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Saturday February 6 2021

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Jools Holland and Jim Moir’s new podcast

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4 saturday review 1G R Saturday February 6 2021 | the times

Holland says. “It tends to open right out. Itworked out that some people’s transportwas just walking about, or cycling . . . but it’spart of everyone’s lives. Or was. It’s a bitlike saying, “What’s the first music youever loved?’ It’s a fun thing to hang it on.”

Holland is the gabbier, more user-friendly of the pair. Moir hangs back, thensometimes jumps in to tell an expansivestory or throw in an unexpected one-liner.They appear uncompetitive, comfortablewith each other. Or as comfortable as any-one can be on a three-way Zoom call witha slight time delay.

They first met in 1986, when Hollandwent to see one of Moir’s early absurdistvariety shows as Vic Reeves at a tiny bar,Winston’s, in Deptford, southeast London.Did they meet backstage afterwards?“There was no backstage,” Moir says.“There was barely a stage.” Holland, at thattime hosting the Channel 4 music showThe Tube, was wowed by Moir’s defiantly

lockdown listening

Jools Holland and Jim Moir, aka Vic Reeves, have been pals for 35 years — now they’ve made a larky travel podcast together, they tell Dominic Maxwell

Jools and Jim: hitch alift with two old friends

of steps — but which turns out to be aDamien Hirst painting — chuckles at thememory of taking an aeroplane flight withan injured friend who was offered a calm-ing cigarette by a flight attendant.

“Those were the days,” Holland says.“That’s all completely gone. Even peoplejust going off on holiday is gone. So itseems a long time ago, but it will be back.”

Holland lost much of his work last yearwhen he had to cut back on episodes of hisBBC Two music show, Later . . . with JoolsHolland, and wasn’t able to tour with his bigband. He devoted some of his time toworking on layouts for the 100ft modelrailway set he keeps in his attic. And he hasbeen recording an album at his studio inGreenwich, southeast London, where heand Moir also recorded the first 12 epi-sodes of their podcast.

Moir would drive up each Tuesday fromthe home he shares with his wife, Nancy,and their 14-year-old twins, Lizzie and Nell.Always an artist as well as a comedian — henow keeps the “Vic Reeves” name for hiscomedy work — he has been concentrat-ing on his art since last March. He is deep

into a series of 100 paintings of birds forwhat would have been an exhibitionbefore . . . well, before exhibitions wentthe way of motorbike trips to France.

They have been friends for 35 years.Yet the spur to do the podcast came

early in lockdown, when they appearedtogether on Celebrity Gogglebox on Chan-nel 4. They had never sat watching televi-sion together before, although they’velong compared notes on the obscure Brit-ish films they love. And as they banteredtheir way through that night’s viewing forthe cameras, they started telling longer,stranger stories.

“We were telling yarns that were thenerased from the recording because theydon’t fit in with the scheme of Gogglebox,”Moir says. “But the producer said, ‘Whydon’t you do a podcast?’ ”

Moir admits that he never listens to pod-casts. But he and Holland each went onThree Little Words, the podcast hosted bythe comedian John Bishop and the actorTony Pitts, and enjoyed themselves. “Itlooked quite fun, and quite easy, which arethe watchwords for Jools and my way ofworking. It’s just talking to people, really,”Moir says.

Holland has a collection of vintage carsand they share a love of vintage motor-bikes. However, they didn’t want to make ashow just for petrolheads. The transportangle is there as a cue for a conversation,

‘Motorcycle clubs? Travel? It all seems as remote as the Elizabethan Age’

It is, depending on your perspec-tive, either a much-neededrelease valve or tantamount toemotional torture. Because nowthat none of us is going any-where, old friends Jools Hollandand Jim Moir — the comedian

best known as his alter ego Vic Reeves —are making a podcast inspired by transportand travel. Jools and Jim’s Joyride has themjoined by a different celebrity guest eachweek — the actress Jane Horrocks, theformer Formula One world championDamon Hill, the singer Jessie Ware, toname a few — to talk about trips they’vetaken, adventures they’ve had. Not justwalks in the park. Not just drives to Sains-bury’s and back. But journeys worth tellingstories about. The insensitive swine.

In their first episode, for instance, theirguest is Moir’s double-act partner BobMortimer. They talk about taking motor-biking trips to France and California in theearly 1990s. They talk about Mortimer and

Moir’s peripheral involvement in JarvisCocker’s arrest at the Brits in 1996. (Thetransport theme is not always strictly keptto.) The three of them talk about the bikergang they once formed, the Gentlemen’sMotorcycle Club of Blackheath, motto:“Care, courtesy, concentration”. And evenif said motorcycle club only made a hand-ful of journeys . . . well, that’s a handfulmore than most of us can do right now.

“Yes, it all seems as remote as the Eliza-bethan age,” Holland says, looking dapperin a beige jacket over a dark top on Zoomfrom the manor house in Cooling, Kent, heshares with his wife, Christabel. One oftheir guests, Holland’s former Squeezebandmate Chris Difford, told them aboutpretending to be afraid of flying so he couldbe upgraded to first class. Another, thecomedian Sally Phillips, told them aboutflying around the world as a child whileher father worked for British Airways. Awhite-bearded Moir, on Zoom from hishome elsewhere in Kent, in front of whatlooks like a window on to an imposing set

Moir’s periphe l i l

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big nights out From top: Jim Moir, John Lydon and Jools Holland; Moir and Holland on The Tube; with Adrian Edmondson

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the times | Saturday February 6 2021 1G R saturday review 5CHRIS MCANDREW FOR THE TIMES

odd act, though. Later that year he enabledthe first television appearance for VicReeves, who rejigged the game showCelebrity Squares, flying up and down on aharness to ask peculiar questions of guestssuch as Jimmy Nail and Professor StanleyUnwin. “It was,” Holland says fondly, “agenuinely surreal moment.”

They took a step closer to friendshipon the flight home from Newcastle toLondon, when they found out at the air-port that they both have the same birth-day, January 24. They were travelling withthe comedian Adrian Edmondson whenthey found out that he has the same birth-day too. Moir still has the photobooth pic-ture they took together on his wall. Hesends a copy to the others each year. “Justas a nice memory.”

Within a couple of years he and Mortim-er were renting a room at Holland’s Heli-con Mountain Studios in Greenwich. Theywould go on to write all their television and

return to what it was? “Well, nobody reallyknows is the trouble. I vacillate betweenthinking it’s never going to go back to howit was and then thinking, ‘Oh, well nowpeople are getting vaccinated . . .’ For musicit’s very bleak. Jim is a great painter andhe’s been painting for a long time; I canmake my solo piano record with guestsjoining by Zoom, or whatever. But a lot ofworking musicians, their main income —and really it’s my main income — is liveshows. When that goes it’s very hard.”

So the podcast is kind of a silver lining.They are making more soon, will do themin person again if they are allowed to.“You just connect with people better,”Holland says. “And we give them reallynice sandwiches.”

As if to reinforce the idea that it’s easierto connect in person than it is throughscreens, a sign pops up telling us that ourZoom link is about to expire. “Do youneed to put more money in the slot?”Moir asks. He can’t see how the podcastwill make them any money, he adds —notwithstanding the odd advert on it —which prompts Holland, ever the detailsman, to go and get the report he hasjust been emailed about how the firstshow went.

“It was ‘fantastic stuff’, apparently,” hesays before going on to quote phrases suchas “minimum download”, “internationalspider and bots lists”, “IP address filteringcaches” and “nonmoving tracking 24-hourwindow”. He looks up from his list. “Abso-lutely unintelligible,” he says. No, heagrees, it’s not quite finding out where youare in the charts on the Sunday night onRadio 1. Still, like the rest of us, they areworking out how this new world works asthey go along, Moir says. “We’re going totry to keep this rolling on.”Jools and Jim’s Joyride is available on all podcast services; details of Jim Moir’s art from vicreeves.tv; joolsholland.com

minute you’re up, then you’re down, thenmaybe you’re up again. It all evened out inthe end.”

They carried on having sporadic funwith their motorcycle club — more aboutposing than riding, really, Moir admits —until their blossoming careers meant thatthey no longer had the time for it. “We’vegot time for everything now,” Moir saysglumly.

Holland has had to cancel a Europeantour that was due to start next month; nowhe won’t be playing live before the sum-mer. “For my big band it’s a disaster,” hesays. “Some of them are baking bread, oneof them is working as a delivery driver, Jimand I have got to do a podcast, this is howwrong things have gone.” He laughs.

Is he optimistic that live music will

‘Jim and I have got to do a podcast, this is how wrong things have gone’

stage shows there until they moved out ofLondon in the mid-1990s. “You’d hearthem next door writing their scripts, andthey would be literally falling on the floorthey were laughing so much,” Hollandsays. “You’d go in and be treated to littlebits of it.”

Holland, 63, is only a year older thanMoir. Nonetheless, he had been famoussince the 1970s, while Moir didn’t findsuccess until Vic Reeves Big Night Outbegan on Channel 4 in 1990. Did he offerthe marginally younger man any careeradvice? “No, I think it was probably theother way round,” Holland says, “becausethey romped to success just as I was bot-toming out.”

The Tube ended in 1987; Holland leftSqueeze for the second and final time in1990; Later . . . with Jools Holland didn’tbegin on BBC Two until 1992. Meanwhile,Moir was a pop-cultural sensation: televi-sion series; tours; an album; a No 1 single,Dizzy, with the Wonder Stuff in 1991. “Ifyou went to Helicon around then youcould really see it,” Holland says. “One

For geeky adventures PJ Vogt and Alex Goldman in Reply AllThe internet culture show Reply All is frequently cited as one of the best podcasts around and its episode The Case of the Missing Hit has been called the best podcast episode ever made. The show is distinguished by its sense of adventure (flying to India to confront a persistent cold caller, constructing a forgotten pop song entirely from memory). But what makes it fly is the raucous geeky energy of its hosts, PJ Vogt and Alex Goldman, who are capable of reducing each other to helpless laughter.

For edgy takes Anna Khachiyan and Dasha Nekrasova in Red ScareDrawling, Valley girl-voiced leftists Anna Khachiyan and Dasha Nekrasova delight in outraging mainstream “normie” liberal opinion with their opinions on everyone from Osama bin Laden (“style icon”) to disgraced film directors (“leave Roman Polanski alone”). Khachiyan and Nekrasova are the mean girls of the modern internet.

For arty banter Waldemar Januszczak and Bendor Grosvenor in Waldy and Bendy’s Adventures in ArtThis is the best art podcast out there and the playful, teasing, argumentative relationship between “Waldy” Januszczak and “Bendy” Grosvenor is

a work of art in itself. Januszczak is the bouncy enthusiast, Grosvenoris the demure connoisseur who may not like any paintings made after the 19th century. Their impassioned but always good-natured (I think) arguments bring art history to life.

For repartee with a serious edge Michael Hobbes and Sarah Marshallin You’re Wrong AboutThe chemistry between super-smart

journalists Sarah Marshall and Michael Hobbes is undoubtedly frothy. Some British listeners may find it relentlessly American, but ifyou’re prepared to ride the waveof compulsive jokes and backchatyou’ll be enlightened by unexpected

takes on all kinds of topics, from syphilis to Marie Antoinette to the

dangerous lives of old people on Facebook.

For clever arguments Ross Douthat and Michelle Goldbergin The ArgumentA liberal and a conservative debate

the biggest news story of theday. A clever and simple idea

that it’s hard to believe hasn’tbeen more widely replicated.

Douthat and Goldberg are twoof the most original thinkers onThe New York Times’s opinion

pages. Whichever side of thepolitical spectrum you’reon you’ll appreciate theircareful thought. And nowthat Trump (whom theyboth hated) is out of office there will be more

disagreement than everbefore. Bring it on.

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It takes two — the best podcast double acts by James Marriott

Above: Anna Khachiyan and Dasha Nekrasova; below: PJ Vogt and Alex Goldman

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later . . . Jools Holland and Jim Moir. Right: on Celebrity Gogglebox

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