Rhys James talks about his Spilt Milk special

Written by: Kat Mokrynski
Published: Thursday 7th November 2024

Rhys James has a new stand-up special out to stream (and a single copy on DVD). We talk to him about getting into comedy, evolving a show and his New Year's resolutions.

How did you first get started in the world of comedy?

Well, I think people like to come up with these stories, like "I had to be funny for survival", and all this sort of stuff. That might be true in life, but in terms of becoming a comedian, I think most people just wanted to be a comedian, and they tried it. That's all that really happened. I wanted to do comedy when I was a teenager, and then when I was seventeen, I just did. It's not a fancy, exciting story - I wanted to, I did, I still am... and that is as simple as that.

Can you tell us a bit about your new comedy special, Spilt Milk?

It's the show I toured all through 2023 - a worldwide tour, which means I also did Wales. It's a recording of that show.

It doesn't wear grand themes on the surface, necessarily. There's some in there if you're looking for them. But it's a funny show that's about lots of things. In some ways, it's about being in your thirties and all the things that come with that - certain pressures that I'm resisting, like getting married and having kids. But, also, rants about people's approaches to mental health. The top line would be, "Everyone's fighting their own mental battles, but they're doing it wrong, and here's why."

And what is the creative process like for writing a special like Spilt Milk?

What happened for me is I did loads and loads of work in progress shows, couple a month, for a year at The Bill Murray in Angel, which is one of the best places to do that.

But, after a year of doing that, you realise it's five quid a ticket and it's in London at 6:30pm, just after work. That's a certain demographic who are coming, and that's not the same demographic who are coming to tour shows. The tour audience skews a little bit older, so suddenly you panic and go, "I need to quickly put in some work in progress shows to some older people to see if any of these references work." I'd say I got about fifteen minutes more material on the tour from 'ad libs' about the crowd. It's like football. They say, "Can he do it on a wet Wednesday night in Stoke?" And that's the same with comedy. You can make it work it to 24 year-olds in Islington all you want. Can you get those laughs in Stoke on a cold, rainy evening? Well, kind of. Sometimes.

[Laughs] I guess you can relate to the other Rhys James in that way!

Exactly. Even though he's my sworn nemesis, I get it. Although I'm less likely to pull a hamstring.

So what was it like performing for this particular recording at Wilton's Music Hall?

It's always a bit more stressful when you know you're recording it. Wilton's Music Hall is the most beautiful venue in the world, so you're already getting points from people who are just walking in and thinking "this is special", because it's just so magical in that room. They host weddings there most of the time and they do classical concerts and stuff - not a lot of comedy, so that was exciting. If you can make the audience feel really cool before you've even begun, that helps.

We did two records and both crowds were great. I'd say the first recording crowd were much more vocal. They'd been amped because I'd put the pressure on them to be the crowd we used for the final cut, so they thought, "This is my time to shine as well!" Ironically that means the edit is mostly from the second recording, where they were a bit more British about the whole thing.

And how did you come up with the idea to give someone in the audience the responsibility of writing your New Year's resolution?

That just felt like I had to! If I'm going to make this argument that we should give each other New Year's resolutions, then I'm going to have to put my money where my mouth is and let someone do it for me - see if they can pull it off. And if I was going to chat to them and use the information to give them their own 'perfect resolution', it was only fair that if this is my argument about the way the world should be, that I let them do it back. So that was it. It was more out of, "I've gotta prove this point!"

Do you have any favourite resolutions from the tour that you got?

You'd be surprised quite how often people said, "Be more like Ed Gamble", or something like that. Usually, it was a reference to the show in some capacity. Audience members are surprisingly good at callbacks to stuff you've said because they're under pressure thinking, "What can I do?" But yeah, lots of Ed Gamble references on tour. That only really stopped once I put in a little bit at the end where I do some Ernest Hemingway stories, and there's a reference to Ed Gamble in those. It's just before the ending, so because I'd already said it by that point, they would not feel they had to - otherwise, it was an elephant in the room they felt had to be addressed. I'm doubt he's getting the same thing on his tour.

You mentioned that there's a lot of callbacks in Spilt Milk. How do you ensure that the callbacks come in during the show?

It's interesting because there's a couple of types of callbacks. Some of them are just cool, convenient things that back reference bits and some of them elevate the whole show, because it recontextualises what you were saying before. So if you can do a callback that completely changes the meaning of the bit from the first time, that feels like a rounded final product. And so it varies. Sometimes you just go, "Oh my God, that's so similar to that. I could just easily reference that, and that would be so convenient."

And obviously, everyone's gonna laugh because it makes the audience feel clever. But when you find those ones that lift it, those things are a gift. We all want to be able to wait for inspiration to be able to write things, but you can't, because it's so rare - you have to just force yourself. But those moments where you find something that redefines the meaning, often do just arrive, and often as you're desperately trying to get to sleep and your brain is thinking of nothing but this damn show again and again and again.

And what inspired you to release the singular DVD for this special?

Well, look, lots of my heroes have DVDs, okay? Everyone these days has a special, because people put specials on YouTube - I'm just putting this online myself. And so it was like, "How can I join the elite of the comedy world?" All these absolute legends of British comedy, especially, have DVDs, and I was like, "Well, if I can officially call myself a DVD comedian, then surely I join them with elite legend status!" [Laughs]

I don't have the budget to print hundreds and thousands of DVDs, nor do I think there's a market for it. So why don't I just release one? We're going to release it into a mystery charity shop and there'll be a few clues as to which one. In chatting to charity shops to negotiate this, some of them were saying, "But what if there's a stampede? What if loads of people come here and we can't manage it?" I keep having to say, "That is not going to happen. More likely, that DVD will be on your shelf with all the other DVDs you can't sell for the rest of time, even though it's one of one." I can't see anyone actually racing to go and get it when it's so much more readily available online and you can just sit on your ass and watch it. But you never know.

Do you have a favourite joke from Spilt Milk?

There's a joke I've got about my biological father that I've always really liked. There's a couple of jokes in there that I like because of how differently they go in different parts of the country.

There's a routine about billionaires who claim to have started from rags to riches because they started their business out of a garage, and it's fascinating how much that plays in London versus Tunbridge Wells or somewhere where it is basic to have a garage and they don't have a clue what you're possibly complaining about. And where the audience are much older, where getting a house was much cheaper in their day. Those ones always fascinate me.

Then extra lines appear out of necessity. You need a topper if they've not really gone for it and really related to it in the same way that people my age would in London. Often, I would just criticise the posh crowds for being livid that I didn't say "garage" [gr-aazh] instead. So that's interesting. And actually, a clip of that was posted by Just For Laughs from when I did it in Australia and the comments are all Americans being absolutely furious with me because there's so much space that having a garage is so obvious, and they're livid that I'm saying "garage" [garidge] and not "garage" [gr-aazh]. They keep criticising me and saying, "But it's a French word! You should be saying 'garage [gr-aazh]", to which I did reply to one person saying, "Say the word garbage out loud. If you're not saying gar-bahge, then how dare you?"

What advice would you give for someone looking to go into comedy?

You just have to start, really. It's hard to say. The landscape changes so much that I don't know how to start now. If you want to be a live comedian, then you have to just go and get on stage, not stop getting on stage and do it as much as possible.

The first one's the hardest. It will never be easy, but it will be easier. It's like literally everything in life - you just have to do it once and then keep doing it.

In terms of building a career now from scratch, I've got no idea. The old man in me wants to say, "Get on TikTok and post your clips!" And maybe that's true - I don't know! I released a YouTube special in 2015 and I felt like I was late to the party then, so the fact that they're so popular now is good. That's the social media platform that's been the one constant throughout all of this, so that's the way to do it.

But I would say, don't race to clips, because you want to wait until your stuff's actually really good. The problem with that is that you're always going to think your stuff's pretty good. It's only when you look back a few years later that you go, "Oh God, what was I thinking there? That was rubbish!". I'm sure I'll do the same with this special and that's a good, necessary part of it as well. That's evolution, right? That's improvement.

But, yeah, my advice would be stop thinking about it and just start. Very much the opposite of what I've done with this answer.

Do you have any New Year's resolutions for yourself for 2025?

Really boringly, yeah. And actually, this is where my point stands up in that other people should give me resolutions. My resolution for next year is I want to break 85 in a round of golf. I want to shoot lower than 85. That's quite unrealistic! I'm rubbish - I think I've only broken 100 once in my life, so to get down to 84 would be quite the improvement! But that's why I need other people's help, because that clearly isn't what's wrong with my life. It's not that I'm shit at golf. There's loads of other things going on. All I can see ahead of me is, "Improve at golf and you will finally be happy." But that's not the problem, is it? I think that proves my point.

And finally, how would you describe Spilt Milk in one word?

Milky. Or Available.

Rhys James - Spilt Milk is available to stream now via rhysjames.co.uk

Rhys James - Spilt Milk

Following an international tour of over 75 sold-out dates, this is the streaming version of Spilt Milk, the stand-up show by Rhys James. Once purchased you will be able to watch as many times as you like. Rhys says: "I recommend watching six point three times."

Like everyone in their thirties, Rhys is now free from the burden of his own potential, never to be called 'young' for an achievement again, unless that achievement is dying. Or gout.

Now older and wiser, Rhys has realised the key to improving society is giving New Years Resolutions to each other, rather than ourselves. And so, after giving a lucky audience member the perfect resolution for their own life, Rhys sets them the task of writing a resolution for him. They have until the end of the show.

In the meantime, they can watch as Rhys lambasts his Premier League footballer namesake, gives Wim Hof both barrels, deep dives into the Flawless vs Diversity street dance rivalry of Britain's Got Talent 2009, explains how marriage is soon to die out completely, beats Ernest Hemingway at his own game, and accidentally enacts the perfect revenge on a burglar.

First released: Thursday 7th November 2024

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