Stewart Lee with English Settlement and No Thugs in Our House

Why comedians love XTC

In this special edition of What Do You Call That Noise? The XTC Podcast, recorded live as part of the online XTC Convention on 19 September 2020, author Mark Fisher talks to leading stand-up comedians about their love of XTC. He also gets them to join in some games and make up some nonsense – or do they?

On the panel are:

  • Joanna Neary, who once performed a pastiche XTC song called Human Farm
  • Stewart Lee, who once met Andy Partridge before a gig in Swindon
  • Paul Putner, who befriended XTC after compiling a tape of their TV appearances
  • Kevin Eldon, whose love of XTC rivals his quiz-winning obsession with the Beatles
  • Andy Miller, a writer, editor and long-time Limelight reader whose books include 33 1/3: The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society

Thanks to Mike, Steve, Julie, Darryl, Rachel and Joe and DJ Ivan for making the XTC Convention go with such a swing. Look out for more convention plans on the Facebook page:

The comedians also make an appearance in The XTC Bumper Book of Fun for Boys and Girls, which you can buy along with What Do You Call That Noise? An XTC Discovery Book in the Limelight shop.

If you’ve enjoyed the XTC Podcast, please show your support at https://www.patreon.com/markfisher

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About the author

MARK FISHER is a freelance theatre critic and feature writer based in Edinburgh and has written about theatre in Scotland since the late-1980s. He is a theatre critic for The Guardian, a former editor of The List magazine and a frequent contributor to the Scotsman and other publications. He is the co-editor of the play anthology Made in Scotland (1995), and the author of The Edinburgh Fringe Survival Guide (2012) and How to Write About Theatre (2015) – all Bloomsbury Methuen Drama. While at school, he set up the XTC fanzine Limelight, which he republished as The XTC Bumper Book of Fun for Boys and Girls (2017). He followed that with What Do You Call That Noise? An XTC Discovery Book (2019). In 2020, he launched What Do You Call That Noise? The XTC Podcast.