YouSaid · the spoken record

Rachel Parris

lines on the record: 51
first: 2025-05-25
most recent: 2025-05-25
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Real thin end of the wedge stuff on either side to try and stoke some kind of feeling and make me keep scrolling and angrily punching at it. And it was so odd to really see it doing that. And you just think when there's divisions in, say, your family even about those things, you're like, well, there's bound to, because if that's all they've been shown and all you've been shown is this. It's so persuasive because you feel like you know everything about that issue, but you don't. You've only seen one side of it.”
2025-05-25 · Intelligence Squared · Tricks, Trolls, and LOLs: Comedy’s Crash Course in Spotting Lies, with Rachel Parris · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Obviously, all of them, but that does feel true, doesn't it? Like so many of the huge divisions between people, like the ingrained political and socio-political opinions that they have have been formed because of what they've been shown repeatedly and supposedly with evidence and backed up by fact. But by the end of, I left X now, but X got so weird by the end for me it was just repeatedly showing me like really, really divisive stuff on like Israel and Palestine and the trans rights and just the most like”
2025-05-25 · Intelligence Squared · Tricks, Trolls, and LOLs: Comedy’s Crash Course in Spotting Lies, with Rachel Parris · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Those feelings are shared, I feel like that definitely does happen, whereas actual changes and holding power to account, I think rarely happens. But I have seen B happen.”
2025-05-25 · Intelligence Squared · Tricks, Trolls, and LOLs: Comedy’s Crash Course in Spotting Lies, with Rachel Parris · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, in my opinion, of course, what satirists want to do probably, apart from making people laugh, is to hold power accountable. That sort of the goal. But maybe this is really cynical, but I don't think very often the people who are in power are changing their policies because of a piece of satire. Rarely, maybe, maybe it might change the mood of a group and therefore that somehow impacts voters to write to their MP and maybe that impacts somehow gets into policy change. But I do think that the community aspect that you were talking about is really, really important. And I think if there's a shared moment on an issue that affects lots of people and people feel alone and lost and angry about it, if you can find a piece of satire, I think that's what satire is brilliant for, which encapsulates how you feel and can inspire people because of that laughter and makes you feel like”
2025-05-25 · Intelligence Squared · Tricks, Trolls, and LOLs: Comedy’s Crash Course in Spotting Lies, with Rachel Parris · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, yeah, it would be, yeah, and using very handy phrases to pick out to absolutely tear apart. And if you had to satirize one cheeky conspiracy theory, what one would you pick? I would pick something to do with the anti-vax movement, I think, because There's so many ludicrous things said that have sort of started over in America and some of the wellness movement is linked in with it, but have absolutely spread over here and is so dangerous. And I would want to again, it's one of those topics I would want to tackle. I mean measles is back. some of those conspiracy theories are they're literally laughable so i would i would i'd quite like to have a lot of fun with them”
2025-05-25 · Intelligence Squared · Tricks, Trolls, and LOLs: Comedy’s Crash Course in Spotting Lies, with Rachel Parris · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Off the cuff. Not off the cuff, but If you were doing the mash report this week, Would I cover it? But you'd have to. You'd have to. You'd have to and you'd want to. And yes, it would be easy to satirize because he's...”
2025-05-25 · Intelligence Squared · Tricks, Trolls, and LOLs: Comedy’s Crash Course in Spotting Lies, with Rachel Parris · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's really important to say when people ask comedians who their favourite comedians were, it's not necessarily like what you do. Like I don't necessarily do, like, I love Victoria Wood and some of what I do is a bit like Victoria Wood, but most of the time, like I loved watching stupid sketch duos, and that doesn't represent what I do at all, but it doesn't mean I don't, that's what I love watching.”
2025-05-25 · Intelligence Squared · Tricks, Trolls, and LOLs: Comedy’s Crash Course in Spotting Lies, with Rachel Parris · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I say, I didn't grow up loving satire, like I grew up loving stupid mad stuff like Reeves and Mortimer, all the sketch groups really. But as I got older, I do think Armando Ianuchi was doing fantastic things. I like the absurd version of satire, which was like brass eye in the day-to-day. So it's not direct satire, it's almost satire of satire. And as I say, I think, oh, and Rory Bremner, which What he was doing then seems old fashioned now because simply doing impressions feels like an old fashioned genre. But what he was doing was good satire and he gave this platform to burden fortune as well, who I loved. Obviously John Oliver, but he's mainly doing American politics. Samantha B over in the US as well. But yeah, there's lots.”
2025-05-25 · Intelligence Squared · Tricks, Trolls, and LOLs: Comedy’s Crash Course in Spotting Lies, with Rachel Parris · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The thick of all of the thick of it is just phenomenal and perfect. But in terms of a bit, there's also a bit in response to an American and US oil spill in 2010 done by Clark and Daw to Australian satirists. They're a bit like bird and fortune and that's worth YouTubing where they're like doing a mock political interview and they just keep going well the front fell off and he goes, what happened to the boat? Well, the front fell off. Well, why did the front fall off? Oh, we didn't mean for it to fall off. But it did. It's perfect. I can't emulate it, but please just go and watch it because it's perfect satire.”
2025-05-25 · Intelligence Squared · Tricks, Trolls, and LOLs: Comedy’s Crash Course in Spotting Lies, with Rachel Parris · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Has anyone seen this? Only one or two of you. Ah, it's so brilliant. Look it up, it's on YouTube, obviously. Actually, that special is on Netflix as well. Yeah, it's just such a perfect bit describing the chaos of the Trump administration, a horse loose in a hospital. And he goes, sometimes it's when you don't hear the horse that it's the most scary. Where is he? What's he doing? And they're like, and people go, and he says people think they can understand your situation. They're like, oh, well, I've seen a goat in a post office. And there's nothing like that. This is a horse loose in a hospital. He goes on for like five minutes and it's perfect. It's perfect comedy. And also I'm not naming. I love British satire as well.”
2025-05-25 · Intelligence Squared · Tricks, Trolls, and LOLs: Comedy’s Crash Course in Spotting Lies, with Rachel Parris · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right. One of them is American, actually, John Mulaney has a fantastic bit from about five years ago now. There's about Donald Trump that's about, he says the current administration is like if there was a horse loose in a hospital.”
2025-05-25 · Intelligence Squared · Tricks, Trolls, and LOLs: Comedy’s Crash Course in Spotting Lies, with Rachel Parris · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I know, but it feels like you're all tied together. You're all under one sort of comment thread. Anyway, sorry, this is probably off topic.”
2025-05-25 · Intelligence Squared · Tricks, Trolls, and LOLs: Comedy’s Crash Course in Spotting Lies, with Rachel Parris · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“To him, and like this guy's a bell end, this guy's a knob, like, and don't get me wrong, I think he is. But I wouldn't say that online. I wouldn't choose to say that to put that out. And that's like those comments of representing you then. And so you either delete the comment, which looks as though you regret it, which I don't regret my comment.”
2025-05-25 · Intelligence Squared · Tricks, Trolls, and LOLs: Comedy’s Crash Course in Spotting Lies, with Rachel Parris · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh, I'm interested in reading books. His advice was he said, well, your instinct might be to ask her what books, but don't do that. Tell her what you do. Tell her what books you read. You might say something like, well, the first book I read voluntarily was when I was 25 years old. And it was about closing a deal. And I was like, oh my God, you read the art of the deal when you were 25. And that's the only book you've ever read. And I just commented like, mate, you're out here telling men not to ask a follow-up question to a woman that instead to turn it right back on themselves. And that's all I put. But then for some reason, that comment. Took fire, and it wasn't a particularly inspirational comment, but all the comments underneath it of which there are hundreds say much harsher things and much worse things.”
2025-05-25 · Intelligence Squared · Tricks, Trolls, and LOLs: Comedy’s Crash Course in Spotting Lies, with Rachel Parris · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's a weird thing with comments, though. Like, I had one recently. I commented on, sorry, this is probably by the by, there was a guy online doing a video which he's like a sort of pickup artist and he was doing how to talk to a girl. And he said, if a girl says”
2025-05-25 · Intelligence Squared · Tricks, Trolls, and LOLs: Comedy’s Crash Course in Spotting Lies, with Rachel Parris · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it's weird because when we did the sexual harassment piece, me too felt like old news. It had been a few months and I felt like I'd seen everything that had been done about it. So I was really surprised when it took off. But it turns out there hadn't been as many perhaps as I thought or none that caught the imagination. But I would say... None of what I did caught, there wasn't a direct community, but I saw, it sounds really weird, but in the comments, there's a world in the comments and they say don't read the comments. But sometimes there is community in the comments. And I saw that build from those clips, women supporting women, men supporting women.”
2025-05-25 · Intelligence Squared · Tricks, Trolls, and LOLs: Comedy’s Crash Course in Spotting Lies, with Rachel Parris · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think that for me, the most powerful pieces that I did that had the biggest response were around sexual harassment, violence against women and girls, sort of feminist pieces.”
2025-05-25 · Intelligence Squared · Tricks, Trolls, and LOLs: Comedy’s Crash Course in Spotting Lies, with Rachel Parris · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Lots of satirical programs aren't being commissioned now. Mock the week has gone, obviously it's changing. So if you're making satire now, you're much more likely to be making it on your own, which is hard, which is really hard. But I was saying to you before the show, the advantage of that of working on your own is it does mean that you don't have to make that compromise of balancing your voice with the opinions of producers you can like every joke that you put out because it's yours and if you don't like a joke don't say it you can only represent your own opinions”
2025-05-25 · Intelligence Squared · Tricks, Trolls, and LOLs: Comedy’s Crash Course in Spotting Lies, with Rachel Parris · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A way watching YouTube and social media clips is now offering them more, the backlog is much more available to them than it was to me and people before me because you'd have to just find tapes of it or it might come on television in a repeat. And now there's like, you know, comedians from the past whose clips have like gone viral again 50 years later. So actually the younger generation have much more access to their forefathers than we did or others or people older than me did. But yeah television is the landscape is changing obviously so so much.”
2025-05-25 · Intelligence Squared · Tricks, Trolls, and LOLs: Comedy’s Crash Course in Spotting Lies, with Rachel Parris · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think that probably used to be true. I think we do irony better than the Americans. Yeah, I'm pretty sure we do. But as I say, I think that styles are blending much more now.”
2025-05-25 · Intelligence Squared · Tricks, Trolls, and LOLs: Comedy’s Crash Course in Spotting Lies, with Rachel Parris · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Archetypes. So, in that way, that absurdity isn't unique to Britain. On the other hand, I think that our sense of humour, I realise there is a dilution there because we're seeing all of the American humour and the Americans seeing ours and the line is not as big as it used to be, but I do think our sense of humour has that ability to be more arch and more dry. And I think that can really help. I think we don't always have to be kind of grinning about it.”
2025-05-25 · Intelligence Squared · Tricks, Trolls, and LOLs: Comedy’s Crash Course in Spotting Lies, with Rachel Parris · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, I think there's been a lot of lines drawn between Trump and Johnson. I realize Johnson is old news, although I do feel like you never know when he's going to come back. I think that the absurdity was matched between Trump and Johnson, them as comedy bumbling comedy characters that shouldn't be taken seriously. And it's amazing that they got where they did.”
2025-05-25 · Intelligence Squared · Tricks, Trolls, and LOLs: Comedy’s Crash Course in Spotting Lies, with Rachel Parris · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“When it happened, because I desperately wanted to, and as I say, I worked with Robin Morgan on it, the producer Christ, also contributed to it. And for me, the only way it can work is to give time to the seriousness of it and honour what it was. And then, yeah, there's an act to it just going in and out of like, there is room for humour because the response to it from the government was so shocking and ridiculous and absurd and then go back into the seriousness of it. One of the biggest criticisms that I get from, I'm going to call the haters is people going from the beginning of the mash war going, this isn't comedy, it's not comedy look. They're calling this comedy. It's so serious. She hasn't made a joke for 30 seconds. But that was always the point because we were always tackling issues that were serious. So no, it was never going to be a laugh minute and lots of satire can't be if it”
2025-05-25 · Intelligence Squared · Tricks, Trolls, and LOLs: Comedy’s Crash Course in Spotting Lies, with Rachel Parris · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I didn't want to, but that's when it was on. I filmed One Piece four weeks after giving birth and then that one was about... Seven weeks after. And the writing of it was harder. Presenting it is fine, but the writing of it took so much brain power, but it also was an amazing opportunity. I was so Sounds weird because it's so tragic, but I was so grateful to have the opportunity to speak about that.”
2025-05-25 · Intelligence Squared · Tricks, Trolls, and LOLs: Comedy’s Crash Course in Spotting Lies, with Rachel Parris · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It did. That was very hard to write Yeah, I knew what I wanted to achieve. Was also like a few weeks post birth as well, so I was very happy.”
2025-05-25 · Intelligence Squared · Tricks, Trolls, and LOLs: Comedy’s Crash Course in Spotting Lies, with Rachel Parris · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In crisis, you know, it's not a sort of like live or die tragedy situation. Brexit, I've found when I'm touring around is so divisive, so divisive. And even if you've got a room which majority of them agree with your point of view, it's like bums clenched don't want to talk about this, it's divided my family. It's to our hope she doesn't talk about it. It's weird. There are certain topics that I think people are too sad about for you even to satirise. There's some topics that are big ones that you can satirize, and I've just found personally, it might just be me, there's ones that I think people, it's sort of too serious.”
2025-05-25 · Intelligence Squared · Tricks, Trolls, and LOLs: Comedy’s Crash Course in Spotting Lies, with Rachel Parris · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You think comedy audiences have changed at all in the last few years? I'm particularly thinking of whether they've changed after significant events like Brexit or like COVID or like, yeah, lettuce Prime Minister. I think that I'm going to talk more about live satire is part of Stand Up Live now. I think that While people do have a thirst for satire which satisfies the need for catharsis to just join in with feeling angry and going, yeah, that person's a knob and like, yeah, they shouldn't have done that. And there is that thirst. I also think that there are some things that have happened that are simply too bleak. And actually weirdly Brexit, even though that doesn't sort of, you would think Brexit doesn't tick the boxes of like that sort of humanitarian.”
2025-05-25 · Intelligence Squared · Tricks, Trolls, and LOLs: Comedy’s Crash Course in Spotting Lies, with Rachel Parris · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Is a racist under liar, which the BBC I can't stress this enough, let us do. It's like, yes, they finally decommissioned us, but they let us do that. So I suppose that's what's surprising about what you've said, because how can they let you do stuff or indeed encourage you by commissioning you? And then get very nervous about it. It's a really odd thing to imagine because you've got so many layers at any channel, but particularly at the BBC, going right up to world government, really. So you've got the producers who want to do one thing, you've got the commissioner. And the commissioner really, really supported the show, the direct commissioner who initially allowed us to do the show. And then you've got other commissioners going, probably can't say that. And then there's a level above them. One person says yes to one thing without the other's knowing. So it's not as clear-cut.”
2025-05-25 · Intelligence Squared · Tricks, Trolls, and LOLs: Comedy’s Crash Course in Spotting Lies, with Rachel Parris · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Rimming Donald Trump. That was fairly not required because it was original artwork. Original artwork. Was anyone ever litigious? Anyone not like how they were represented? I think that was kept away from me, not as far as I know. I mean, I am sure people didn't like how they were represented. I think the program had complaints. I did a piece about Jacob Rees-Mog, which incorporated him using his Catholic faith to pass policy, which in my opinion is inhumane. And I think we had complaints from some Catholic quarters about that. I think we have complaints from lots of people, but I don't know how litigious it was particularly. But for all I know, that is what it was. Maybe Boris Johnson finally sued us for saying on screen, Boris Johnson.”
2025-05-25 · Intelligence Squared · Tricks, Trolls, and LOLs: Comedy’s Crash Course in Spotting Lies, with Rachel Parris · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Have some joke at the expense of the other side. And then there's also fair dealing, which is you can only use a clip in the show that has a political bent if you comment on it. You have to critique it in some way. So it doesn't really matter what you go on to say about it. You have to include a comment in the script. And again, we'd always add them at the 11th hour just before on air where, you know, if you have a clip of, say, Keir Starmer speaking in House of Commons or something, you'd have to say, what an interesting chat he's making. Or you'd have to say, it doesn't look like many people agree with him. Or sometimes they were really mundane, just like, oh, that tie doesn't go with his trousers or something. It was just really strange little things you had to add that were a tick box exercise. But presumably when Piers Morgan was to pick up.”
2025-05-25 · Intelligence Squared · Tricks, Trolls, and LOLs: Comedy’s Crash Course in Spotting Lies, with Rachel Parris · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“During an election, what did you have to do? In the lead up to an election, which our series weirdly often fell on, it was quite bad luck, you cannot make a joke about one party without making a joke at the expense of the other party. So that is something we would hilariously ignore until an hour before the show started and everyone would run and go, oh fuck, what are we going to say about Labour? Because in the news world, there are literally program teams who will have a running Excel spreadsheet because if they were ever to be caught up and regulated by Ofcom, they could have the receipts and say, look, we really worked to our greatest effort in order to demonstrate balance. And it never occurred to me that your program would have to do it as well. We do. We did, even if it wasn't completely even-handed. Yeah, you had to always...”
2025-05-25 · Intelligence Squared · Tricks, Trolls, and LOLs: Comedy’s Crash Course in Spotting Lies, with Rachel Parris · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And kind of being asked to represent the Me Too movement by myself with no media training. And then when we did the Trump clip being sort of asked to You know, and it's fair, it's fair enough, but I do feel like I did not have the training for this. Yeah, I did feel like that. There's also other training that it never occurred to me you needed to deploy in satire, which is knowing how to not piss off Ofcom. Oh yeah.”
2025-05-25 · Intelligence Squared · Tricks, Trolls, and LOLs: Comedy’s Crash Course in Spotting Lies, with Rachel Parris · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We're all learning. Yeah. So it doesn't surprise me that because obviously you'd think that all journalists in every newsroom would get quite high level training. I would go on to get excellent training when I was advised, digital security training. The new world, not only of satire, but of comedy more widely, comedians need it. From what you've said, comedians need it. Yeah, yeah, I think all sorts of warnings and trainings when that sexual harassment clip went viral it was a really odd feeling. I was sort of suddenly the post girl for that show, which was nice in a way, but I was also receiving messages good and bad from literally really all over the world like the speed with which that clip went everywhere and people had very strong feelings about it was big. And I was going on all the programs representing it and the show.”
2025-05-25 · Intelligence Squared · Tricks, Trolls, and LOLs: Comedy’s Crash Course in Spotting Lies, with Rachel Parris · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I have opinions about everything, but I don't think I ever did, but I don't feel strongly that I wish to satirise them all for one thing. Satirizing them is one thing and then having your opinions widely, widely publicised is another. And there are comedians who live for that. That's absolutely what they do and what they did before the Mash Report and what the Nish Kumar, who is so incredible at what he does because he feels all of that things that he says he feels it with every fibre as being and he could not live without proclaiming what he thinks on these issues and that's what his audience love and that's not me I felt quite sometimes burned by doing that and it's quite a choice and it's a choice that I was very happy to make for that TV show and who knows I might make again but it felt yeah I felt Quite vulnerable.”
2025-05-25 · Intelligence Squared · Tricks, Trolls, and LOLs: Comedy’s Crash Course in Spotting Lies, with Rachel Parris · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Lots of talent who Yeah, so I mean Obviously, yeah, it was a unique situation. So we had a team of performers who made up like a series wide cast, if you like. And we all knew each other and we all knew our strengths. And then we'd bring in guests as well to late night mash or the mash report. So, for example, in late night mash, I was the host. And when the uprisings in Iran were happening, We really wanted to cover that, but I felt like there's probably someone better than me to do that. It's the kind of thing I probably would have covered in previous series, but I really felt like there was someone better. So I got in touch with Chappy Core Sandy, whose family was over there and who was much more informed and much more able to have emotional stakes in that story. And it was so much more powerful for it. My God, she was amazing and she was very emotional on the day.”
2025-05-25 · Intelligence Squared · Tricks, Trolls, and LOLs: Comedy’s Crash Course in Spotting Lies, with Rachel Parris · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The news that week, so that's a bit more tricky. But there are lots of things that I would choose, did choose, and would not choose to talk about because I don't feel I'm the best person or I simply haven't got the energy.”
2025-05-25 · Intelligence Squared · Tricks, Trolls, and LOLs: Comedy’s Crash Course in Spotting Lies, with Rachel Parris · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, more socio politically. The one thing, the luxury I had in the position I had on that TV show before I hosted it was that I only had to tackle one topic per week and that topic could be a topic in the zeitgeist. It didn't have to be a topic that was in the news that week necessarily. That meant that I could choose a topic that I felt sure about, that I knew about and that I felt able to represent because satire only works if you're sure and if there's certainty there and if you have mixed feelings, if it's too nuanced and my response to nearly all news stories is nuanced, it's very hard to write satire if you're a bit on the fence. So I chose topics deliberately that I was not on the fence about and that I felt able to represent when I hosted you, you have less that look. You have to just deal with what's in the...”
2025-05-25 · Intelligence Squared · Tricks, Trolls, and LOLs: Comedy’s Crash Course in Spotting Lies, with Rachel Parris · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Didn't grapple with how serious it was. I didn't grapple with the fact that women are dying because of the incel movement. I didn't deal with the fact that women are being beaten and harmed and that also the sort of unimaginable damage that it's doing to men and boys. So I think I would have tackled it more seriously, to be honest. If that makes sense, it wouldn't have been any less funny somehow, but there's a way of finding jokes while still recognizing how serious something is. And I don't think I would. Even then I remember someone in the writing team was like, it was going to be like, listen up, virgins. And I even then, I remember being like, I'm not saying that. That's not going to help. That's really not going to help. That's not really what it is, is it? So even then I had a sense that it was more serious, but I would do a lot of it differently.”
2025-05-25 · Intelligence Squared · Tricks, Trolls, and LOLs: Comedy’s Crash Course in Spotting Lies, with Rachel Parris · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, yes. I think that Sorry, it's a hard question to answer. When I got to writing about violence against women and girls, it was a piece. It was in series one of late nightmash. I wrote it with Robin Morgan. It was in response to Sarah Everard's murder. And that was a really, really difficult piece to write for, I think, obvious reasons, finding comedy in something so horrific and the environment surrounding it. But by that point, I felt like I understood what my job was and I felt like I understood how to deal with comedically an issue that is really, really serious and tragic. And I think when I did the piece on incels, which was fairly early on,”
2025-05-25 · Intelligence Squared · Tricks, Trolls, and LOLs: Comedy’s Crash Course in Spotting Lies, with Rachel Parris · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Medically, I was like, thank you, I will. And then I did one on incels when, even I remember even when we made the thing on incels, I thought everyone knew what an incel was and they really didn't then. And even now I'm like, surely everyone knows now and they still, but we did a thing on incels which I wouldn't do it the same way now”
2025-05-25 · Intelligence Squared · Tricks, Trolls, and LOLs: Comedy’s Crash Course in Spotting Lies, with Rachel Parris · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Where does your mum come from? And so they had drawn, there's no easy way of saying, they'd drawn a cartoon of Piers Morgan rimming Donald Trump, to be honest. If you don't, I'd say Google it later, but not now. The first one I got really trolled by the American crazies, and I got like someone specifically wishing me breast cancer on Facebook going, you are a pig, you're a dirty pig and Karma will find you, better get that mammogram early, which was weird more than anything else. And also, frankly, just sound advice.”
2025-05-25 · Intelligence Squared · Tricks, Trolls, and LOLs: Comedy’s Crash Course in Spotting Lies, with Rachel Parris · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, that's true. Yeah, so the sexual harassment piece, which is, for those of you who haven't seen it, is with Nishkuma's help kind of showing people who say, oh, you can't even chat up a woman anymore. I suppose you can't even buy a woman flowers anymore since me too. The idea that the Me Too campaign has completely meant that men can't even approach a woman anymore. It was tackling that in a funny way. had really mostly positive responses, had very, very few negative responses from that, a few, but mostly it was good. The week after that, we did a piece that was dealing with Piers Morgan's interview with Donald Trump when Donald Trump was first in power and Piers Morgan had gone very, very easy on Donald Trump and had asked him questions like, oh, your hair looks nice.”
2025-05-25 · Intelligence Squared · Tricks, Trolls, and LOLs: Comedy’s Crash Course in Spotting Lies, with Rachel Parris · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Believe what people say, like, you know, I am a bit of a control freak, and I found it quite hard and I would have my sort of instinct is like, let me just do it completely myself, but that doesn't make for the best piece. But then there are points where you have to draw a line and go, no, I'm not doing that joke. That's really upsetting. And yeah, there were times when there would be like a room of five men going, no, but when you look at it from that, the joke is actually on the right side. And I'd be like, yes, but it was a joke about abortion. And I was like, it doesn't matter what side it's on. Like, as the only woman in this room, I promise you, anyone hearing seeing that visual joke is going to be triggered by it. And it doesn't matter that, oh, but actually ultimately we're holding power to account. And I'm like, you're just going to upset people and I don't want to be responsible for that. So yes, it was, when you're doing TV, you're part of a big team and there's a lot of compromising.”
2025-05-25 · Intelligence Squared · Tricks, Trolls, and LOLs: Comedy’s Crash Course in Spotting Lies, with Rachel Parris · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Know exactly, that's a complication of working on a satirical TV show because it is a teen and you aren't just representing yourself, your kind of representing the views of the show to a certain extent and you have to”
2025-05-25 · Intelligence Squared · Tricks, Trolls, and LOLs: Comedy’s Crash Course in Spotting Lies, with Rachel Parris · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“As time went on, it was like, well, this has got my name. And as soon as the second half of the series began, which was the sexual harassment piece which went very viral, that was the first one that I'd worked on myself and co-written. And it was the first time I felt co-ownership of the piece. And from that point on, I was like, oh, this needs to always happen. But it continued to be a fight to make that happen. And there were weeks where I'd be like, I really... I really don't want to do that joke.”
2025-05-25 · Intelligence Squared · Tricks, Trolls, and LOLs: Comedy’s Crash Course in Spotting Lies, with Rachel Parris · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I did screen tested. They screen tested me. They screen tested me as like, my name was Rachel Powers, but I was playing like a character and that is how I began quite a heightened version of myself.”
2025-05-25 · Intelligence Squared · Tricks, Trolls, and LOLs: Comedy’s Crash Course in Spotting Lies, with Rachel Parris · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“How does it amass? Yeah, it was really tricky because I was really taken on in that job as a character actress in the audition that I made for the pilot. I was playing a reporter and I wasn't, and it wasn't very satirical particularly. It was, but it was sort of about serving beer in pubs. And it wasn't me. And they screenshotted screenshot.”
2025-05-25 · Intelligence Squared · Tricks, Trolls, and LOLs: Comedy’s Crash Course in Spotting Lies, with Rachel Parris · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, it is. It's quite a little bit complicated because that show the Mash Report and late night mash, obviously you had sort of sketches that were filmed with costume and characters on a different day, like VTs that would be in the show. And then you had the presenter, the host's monologues, and then you had bits like my segment. And they were all separate and different, right? So the Daily MASH website did all of the sketches really, I believe. Nishe had writers that he and Tom Neenan, they would write his bits and I would work with a team of people. Jokes would be suggested by lots of people, but I had more control as I went through and I fought to have more control as I went through.”
2025-05-25 · Intelligence Squared · Tricks, Trolls, and LOLs: Comedy’s Crash Course in Spotting Lies, with Rachel Parris · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, it was a strange experience because I feel like the whole point of the program was always party political. It was always holding power to account. And that was the whole point of it. So I'm like, I don't really understand what they were going for if it wasn't that. But yeah, there was a lot, let's just say there was a lot of nervousness”
2025-05-25 · Intelligence Squared · Tricks, Trolls, and LOLs: Comedy’s Crash Course in Spotting Lies, with Rachel Parris · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Which the queen died. So there was an episode which we wrote in full and rehearsed in full which was pulled and they just wouldn't let us do. So yes there was a lot of nervousness and I was making jokes about the government and about Liz Truss and about and there would be I've been told there were producers you know in the background going And the feedback always was can we talk about party politics less?”
2025-05-25 · Intelligence Squared · Tricks, Trolls, and LOLs: Comedy’s Crash Course in Spotting Lies, with Rachel Parris · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT