Elis James and John Robins interview: 'This feels like something we curated by mistake'

Queen, “session” ale, the autobiography of Tony Blackburn, Frank Zappa, farthings, Gorky's Zygotic Mynci and the Welsh language aren’t the most obvious subjects for a comedy podcast, but Elis James and John Robins make them work.

The pair refer to themselves, tongue firmly in cheek, as “commercial digital indie radio DJs” — a title which evokes the likes of Johnny Vaughan and Vernon Kay — but in truth their appeal is much more unconventional.

After achieving cult status with their Radio X show over the past five years, the comedians have released a new book, The Holy Vible — a collection of stories, personal reflections and highlights from the podcast, which coincides with a UK tour.

“The exciting thing was, we were given a blank canvas by the publisher to write about what we wanted,” James says. With chapters on everything from Ronnie O’Sullivan to Oxford pub crawls, he’s really not joking.

Just like the show, their personal history played an important role in their latest project — they’re old pals, having formed a bond after meeting on the stand-up circuit back in 2005.

"We reached the same kind of career markers at the same time. So for a long time, our lives were spent on the way to doing gigs in Leeds or Nottingham or wherever,” James says.

“We used to call each other after shows and talk about how they’d gone. That’s how friendships are formed, and it’s not unique on the circuit. The radio then became a displaced version of that conversation for us. We talk a lot less on the phone now because we try and save it for the show.”

During their time presenting together James has starred in BBC sitcom Josh, while Robins picked up the Edinburgh Comedy Award in 2017, but they don’t believe the dynamic between them has changed.

“It’s exactly the same,” says James. “I think it would be same even if John suddenly became a Hollywood heartthrob... I mean, I'm not trying to hold him back — I’d be as pleased as anyone if it happened.”

“It makes slightly more sense for Elis to be successful than me, because that works slightly better,” Robins concedes.

There’s something innately pleasing about the fact that the hugely entertaining podcasts are records of “conversations that would be happening anyway” between the two — it’s evident that more than a decade-and-a-half of friendship is being captured over three hours every weekend, and distilled into podcast form.

It’s the authenticity of their friendship and of their lack of pretence behind the mic, they believe, which is pretty key to what they do.

“It’s the same with stand-up. Sometimes I come off stage feeling very exposed, but often I’m saying those things to make Elis laugh,” says Robins, adding: “I think what people really dislike in comedy and podcasts is people being disingenuous.”

James adds: “I think of all the different forms of broadcasting and comedy that were available to me, I’m glad I’ve grown up in the podcasting age.

“If you do value authenticity, I feel podcasting is the best format for that. I think they mean a lot to people.”

Their openness on-air has led to a strong connection with listeners: “Fans often think they know us, because they do. We’re not lying on the show,” says James.

“When I meet [them], they’re always like me and they always like the stuff I like. I don’t feel any disconnect between us and our listeners at all. It just feels like this thing we’ve curated by mistake.”

While they might have expected the show to be great fun to make when they started in 2014, they didn’t expect it to have such a profound effect upon fans.

What was particularly striking, especially in early broadcasts, was the pair’s honesty and openness.

After all, it’s not often you hear DJs describing their mood as “awful” during a broadcast, and opening up about the kind of bigger issues — notably regarding mental health — that are rarely breached during most casual, mid-afternoon radio slots.

“If I’d had a bad week I would say so. I think it’s that you’re not necessarily expecting to hear that on commercial radio,” Robins says. “You might expect to hear it on a Woman’s Hour special on post natal depression, but you wouldn’t necessarily expect to hear it in the sphere of [commercial radio].

“In and amongst that, to hear, 'I’ve had a terrible week and I hate myself,' it becomes quite a statement, although it’s not.”

It led to messages from listeners who have experienced problems with what James and Robins refer to as “the darkness”, who found comfort from the show.

Robins touchingly explains: “I have a collection of the emails printed out at home, just because it’s important to remember if I’m down about you can see you’ve made a difference in some way.”

“We started getting emails before we started talking about any of that stuff though,” James adds. “Because some people, if they were a bit lonely or down, liked having two genuine friends talking as company. It absolutely wasn’t part of the plan.”

Robins continues: “If you were having a difficult time in your life, or were having mental health problems, the absolute best thing you could do is to have a conversation with some friends once a week.”

It can be a difficult subject to breach at times though — “You read the comments and some say: 'I hate the bits where they read out all the f****** emails at the start,'” Robins says.

“It’s kind of impossible. You have to toe a careful line. Everything we’ve spoken about on the radio is personal experience, so you have to be quite careful not to alienate people.

“I’m quite turned off at things that say: 'Here’s what depression is like.' The danger is that you read that and think: 'That’s not me, so maybe I’m weird?'”

They’re careful though. Says James: “I think our stand-up backgrounds stopped us from becoming too self-congratulatory, because that would have been an impossible persona to sustain on stage.”

“Quite a few nice emails we don’t read out, because we don’t want to become too self-congratulatory," Robins says. "You don’t want it to turn into a bit of a circle jerk.”

The Holy Vible is out now. For more information head to elisandjohn.com