INTERVIEW WITH (LEGEND) KARL PILKINGTON

Karl Pilkington is an English actor, author, television presenter, and radio producer, who is best known for his quintessentially British dry sense of humour. I re-binge-watched his shows quite recently with my Spanish and American friends and my Mancunian girlfriend, with the first two not understanding the humour and needing subtitles, and the latter absolutely killing herself with laughter. He’s great when you get over the language barrier, I guess.

Some of Karl’s best work follows him on journeys to the furthest corners of the globe. He explores the concept of arranged marriages in India, he tries plastic surgery in Los Angeles, he saves a turtle from a restaurant in Japan and keeps it in his bathtub, he tries to feed a biscuit to a boa constrictor in the Amazon Basin – he truly does it all. In my favourite show of his, The Moaning of Life, he traverses the globe to try to undercover, well, the meaning of life. He seeks the answers for life’s big questions – and at the end of the day, aren’t we all a little curious about how other cultures view identity, time, death, and the best ways to live our lives?

I’ll be frank with you and say that he’s probably my favourite traveller. He’s incredibly unpretentious and down-to-earth, but most importantly, he is one of the most honest men on TV. He’s an absolute legend, and nothing short of a household name in the UK.

Karl’s a sick writer and all of his books make for great reads – and I can promise you that you’ve never read travel journals quite like them. They’re so full of personality and written with that classic Karl Pilkington voice that you just can’t help but be drawn in, and I think that we could all benefit from trying to understand the world around us and our place within it.

And so, without further ado, here is my interview with my friend Karl. Or at least, Mancunian guy that replies to me during his morning sh*t.

Firstly, what’s your favourite biscuit?

I’m forever changing. At the minute I’m enjoying Foxes Jam and cream.

You’ve tried to retire a couple of times now, but got bored and went back to creating content. How are you finding this quarantine, and what are you doing to stay busy?

I’m quite happy being at home. I saw a sign last week telling people to ‘stay at home unless you really need to go out’ due to the virus, but that’s the way I’ve always lived. I’m most happy in my own space. I’ve been busy gardening, done some little jobs about the house, I’ve done some short audio animation podcast type things that I’ve been bunging on Facebook and done quite a bit of doodling.

I think people have probably learn’t a lot about themselves during this lockdown. In a quiet moment last week, I counted how many teeth I had in my head. There’s always something to do.

In Sick of It, you highlight issues such as depression and isolation. What do you think of this show as a platform to raise awareness for these issues?

That was never my plan. The stories are based on some of my own little worries and insecurities that I think most people have at some point in their life.  Issues like feeling out of place and not being good enough. I got a few letters and messages from viewers saying they could relate to it so that was good.

You say you’re not that confident, and yet you’ve done all of these amazing things and done them well. How do you overcome this, and get on with producing entertaining content?

It’s normally at the point when I still have time to walk away that I’m not that confident. Once I’ve signed a contract that says I’ll have to deliver something, I’m that focused on getting it done that the worry goes away until I’ve finished.

They try and teach kids to be mega confident but too much of it isn’t a good thing. It’s healthy to keep doubting what you are doing and questioning yourself.

I’ve seen a lot of interviews where the audience laughs at every single comment you make, regardless of whether or not it’s actually funny. In one interview with Alan Carr, there’s this point where you talk about the first dead person you ever saw. It’s quite obviously a serious subject, and yet the audience and Jimmy are still absolutely killing themselves over it. Is it incredibly annoying to say what you’re honestly thinking just for people to laugh at you?

I just think the audience has just been primed to laugh. The idea is, if the live audience is laughing, the viewers at home will laugh. It’s a bit lazy. They do it the other way as well, they put sad music on stuff so people will cry. I hate all that. If something is sad and written well, you could put a track from the Crazy Frog over the scene and it should still work.   

Do you think the branding of your older shows, such as An Idiot Abroad, has labelled you as a ‘funnyman’ and stopped you from doing other things you might have wanted to do?

It’s quite hard to control how people see you, and you can’t control what people find funny so I try not to worry about it. I remember it being tough when I had to promote Sick of It though. It’s a totally different tone to the travel stuff which is difficult to get through to people. I’m not that arsed if people don’t like what I do but it would annoy me if someone didn’t enjoy it cos they were expecting it to be something else. A lot of critics were surprised by the look and tone of the series as it’s not what they were used to doing. I have never set out for anything I’ve filmed to be funny, I just hoped people would find something interesting in it.

I think I got labelled ‘funnyman’ because I did stuff with Ricky and Steve who are comedians, so it was easier for people to bundle me in with what they do. I don’t watch that much funny stuff, I prefer stories like Kes. Vic and Bob make me laugh but laughter isn’t something I need loads of in my life.

Did it get annoying to have no control of any of the travel plans in An Idiot Abroad?

I just found it very tiring being on edge all the time not knowing when or even what time someone was going to knock on my hotel room door and shove a camera in my face.  The filming was always easier than the anticipation of the the filming if that makes sense. If someone said they are going to kick you in the bollocks, it’s always worse than someone just kicking you in the bollocks without warning.

What’s the best thing that you’ve experienced whilst shooting one of your shows abroad?

The best bit wasn’t abroad. It was when we filmed a murmuration in Somerset for The Moaning of Life. It’s when thousands of starlings fly in mass. It was really good. Everyone should try and witness it if they can. I first saw one on telly when Bill Oddie did a show about it. Normally telly makes things look better than reality but it was even more amazing in real life. In fact, this goes back to what I was saying earlier about adding laughter or sad music to stuff. They’d put music over it on the Bill Oddie programme and it really wasn’t needed as the sound of the starlings as they whizz about through the air added to the chaos of it.

In what ways do you think travel has changed you?

I think it changed me but I don’t know if that would have happened anyway with age. We’re all changing all the time. Like I said at the start, Jam n cream biscuits are my current favs but last week it was ginger stem biscuits.

You once said that it’s good to do stuff you’re proud of, so that you can sit back and be like ‘wow I did that.’ What would you say is your proudest achievement?

Paying the mortgage off probably. I can remember feeling quite happy that we had managed to do that. Completing the books and Sick of it are up there as good moments. Both things that I never thought I’d never be able to do.

Why is Wales your favourite British travel spot?

I haven’t been for years but when I was a kid me mam and dad had a caravan there on a campsite that had a really good arcade. All school holidays were spent there, and time when I should have been at school as well. I didn’t go abroad until I was about 22 I think.

What would you say are your personal seven wonders of the world?

Mainly nature things. The murmuration I’ve mentioned. Octopus amaze me. Most stuff in the sea is mind blowing. I found out the other day that sharks have been around longer than trees. How mad is that.

Finally, you’ve said that you’re not a planner, and that you’re not the sort of person to knock about with a five-year plan. What sort of advice would you give to people that had it all planned out, and now because of the coronavirus have had to re-plan their entire lives?

I’m not a planner but that doesn’t mean you can’t have dreams. I just don’t understand why you’d put a time limit on something. Why five years? When I was a kid and wanted to work in radio I didn’t put a time on it. I just kept working towards achieving it. If you want something enough just keep going for it. I think I enjoyed the journey more than reaching the goal.

I think that moral of the story is to be open, honest, and curious with everything you do… and when times get a little tough, don’t be afraid to give it a good old moan.

A massive thanks to Karl for the in-depth answers! He once said in another (less cool) interview that he wouldn’t want to continue doing travel docs because he wouldn’t want to exhaust the genre, but no one goes ‘oh that Michael Palin’s off again, he’s starting to take the mick with all this travelling,’ do they? So Karl, if you get bored of trying to retire once again, we’ll be here waiting.

And so, why not go off and watch Sick of It, or re-watch his travel docs? Or whilst you’re at it, read one of his books?

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