Blindboy Boatclub brings his hugely popular podcast to Nottingham Playhouse featuring a fascinating conversation with his guest, actor Paddy Considine, about acting, autism, and the best Nottingham pint.
Blindboy is a difficult one to describe. Covering everything from folklore, food and art history to mental health, masculinity and music, his weekly podcast takes listeners through a miscellany topics which makes it hard to categorise. Throughout however, are artfully interwoven stories, cleverly made hot takes and surreal humour, which take these topics from academic to utterly absorbing. This description usually gets people interested, and then you explain he wears a plastic bag on his head and recently did a fascinating episode about biscuits, and they get confused again.
So has always been the way for artists who aren’t able to bend themselves into the acceptable, sanitised artist mould. But when people get it, they really do, and it was great to be in a room of people who get it.
After a rapturous round of applause as Blindboy took the stage, the night began with our host enthusiastically enquiring about Nottingham’s curious network of caves (which are - dare I say it - a perfectly ‘on brand’ topic and would make a brilliant future episode theme), and asking what the best Nottingham pint was (Castle Rock, Shipstones or Neon Raptor, apparently). We then wander through a few childhood stories about stealing fags off his grandad, finding decomposing rats in the street, or having his mum try and pass off a used condom on the floor as ‘a tiny dead ghost’, which were all hilarious and strangely relatable.
Next he reads ‘The Donkey’, a short story from his 2023 book Topographica Hibernica, which touches on topics of dementia and grief. From being busy with laughter just minutes ago, the room falls into that deep ‘theatre silence’; the audience locked into the words being spoken and a feeling of collective empathy for the story’s protagonist sweeping the room. You know it’s a good show when this happens.
From being busy with laughter just minutes ago, the room falls into that deep ‘theatre silence’; the audience locked into the words being spoken and a feeling of collective empathy for the story’s protagonist sweeping the room
The evening truly gets underway as Paddy Considine is welcomed onto the stage, but the conversation becomes no more linear. Family names, favourite dogs, and the origins of Northern Soul. Paddy tells a story about Reggie Kray asking if he’d visit him in prison, and how he was asked to be the ‘Freeman of the Burrow’ in his village of Burton upon Trent, whatever that means. They talk about both being autistic, feeling awkward at parties, and wearing masks on stage. It’s certainly refreshing to hear such a candid conversation about neurodiversity between two successful men, including the vulnerabilities and strengths that come with being on the autistic spectrum.
They do, of course, get around to talking about Paddy's career. He describes his ‘year in a wig’ as Viserys Targaryen on House of the Dragon (or ‘aahhse of the Dragon’ as he pronounces it in his East Midlands accent) - a character he was ‘immediately intrigued by’. Blindboy admits he was hesitant to ask him about Considine’s most famous role in Dead Mans Shoes, but it comes up, and Paddy talks about learning the art of improvisation whilst working with Shane Meadows. It was this technique he cited as a step towards writing and directing his own films, Tyrannosaur (2011) and Journeyman (2017). There were many more Considine films mentioned that I haven’t seen and are now on my list.
Moving onto the topic of creativity, a common theme in Blindboy interviews, Paddy talks about writer's block and warns of the dangers of playing to the gallery. "Don’t second guess what people want,” he advises
The evening ends with questions from the audience, which range from the weighty and insightful (‘How do you think autism has affected your careers?’), to the wonderfully banal (‘What is your favourite sandwich?’) - which of course leads to a fascinating diversion into the history of submarines from Blindboy.
A thoroughly satisfying night of good conversation. Blindboy’s content attracts the curious and creative, the kind of people who enjoy a sprinkling of absurd humour and seek out new perspectives on the world, and I felt like I could probably have a good chat with almost anyone in the building, which is a rare but lovely feeling.
The Blindboy Podcast was live at Nottingham Playhouse on Friday 26 April 2024. Listen to the Blindboy Podcast on all the usual podcast channels, or follow him @blindboyboatclub
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