happening weirdos?
This is the incredible, hilarious, brilliant even,
I'm gonna say brilliant even, Russell Howard,
who I feel very, a kinship with immediately.
His standup is hilarious, I enjoy everything he has to say,
and I feel like he might be the British me, the English me,
I'll even say the English me, not sure which,
if that's any different, but he's wonderful, he's here,
you can check out his new special, Russell Howard,
live at the London Palladium, the way,
I think the easiest way to find it is just search Russell,
Russell Howard new special, that's what I did,
or you can go to russell-howard.co.uk,
who want, don't do that, just type Russell Howard new special in,
and you can stream it directly from his website,
and I highly, highly recommend it.
You can also see his tour dates on there.
He also has Netflix specials, all that sort of stuff,
there's lots of content, but check out the new one,
that's the one we're talking about here,
it is incredible, and I'm so glad
that I met this hilarious person.
I'm also on the road, just real quick,
gonna mention some of my dates,
we got Austin coming up, and then St. Louis, Toronto,
LA, Nashville, Irvine, California, San Jose, Houston, Texas,
Royal Oak, Michigan, Washington, D.C., and Boston, Massachusetts.
This is the PG-13, which is a mostly clean comedy tour.
I'd like to point out, Nate Bargetsy is like G,
Jim Gaffigan, maybe PG, this is PG-13.
So it's a little bit naughty, but not over the top,
which sometimes, you know, I like to be over the top.
This is a little bit cleaner.
You'll like it.
I hope you like it.
PeteHolmes.com.
It's my favorite hour that I've done in a very long time,
and I'm really excited for you guys to see it.
PeteHolmes.com for tickets to all of those.
And in the meantime, enjoy this chat
with the incredible Russell Howard.
His new special, Live at the London Palladium,
is out now on his website.
Get into it.
Welcome, first of all.
Nice to meet you.
Don't turn on your comedy persona.
Okay, sorry.
It is nice to meet you, though.
It is nice to meet you.
JK.
Yeah.
I know it's sincerely great to meet you.
I upped it.
Did you notice?
You said nice, and I went, great.
Yeah, certainly.
I just want to say that I have a suspicion that we're –
I was listening to your special.
Yeah.
Listening because I was driving here,
and my wife and I both had an earbud in.
We had our daughter in the back,
and she's watching some Japanese –
Solid parenting.
Parenting.
Yeah.
Is that?
You have a kid, don't you?
I do, yeah, yeah.
How very dare you.
He's nine months old.
Oh, okay.
So you'll see.
When he's six, you're going to have one earbud in,
watching my special and going –
We apparently kept laughing at moments
that were appropriate for what she was watching,
so she thought we were watching what she was –
It was very interesting.
So you were beautifully in sync as a family.
We were very in sync,
and I was like, baby, we're connected.
Yeah.
But here's what I wanted to say.
Like, we were dying laughing.
Again, because I was driving,
just listening to it, like, as an album,
and I was blown away.
I really think you're –
How are you on compliments?
Is this going to weird you out?
Yeah, I'm just very English on compliments.
It's all right.
I always think that's the best –
How about this?
Good man.
Yeah, good man.
It's all right.
But it's a really good way of freaking out English comics
of just –
Like when they're on stage.
Yeah.
It happens a lot here that the audiences would just go,
I love you.
And then you have to destroy it.
Yeah.
And then start attacking yourself.
Well, you haven't been brought up as, like, a legend
or, like, my favorite comedian
or, like, this guy's my inspiration
or anything like that.
No.
Yeah, I'm sure you have.
You don't listen to the intros.
But it's that weird thing of, like, I don't know.
Why is it?
How do you react?
If somebody in the crowd went, I love you,
it just then creates this sort of comedic tension
that you have to pop.
I know what I mean.
I –
Yeah.
I'll just go, I love you, too, and just keep going.
Yeah.
Seinfeld would go –
I think he said, I love you, but something like –
but I want you to know I'm seeing other people.
Oh, really?
He had a little line for it.
But I know what you mean.
But that's beautifully robotic from him.
Of course.
To kind of, like, well, this has happened enough times.
Yes.
I need a three-point move to get out of it, and that's it.
He shoots it from the hip.
Yeah.
But, okay, so compliments aside,
I will cool it on the compliments.
We were dying laughing, and then my wife was like,
he's like you.
And I'm not trying to sidle up to your greatness.
We have some similarities.
I think we do, yeah.
Yeah, and you do jokes about your joke.
You do jokes about how you interpret your joke,
how they're interpreting your joke.
You're very there.
It sounds like I'm complimenting myself.
I'm just saying not every comedian is that way.
Yeah.
And then you're also – this is where I think you differ from me.
You're firing at a caliber that I'm not,
and I think it's amazing.
The speed at which – every joke is very lean.
You're, like, really running quite fast.
It doesn't feel like that, but I think if you look at it,
you're like, wow, this guy's really trimmed the fat off of everything.
Yeah, it's in and out.
In and out.
Yeah.
What is your – that's my first question,
and it's a sincere question.
It's not just to get you talking.
What is your process?
Are you writing from stage,
or do you write properly sitting down, or –
A bit of both.
So I did a TV show for years,
and so I was a comic,
and then I started doing a TV show
and realized how much fun writing is.
And writing with – I wrote with four of my friends,
and it was a topical show, so we –
This is good news?
Yeah, and then having to write jokes about Brexit every week
and then trying to find that something that was kind of original,
had a twist.
You then sort of evolve.
And then performing,
I kind of have an idea,
write it,
perform it on stage,
get their feedback.
The audience lets you get somewhere else.
Yeah.
And then you –
I always call it like crystallizing.
The language becomes crystallized.
Like I've got this bit at the minute
about having a colonoscopy,
and there's kind of six lines in there that I really like,
and I probably wrote 20.
Yeah.
And originally you do 20,
and I just don't have that –
I don't know.
It's a different thing in England
where the audience will let you know,
all right, mate, enough.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Interesting.
You know,
it's –
I think I'm probably tighter,
I think,
because they just get bored quicker in the UK.
Yeah, I think so.
Really?
They don't let –
they're not interested in letting you luxuriate in the bit.
It's like,
got it, mate,
understand it.
Nice imagery.
Next.
You know what I mean?
It's sort of –
Tick the box.
Yeah.
We got it.
Move on.
And we do smell our own farts here,
and I'm not even saying that as a horrible thing.
I'm editing my special right now,
and my dear friend,
Neil Brennan,
was like,
cut this out.
This is where you're laughing at yourself.
This is where you're choking the joke.
And I'm like,
but that's me, man.
So I'm trying to find –
but I wonder if England would scare me into you.
You're me in England.
Yeah.
And also,
very happy.
We both have a lot of teeth.
There are similarities.
But also,
like I've seen your stand-up,
and you –
I think probably a similarity we have is
that we clearly both enjoy doing stand-up.
Yes.
And that's the thing for me.
It's such a great art form.
It's the only thing in the world.
having done TV stuff
where if you have an idea,
you can then go on stage
and explore it.
And I was in Texas,
so then I had like 20 seconds on Buc-ee's.
And I was like,
oh, this is really funny.
And you know,
and you kind of –
and then you suddenly get to Arizona,
and it doesn't mean anything.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But that's what I love about it
is that you can kind of –
Me too.
You know,
like –
and what I'm deeply envious of here
is I –
and it's sort of through,
like,
I guess from Carlin onwards.
there seems to be this kind of culture
where the audience lets you
be in a state of permanent becoming.
So you can kind of go up
and do an hour
and then go,
look,
I've got notes.
You know,
and –
They like it.
And they love it here.
Wait, in England, no.
They'd be furious.
Like,
I'll pay 30 quid,
you fucking cunt.
And you're going to sit here.
Even as a little bonus,
a little reprieve?
Definitely.
Really?
Yeah, yeah.
This makes me –
I've never toured the UK.
But you have to.
But it's –
It makes me scared now.
But you do it when you've got a show,
but it's that thing of –
it's just the culture here
because you're working towards the special.
Right.
So as a comic,
it's fantastic.
And the fact that the audience
enjoy being part of the process.
Right.
But not in England.
Really?
Yeah, yeah.
I would say the same in Europe.
It's that,
you know,
if you pulled notes out in,
like, Sweden,
you know,
it would be like,
we've paid many kroner
and this is how you treat us.
We've gotten babysitters.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's German.
No.
But, yeah,
you always go German.
Have you given much in Europe?
Never, not once.
Oh, man.
In fact,
when I've been there,
I've been scared.
I'm a sensitive baby,
so I'm like,
I'm just afraid
to, like,
go up and just do it wrong.
I'd want to watch for a while.
But the fear is so fascinating.
It's that,
because you're such an alien
in the culture.
Yeah.
And then you sort of
end up learning so much
about yourself
and your culture.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's what I do
as an English bloke.
I'm just kind of,
we're so close to Scandinavia
and yet so different.
Yes.
And then your sort of
powers of observation,
like,
I was doing this thing about,
I find Scandinavia fascinating
because,
you know,
they went from Vikings
to recycling.
Like,
in terms of an evolution,
the fact that
Ragnar Lothbrok
was burning villages
and raping and pillaging
and then 800 years later,
ABBA.
Right.
Do you know what I mean?
And they'd be like,
that's a lot of carbon.
Yeah.
You're burning down a village.
That's a lot of carbon right there.
That's what I mean.
But,
but,
so,
as an outsider,
you're able to go,
wow,
you've gone from Vikings
to an unbelievably progressive
state.
You're a blue bin.
Yeah.
But,
but like,
do you know what I mean?
That you could,
you might not necessarily see it.
I remember seeing Malaney
do this brilliant bit
about,
in London,
of,
there were statues
of dogs
that had fought
in World War II.
and I've seen that statue
and I've never seen
how funny that was.
Wow.
But it took an outsider
to come in and go
and so John Mulaney
was there just going
to the dog's fault
and suddenly it opened up.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
It's like,
there's something about
being the outsider.
Fresh eyes.
Yeah.
It's fresh eyes.
Well,
what is,
I'm sure,
I don't want to burden you
with this,
but I imagine
that in America
we have a lot of
like swinging dick cowboy stuff.
Like,
there's a lot of winning
in our comedy.
There's a lot of like,
we have the last word.
We were smart.
We were good.
Like I,
this is,
I'm not going to tell
the whole story,
but I just went on
like a meditation retreat
and I did stand up there.
Wow.
So I know.
That's a tough room.
Yes.
Thank you.
Wow.
I've been waiting for this.
I didn't know
I was waiting for this.
Yeah,
yeah,
yeah,
yeah.
So of course
I love these people
and it's a very hearty space
and I'm looking at my stand up.
I'm going to do like
15 minutes on the retreat.
That's too short
and then I'll do like
15 minutes of my act
and I'm going over my act
and I'm like,
and I'm a nice comedian.
I'm like you.
I think people perceive us
as like nicer
or at least having fun,
happy,
whatever.
Yeah,
yeah.
And I'm like,
so many of these bits,
the undercurrent of them
were like,
I'm winning
and I'm being a bit of a twat.
That's interesting.
So