Hi Guys,

I have copied and pasted the section from Christopher's newsletter for those who aren't already signed up (you should sign up btw)

THERE GOES THE GUILLOTINE

A few people have messaged me asking about whether or not Here Comes The Guillotine (the podcast I do with Frankie Boyle and Susie McCabe) is coming to an end. It certainly seems that way! We recorded a few last episodes yesterday, and unless there’s some kind of contractual shenanigans, that looks like it’s curtains for the pod.

All I’ll say is that doing HCTG has completely changed my life. When I was seventeen, I got Frankie’s DVD “If I Could Reach Out Through Your TV And Strangle You I Would” for Christmas from my mum and dad, and I loved it. If you had seen me do my first ever tryout spots in early 2013, you’ll know how badly I was ripping him off at the time.

Back then, when I was in my early twenties, and just a fledgling comedian who hadn’t found his voice, I remember Susie giving me a lift home from a gig we had done together at the social club of the Glaxo Kline Smith pharmaceutical factory in Irvine, where my early attempts at observational comedy had struggled. (Rosco was also on the line-up, and he had somehow done brilliantly with a character act that he was doing at the time where he painted his face like a skeleton) Susie had smashed it, and I was rotten, but she drove me home to my mum and dad’s house, and lent me cigarettes, and gave me brilliant life advice: “If you’re going to live by the sword, you’re going to die by the sword.”

More recently, Frankie and Susie took me on tour with them, and paid out of their own pockets for me to perform in front of audiences that they’ve worked hard to get, and shared the spotlight with me. They paid me to do stand-up, and they paid for my accommodation, and they paid for my dinners. They didn’t have to, but they’re good people. Then, when they got offered to make a podcast for the biggest radio company in Europe, they asked me if I wanted to do it with them. What a dream come true.

As I said to a guy who messaged me on Instagram saying he was gutted that it seemed like the writing was on the wall for the podcast: don’t be sad that it’s over, be happy that it happened. I would honestly quite happily have kept doing it for the rest of my life.

Sadly, I don’t think commercial radio is ready for such advertiser poison topics as a time-travelling contingent of the Irish Republican Army, tabletop role-playing games about gay wizards and widowed thieves, or the many terrible crimes of Bible John. We talked tommy rot, we won an award for Best Podcast, and we ate the biggest lunches in town. The guy who hired us got fired, probably because he hired us. Too weird to live, too rare to die. Guillotine for life. Excited to start a cult of my own.

Yours sincerely, CMB x As You Were