PAUL: Hello, and welcome
to Regrets I've Had a Few.

I'm Paul Hunter, Artistic Director of Told
by an Idiot,

and this is a podcast where I talk
to friends and colleagues delving into

what made them the person they are today.

Hello and welcome.

My guest this month is possibly Britain's
leading director of stage comedy.

His hits include The Lady Killers,
Jeeves and Wooster, and Upstart Crow.

He was also one-half of the seminal and
sublime Comedy double act the Right Size.

Welcome, Sean Foley.
SEAN: Hello, Paul.

PAUL: Hello, Sean.
Thank you so much for joining us.

This is a real treat.
SEAN: It's a pleasure.

A total pleasure.

PAUL: Well, what I need to do, first of all,
is maybe I might even be reminding you,

but certainly to let listeners
in to when and where we first met.

SEAN: I can't even remember.

PAUL: Well, I can tell you this.

I was thinking about this in my
preparation, Sean, as I do a lot of it.

SEAN: It wasn't in Paris, was it?

PAUL: No, it was in a field in Holland.

SEAN: Oh, we got it now.
Yeah, got it.

PAUL: The Lindbergh Street Theatre Festival.

SEAN: The Lindbergh Street Theatre Festival.
PAUL: Yes, that's the one.

You and Hamish were doing a street version
performance of your second show,

I think, Flight to Finland.

SEAN: Well, I've got to correct
you immediately there, Paul.

Yes, it was our third show.

PAUL: Oh, right.

SEAN: We did a show called Que Sera,
and then we did a show called The Bath,

and then we did Flight to Finland.
PAUL: Right.

I stand corrected.

Please accept the apology there, Sean.

SEAN: I won't.
But anyway, move on.

PAUL: Well, we'll come to the
mighty Right Size later.

However, we met in a field in Holland.

You were with your company.

I hadn't even formed,
Told by an Idiot then.

I was-No.
SEAN: What the hell were you doing?

PAUL: I was in the mask theatre company, Trestle.
You might remember.

SEAN: That's it.
Oh, yeah.

Brilliant.

PAUL: Anyway, we've come a long way since then,
but I just wanted to share

with the listeners how far back we go.

I'm going to take you even
further back, Sean, if I may.

SEAN: Yes.

PAUL: For your first earliest memory of - What
was your first theatre performance

you saw with the family or at school?

What was your first engagement
with live show business?

SEAN: This is a really good question.
Do you know what?

It's really quite hard.

I think I remember going to see, instead

of a panto, a show - can you believe it?

At the Birmingham Rep,
a Christmas show at the Birmingham Rep,

which then, as fate would have it,
then I ran that theatre

for five years, fairly recently.

But because I always describe
myself as half Irish, half Brummie.

PAUL: Brilliant combination.

SEAN: It's one of the best.

But we happened to be living
in Birmingham at the time.

My mum's the Brummie side.

We were living in Birmingham suburb.

So although we weren't at all like
one of those families that habitually went

to the theatre or did anything like that.

But obviously it's Christmas,
you got to go to the theatre.

I remember going to see something
at the Birmingham Rep, which I don't think

any of us could make head nor tail of.

It was like a...

It must have been in the '70s,
and therefore, I don't know.

It was a Christmas show,
but it was definitely the alternative

Christmas show in town, as it were.

I went along to that, and God knows,
that did not spark my interest in theatre

because I came away thinking,
What the hell was that?

PAUL: How old would you have been, Sean?

SEAN: I don't know.
Nine?

PAUL: I really like the idea that you
went to this experimental-

SEAN: Experimental Christmas show.
Experimental Christmas.

I don't recommend them.

PAUL: No.

Either to make to watch.

SEAN: No, or to be in.

PAUL: That's your early experience of seeing.

What about your earliest
memory of performing?

Was that at school or
the use theatre or something?

SEAN: Yeah, it was at school.

It quite late on in school, really.

I think probably sixth form,
I stayed on to sixth form and did

with a bunch of mates, we pestered
whoever we needed to pester,

the school authorities, I guess,
that we would do a series of sketches,

basically, before some assembly,
morning assembly.

Well, maybe it was an afternoon show.
I can't remember.

But essentially, we ripped off
things we'd seen on the TV.

I think it was a version of The Young Ones
that we did, essentially.

It was great fun.

That was simply it.

I just really enjoyed doing it.

I think
anybody who's in any branch of comedy will

tell you that the live laugh is addictive.
PAUL: Oh, yeah.

SEAN: That's what I heard.

We did these sketches, and I mean,
obviously terrible though they were,

we managed to get a few laughs.

I thought at that stage,
I was in the sixth form,

then I was going to go to university,
and I thought, Oh, God,

it'd be great, wouldn't it?

I don't know.

I've heard you can join drama
clubs and that thing at university.

When I went to university,
I did try and join drama clubs, but it was

essentially full of people that I
couldn't, I wouldn't say get on with.

I didn't even I didn't get in, really.

It was terribly posh people,
I've got to say it.

I've got to use the word.

Terribly posh people doing drama.

I thought, oh, dear, this is not what
I thought it was going to be at all.

I ended up going to the Youth Theatre in
the small South Midland city that I

went to university in, which was Oxford.

I went to Oxford Youth Theatre.

Now, it was just one of those fateful
things that really, genuinely for me,

that absolutely got me into theatre is
that at the time,

Oxford Youth Theatre,
the people running it knew

some people who had just,
literally just come out of this crazy

theatre school in Paris called Lecoq.

They had called themselves
by the unbelievably pretentious

name of Théâtre de Complicité.

But what they were doing was giving free
workshops to the Youth Theatre in order

to get free rehearsal space
for their very, very first show.

That was their deal I later knew.

They're all the guys like Simon McBerney
and Jos Hauben and Marcello Magni

and Annabel Arden,
and they were maybe five years older,

five or six years older than me.

I just did these workshops and thought,
this is the best thing ever.

I just couldn't believe how fun
this theatre that they were making was.

Their golden show to come out
of that very, very first period was

A Minute Too Late,
which was a very, very,

very funny show about death
and full of physical humour,

full of visual humour,
full of clowning, full of...

And then and yet truly about something.

So I thought, God,
this is a magic combination.

So I asked them, Where the hell
do you learn this stuff?

And they said, Well, go to Paris.
So I went to Paris.

PAUL: I'm just going to stop you right there.
We're in Paris?

Were you in Paris?
Hold that thought.

SEAN: Hold it.
PAUL: I can't help.

But obviously having a similar experience
when someone opens a door for you.

I've said this before on the podcast when
Hayley and I first met and we were being

taught by John Wright and John's
saying to me that you could make it up.

I remember going, What do
you mean I can make it up?

You can make this up.

I said, You can't make it up.

There's people write this stuff.

SEAN: There's people writing plays, mate.

I don't know what you're talking about.

PAUL: No, he said, Not only can you make it up,
I It is that you make it up.

I always think once someone's opened
a door like that,

which obviously was happening for you
with the Complicité guys, that it's

very hard to then close that door.
You know what I mean?

It's like, Oh, we're going to go
back to normal performance now.

SEAN: It's It's not closed ever since, really.

PAUL: It takes you to Paris.

Now, this brings me to my next question.

I think this might be where this happened,
but fill me and the listeners in.

Is Paris where you met
Hamish McColl or not?

SEAN: Romantically enough, it was.

PAUL: Talk us through that.

The first meeting between the two of you,
an iconic double act.

I want you to share what
was the first meeting.

What did you make in the-

SEAN: I couldn't exactly identify the first
meeting, but actually what happened was,

so all the Complicé day guys and those
people before them had gone to Lecoq,

but they said, Oh,
if you're really interested in humour,

comedy, what people call clown,
we don't mean, as you know, Paul,

big red nose, although it
could be, it could be that.

But theatre clown thing,
the teacher to go to is the late,

very recently late
and lamented Philippe Gaulier.

And so I went, Okay, I've got to do this.

I've just got to go and do it.

I scraped, I think it was 300 quid
together, a lot of money, and

went off to Paris and lived in this one
tiny little bedroom.

I don't know what it was anyway.

It was very cold.

It was very cold right
at the top of this house.

I shared it with this guy called
Jim Halleran, who I knew,

who wanted to go out there as well.

We signed up this course called Bouffon,
which was a Gaulier particularity, very

naughty, darker, satirical clown, really.

Anyway, rocked up there not knowing at all
what on earth was going to happen,

and went into that whole thing of being in
Philippe's school, his whole pedagogical

teaching style, the fact that he'd
literally ripped the piss out of everyone.

You're going, this is great.

And lots of people just thought,
couldn't handle it.

They didn't know what was going on.

They'd heard this amazing teacher,
but what is he teaching?

He seems to be just insulting me.
What's going on?

But a few people on the course immediately
got what he was doing,

what the deeper purpose was, as it were.

And one of these people on the course
who got this in the first couple of days,

as I did, was a guy called Hamish McColl.

And so we, little by little,
over the weeks of the course, we started,

when Philippe would set up an exercise,
we'd start going up together,

we'd start playing together,
and found that,

not exactly hey presto,
but not far from it, that we had this

- as the théâtre de Complicé de
boys would have it, complice.

We just had a connection
in play that worked.

After the five or six weeks of the course,
we both ran out of money.

I mean, Philippe was going
on to do a different course.

We'd run out of money.

But by the end of that six weeks,
we'd decided

let's try and do something together.
PAUL: Brilliant.

Does that bring you back
to the UK at that point?

SEAN: It brings us back to the UK
before being deported, of course.

PAUL: What was that?
SEAN: It brings us back to the UK.

God knows, you did the same thing.

Lots of people we know from that
generation did the same thing.

I was talking about it today with someone.

I
mean, there must be, and you will probably

know better, there must be the younger
companies or people getting together

to make stuff up, as you say.

But I don't really know about them.

And it was just a thing in the late '80s,
'90s - '90s, particularly, I think,

where people
in independent theatre companies sprang up

who were all about making their own work.

It was an era that came and went,
but lots and lots of great people worked

in that area, whether they made it work
for two years, five years,

10 years, whatever.
PAUL: No, I think you're right.

Also, I think you're spot on there, Sean.

I also think it coincided
with particular people running particular

venues, like Tom Morris running Battersea
for that period of time

and cramming into that.

SEAN: I haven't got a good word
to say about Tom Morris.

PAUL: I just got to get that in straight on.

Let's just talk about that fantastic
tiny bar that we all used to cram into.

Do you remember upstairs?
SEAN: Yeah, it was brilliant.

PAUL: Because I do remember,
following our meeting in a field

in Belgium, coming to the following
year to the International Mime Festival.

I think I've got this show right,
but you could always correct me.

Seeing the premiere of your,
for me, Utterly Sublime Show, Moose.

SEAN: Oh, thank you so much.

PAUL: Oh, God, it's in my top,
whatever, all time.

We all crammed and spilled
into that bar to discuss what we'd seen.

I think you're right,
it was a bit of a golden era that maybe

someone needs to write
about or record in some way.

But you obviously had contact with Jos
when you were at Youth Theatre.

When did Jos reconnect with you
and Hamish, so to speak?

SEAN: Well, actually, the original
Right Size wasn't just me and Hamish,

it was Hamish myself and a Belgian
actress called Micheline Vandepoel.

PAUL: Of course it was, yes.

SEAN: Micheline happened to be going out
with, was partners with, Jos Houben.

So Jos, I think probably
under some duress, oh, God,

why do I have to meet these people?

Sort of agreed to, I don't know,
drop in on our rehearsals,

drop in when we were working on something,
and little by little, again,

in this swim, as it were,
of all these people making their own work,

very similar types of work in one way,
but very individual

to each particular company.

Jos, little by little,
essentially became our director.

He was more than a director.

Don't take this the wrong way.

He was more than a director,
but also less than a director because

he always said he was the third eye.

He was the other guy in the room,
also coming up with material,

but not doing the improvising,
not doing the devising,

not sitting out and giving us tips
and notes and why don't you do this?

We created a lot of material together.

Then
Jos, for sure,

was certainly part of shaping it,
but Hamish and I usually shaped

most of the material after that.

PAUL: It's fascinating because, of course,
it's a combination of so many things that

makes something work,
and we can never put a finger on it Again,

John always encouraged Hayley and I
when we found our relationship.

He said, Never analyse it, never think
about it, just get up and keep playing.

The combination of imaginations.

You had a raft of extraordinary shows,
but one particular evening sticks

in my mind when you invited a few of us
down to your little rehearsal

in King's Cross to watch a sharing
of a very, very beginning of an idea

for a show which became
Stop Calling Me Vernon, which is, for me,

one of my favourite shows of yours.

But it was the first time I'd
seen you outside of a workshop.

It was the first time I'd seen you
and Hamish alone in the idea of,

okay, it could just be the two of us.

It was so utterly sublime.

Did that feel like a turning point?

Not that particular evening,
but Stop Calling Me Vernon.

Did that feel- It was -

SEAN: Absolutely, yeah.

It completely was because it was a
big creative step.

Micheline kept working with us,
but also stepped away from the

performing bit, and we went…

That show came out of an idea of going,
You know all the stuff that we cut out of

shows because it doesn't fit in the story?

Or we got all these great gags,
great bits.

Why don't we just make a show
that just contains all of those bits?

That was the idea for the show.

But then, of course, you start,
we started working on, let's just

string together a whole load of gags,
which is really what

Stop Calling Me Vernon was, but somehow
it became actually about a relationship.

PAUL: Oh, definitely.

SEAN: That became more important than
the gags or not more important.

I will never say anything is
more important than the gags.

You've got to make people laugh.

But underneath all the gags,
the springboard for the gags,

the bedding for the gags was this
relationship which was our,

Hamish and my's real
playing and clown relationship

that absolutely came out to the fore.

We'd been incubating it, as it were,
in all our other shows up to that point.

But that was the first time we just went,
this is just us are going to do this

performing together
with a bunch of crazy material.

But I should also add that it wasn't...

So there was me, there was Hamish,
there was Micheline, and then

there was Jos on the outside.

But as you go along, as you know,
then you pick up, you find or

they find you the right people.

So then we'd started to work with designer
Alice Power, who contributed so much

visual comedy,
as well as in the old-fashioned sense,

designing the shows,
but also the way we worked is

that everybody contributed to
the style of the shows.

Then also Chris LarnerYes.

Who wrote very, very highly-amusing,

witty, bone-headed but smart songs for us.

We genuinely started to have a group
of people that we always worked with

who always contributed
such a lot to our shows.

We were lucky enough to
hit upon our own formula that worked

for us and then worked for the audience.
Well, it's funny.

PAUL: Obviously, you had a brilliant visual
aesthetic driven by Alice's fantastic

eye and imagination
and then Chris and whatever.

Then because obviously in the brief time
we have, I want to touch on your work,

post the Right Size.

But inevitably,
we have to come to the play, what I wrote,

which I had the great fortune to be
in briefly in London's Glittering West

End, which was obviously
a wonderful highlight for me.

But I think I remember it, whether
it was you or Hamish, I don't know.

But I remember chatting to you when-

SEAN: We looked so similar.
PAUL: Well, exactly.

I think when David Pugh was pursuing you
about the idea, and I think both of you

were going, We don't want to do
a show about Morcambe and Wise.

Why do we want to do that?
SEAN: Yes, correct.

PAUL: But David, as we know,
he's a very persistent person, isn't he?

SEAN: He's very persuasive
and a brilliant producer.

PAUL: Yes, a very persuasive producer,
without a doubt.

You were slightly reluctant,
and then you then went, I suppose,

into a world where you bought in different
people, Sir Kenneth Branagh,

to direct you.
SEAN: That's right.

We'd never heard of him, of course.
PAUL: No, exactly.

SEAN: I don't know what happened to him.
He was proposed to us as a director.

PAUL: He was forced upon you.

SEAN: He turned up in black
tights and holding a skull.

PAUL: Obviously, the show was
an enormous success.

We all know that you can never
guess what will be successful.

You can never predict.

But on some level,
did it surprise you quite how adored

and loved that show was
on both sides of the Atlantic?

SEAN: Yeah, I mean, God, yeah.

But the best things that happen in our
business, I still feel,

are the completely unexpected things.

You could have a whole career and a really
good career without

doing a show that had that
level of success

and sheer enjoyment of the audience,
which was really, actually us somehow

tapping into channelling,
letting people remember

the brilliance of Morecambe and Wise,
because for those people who didn't see

it, and that's probably most people
listening, why we were reluctant to make

a show about Morcombe and Wise was
because we were an unknown double act.

I mean, we were known on the fringe, but
not commercially,

not in the West End or anything like that.

We just thought it
would be career suicide.

Also, who were we to be Morcambe and Wise?
I mean, it's just silly.

But the genius of David as a producer just
kept saying, Well, come up with an idea,

come up with an idea.

We came up with an idea,
which was basically,

this is a show about an unknown double act
called Sean Foley and Hamish McColl,

who were asked to do a show
about Morcambe and Wise.

That's literally what the show was.

We could access all their
comic spirit, not their material,

because we wrote the show in
the guise of the Eddie Brabens and all

the people who did write
those brilliant shows.

The key thing was having the guest star,
the guest star that they

always had in their shows.

You'd rock up to see this show,
and literally,

an A-lister would walk out,
suddenly walk out in the middle of the

second act and do 25 minutes on stage.

Nobody knew who was going to turn up.

It was pre-

PAUL: No, the conceit was inspired.

Actually, it's funny when you talk about
the whole approach to the Morecambe

and Wise, because what you captured
brilliantly, of course,

was the spirit of them,
rather than trying to do some imitation,

as you say, which would be madness.

But I can only remember standing with you
on stage on some of those evenings

with some of these A-listers.

I've never, to this day, had to wait
so long for the audience to be quiet.

SEAN: They would not fucking shut up.
PAUL: Ever.

SEAN: I don't know.

Maybe there have been some other shows.

I've been lucky enough to be involved as
a director in some successful

- other successful comic theatre,
but it's very difficult to think that you

get as big a laugh as those
were consistently throughout.

I mean, massive, massive laugh.
PAUL: Yes, exactly.

Well, you touched on,
you obviously have done some fantastic

and comic plays,
whether they've been brand new plays or

adaptations of things that we might know,
and you've brilliantly reinvented them.

Did that feel a natural progression?

Because for people who are the younger
listeners, sure, might not have seen what

a brilliant, sublime performer you were.

But did you feel it was a natural
progression into directing for you?

SEAN: Well, the only thing that was natural,
as it were, was

the fact that if you're in a set up where
you're making your own shows,

as it turns out, you're doing a lot
of the work that a director does.

You're choosing the material,
you're making decisions all along the line

about how to present the material.

You're working very
closely with designers.

You're working very closely with
lighting designers.

You're working closely with everyone
because it's your thing.

In our case, we co-writers and performers,
but also directing it from the inside.

You could never really do that.

That's just why Jos was there.

But I realised that when I was...

It was luck as well, by the way.

Somebody asked me to direct something,
and I just went, Sure.

Okay.

Give it a go.

But then I realised that,
Oh, I've done this.

I've done, let's say, I've done 75%
of this, of what you need to know to do

this job I've done in my own company.

So it was, I wouldn't say it's a natural
progression because maybe

that wouldn't have happened, but
I did take to it quite naturally.

And also, you're a massive control freak.

If you do comedy, you go, Sorry,
you can't come in on that beat.

You have to wait.
No.

Please come in on the cue,
or we won't get a laugh.

It's so precise comedy, and it needs
to look like it's just anarchy.

All of that precision you need, I think,
to direct comedy,

we had to become obsessed by.

PAUL: No, of course you had,
and you'd spent a long time working

on that obsession, of course.

I mean, as we come towards
the end of our chat-

SEAN: Please mention my hits.
Oh, my God.

PAUL; No, sorry - I have.
I've listed them.

The fact that you had the experience
in a sense, like you said, of making your

own work and collaborating and all that.

But you then ended up, I think,
making one of the best British comic films

that I've seen for a long
time in Mindhorn.

And by doing that,
you were presumably entering a world

where you had less experience.

You hadn't directed film as far as I knew,
and you were going into a world.

So surely there must have been
some fear involved in that.

SEAN: Well, I've still got
the brown trousers to show it.

It was again, it's nutty.

It really is nutty in his business.

Actually, what had happened is
that the producer of that film had come

to the opening night of Jeeves and Wooster
in Perfect Nonsense,

starring Matthew Macfadyen,
Steven Mangan, and Mark Hadfield.

He'd loved it.

Honestly, the first thing I knew was
somebody came up to me in the party.

I was probably a couple of drinks in,
as it were, and they said,

Do you think you could direct a film?

I just went, Sure.

Sure.
PAUL: Of course.

SEAN: I'm thinking that it was just some guy,
just some person asking

a fairly random question.

Nothing would happen about it.

Two weeks later,
this guy who was called ack Arbuthnott

ran out and said, This is me.

You remember, you met me in the opening
party of Jeeves and Wooster.

I'm just reading up and I'm going to send
you this script,

and I'd love your thoughts on it.

And I went, Oh, okay, fine.

So I gave my thoughts on this script.

Maybe this character
needs to be developed.

I'd cut that scene.

All these things because I didn't
think anything was going to happen.

So I just thought, Fine, I'll give you by.

And then a month later, he rings up
and said, Well, can you meet the writers?

Sure, I'll come and meet the writers.
Why not?

So then I met Julian Barratt
and Simon Farnaby who had written it.

They're also in that thing in
a different part of the universe,

but still in that same swim as it were.

They'd seen all my work
and they'd seen the Right Size.

Again, they said, well,
how would you do it?

I said, Well, I think you got to keep it
very, in a way, naturalistic,

but he's the outsize character.

Again, I thought there is zero chance
I'm going to be hired to direct a film.

I haven't even directed 30 minutes of TV.

There is no way I would
be hired to direct a film.

Cut to a month later,
Jack rings me up again and says,

Can you come to a meeting at BBC Films?

I said, Yeah, sure.
He said, Can you come this afternoon?

It's no word of a lie.

I said, Yeah, I think I can, actually.

I go to this meeting at BBC Films,
and 15 minutes into the meeting, they go,

Okay, so when are you free to direct it?

And I've since told this story
to anyone who listened to it.

But certainly people in the film business,
they go, this just never, ever happens.

That's just never happens.

That's just crazy.

I've had three meetings, and I got
not only offered the film, but even

more extraordinarily, It got made.

PAUL: Yes, exactly.

I mean, even making any film is hard.

Making a British comic film, I
think, must be high up the list.

It is a great film, and I urge
listeners who have not seen it to do it.

Now, Sean, as time comes to a close here,
because I risk being locked in this

rehearsal at the RSC overnight,
I don't want the ghosts of some of those

actors visiting me, that's for sure.

I always end by asking
seven rapid fire questions.

You say the first response
that comes into your head.

Here we go.
Visual gag or verbal gag?

SEAN: Visual gag.
PAUL: Yeah, thought so.

Ken Dodd or Tommy Cooper?

SEAN: Tommy Cooper.

PAUL: Ooh had to think about it.

Now, obviously,
I share with the listeners,

you and I are both asked Villa fans,
the great of the Villa.

Picture yourself in Villa Park.

Would you go for either a chicken
Balti pie or a steak and kidney pie?

SEAN: I'd actually go for a vegetable pie
because I don't eat other of those things.

Vegetable pie, very good.
The vegan pie.

SEAN: Yes.
Is the vegan pie option.

PAUL: It's a very valid option.

Victoria Wood or French and Saunders?
SEAN: Victoria Wood.

Although I love French and Saunders.
PAUL: Yes, of course.

Broadway or the West End?
SEAN: West End.

PAUL: John O'Groats or Lands' End.

SEAN: Lands' End.
PAUL: Performing or directing?

SEAN: This is my one regret.

I would love to do some performing.

PAUL: Well, I've heard that,
and a lot of people have heard that,

and I really want to see
you and do some performing.

Perhaps we started the episode by saying
you and me, people might want

to see you and me together.

SEAN: I think they would.

PAUL: We can see the glasses, Sean.

SEAN: They would pay up to 50 pence to-

PAUL: Easily, and at a push a pound.

On that note, Sean, thank you so much.

It's been really lovely chatting.

SEAN: It's been fantastic, Paul.
Thank you so much.

PAUL: All the best.
Take care.

SEAN: All right.
Cheers.

Bye-bye.

PAUL: Dear listeners, if you've enjoyed this Idiot

podcast, please spread the word.