Series 3 Episode 6 - 1, 2, 3, Eyes on Me with Mrs Smith

In this engaging conversation, Mrs Smith, a teacher turned comedian, shares her journey from the classroom to the stage. With 39 years of teaching experience, she discusses the challenges and joys of both professions, her experiences at the Edinburgh Fringe, and the importance of humour in education. Mrs Smith emphasises the significance of saying yes to opportunities and maintaining a balance between her teaching career and stand-up comedy, all while keeping her identity as Mrs Smith somewhat anonymous. The conversation concludes with light-hearted banter about cocktails and the unique experiences of being a teacher and a performer.

Have you ever wondered what your teacher was thinking? Let Facebook’s Mrs Smith enlighten you! Mrs Smith was an ordinary teacher in an ordinary school until she went viral on Facebook, got invited to the Edinburgh Fringe and accidentally became a stand-up comedian. She is currently on tour with 1,2,3, Eyes on Me, which is the follow-up to her sell-out show of 2023 See me!, which she debuted at the 2023 Edinburgh Fringe, never having done stand-up before in her life.

https://facebook.com/mrssmithsaysit

Takeaways

Mrs Smith has been teaching for 39 years.

She started writing as Mrs Smith for her friends.

The Edinburgh Fringe was a pivotal moment in her comedy career.

She enjoys the buzz of performing and making people laugh.

Maintaining anonymity allows her to express herself freely.

Balancing teaching and comedy requires careful planning.

Saying yes to opportunities can lead to unexpected paths.

Her audience primarily consists of teachers and education staff.

Humour is a powerful tool in both teaching and comedy.

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Get in touch: hearmeroarhere@gmail.com or via our website hearmeroarhere.com

Transcript

Hear Me Roar (00:33)

Always handy when you switch the mic on. Yes, it's handy to switch the mic on. It does tend to work better. Hello. today we have got a mystery guest. I know. We're quite excited. It's all very exciting. It is. we haven't talked to her yet, but...

don't know, I'm really looking forward to this one. I am, yeah. I like a bit of mystery. I like a bit of mystery, Although I kind of removed the romance and the mystery from our holiday a little bit. Go on then, do tell. Oh God. Well, we went away. One of the reasons we went away was because it was our 30th wedding anniversary. 30 is quite a big number and we needed to celebrate the fact.

that neither of us had ended up in a jail cell yet. Or under the patio. Yeah, exactly. I've dug the hole, mind. You got it ready. Yeah, it's there. Just in case he breathes too loudly. exactly. And so I went to the pool bar to get a drink for my lovely husband, who I love. And I got him this mocktail. I mean, communicating that sort of thing with a Greek barman can be...

quite difficult anyway with the language barrier, but we worked out, I got this mocktail, cause it was daytime, morning actually. So it was this fruity mocktail, full of ice, all the rest of it, carried it back, he's lying on his sun lounger. I go to hand the thing to him, I drop the whole thing on his crotch. Oh my God.

I can only imagine the shriveling that was going on at this point. Well yeah, mean you've never seen a man move so fast, honest, he leapt off that sun lounger. And everyone around, which was mainly men, were like, ooh, ooh, there was just a sharp intake of breath and everyone was like, are you okay, are okay? And he's sort leaping around.

And there was just stuff everywhere. was fruity, fizzy stuff and ice everywhere. Health and safety would have had a field day. The mess you made on the walkway. I know. was like, happy anniversary, darling. But you know what's even worse? The poor bugger spent the rest of the day, because he had ice and sticky juice and all the rest of it around him. He spent the rest of the day being a wasp magnet.

He was followed around by wasps wherever he went. God, could he not just have gone and had a shower or jumped in the pool? Well, he could have done. But the thing is that even the lounger in the area around the lounger. Covered in sticky fruit juice. Yeah. So he just said that he was doing a service for everyone else, providing this kind of like wasp deflection. Yeah, it was the it was the panpiper of wasps. I know. I know. Anyway, you couldn't make it up, no.

So I iced my husband's crotch as a 30th wedding anniversary present. Well that's an anniversary present he won't forget in a hurry. Anyway, moving on today to our mystery guest. Have you ever wondered what your teacher was thinking? Mmm. So let Facebook's Mrs. Smith enlighten you. Mrs. Smith was an ordinary teacher in an ordinary school.

until she went viral on Facebook, got invited to the Edinburgh Fringe and accidentally became a stand-up comedian. So she's currently on tour with 123 Eyes on Me, her show, which is the follow-up to her sell-out show of 2023, which was called See Me, which is the one that she debuted at the 2023 Edinburgh Fringe, never having done stand-up before in her life.

Wow. Can't wait to meet her. Brave woman. I would say that that holds fears for me. And we all know I'm a gob shite. Yeah. I'm not saying anything about that. And on that note, let's go and meet Mrs Smith.

Hear Me Roar (04:28)

Hello Mrs Smith. Lovely to meet you. ⁓ We're fangirling. Yeah we are fangirling because we both follow you on Facebook and we're very excited to have a chat with you. so I will let you kick off with a new one. So you are a teacher and you're still a teacher. How long have you been teaching for?

Mrs Smith (04:32)

⁓ And you too.

⁓ thank you.

Yep. Yep.

This is my 39th year of teaching.

Hear Me Roar (04:55)

How long have you been?

Whoa 39! ⁓ So have you taught lots of year groups? Have you been up and down the primary age range?

Mrs Smith (05:07)

Yeah, so I've taught everything from nursery up to year six. Over those 39 years, yeah.

Hear Me Roar (05:11)

Wow.

Over those, yeah. And which year group have you got at the moment?

Mrs Smith (05:17)

So I tend to be at the top of the school, so year six at the moment, yeah.

I love them though, they're brilliant. They're such good fun.

Hear Me Roar (05:23)

Yeah, ⁓ because they're they're not quite obviously they're not adults, but they're like mini people. They're not children, know, they're not little, they're not babies, they're not little are they? So they've got big personalities, some of them.

Mrs Smith (05:33)

Yeah, they still sort of...

No, no.

Yeah, and they're finding their way and there's all of that sort of stuff going on. Also, there are some times when they really feel like they want to, they're quite little as well and that's something you want to nurture at the same time really.

Hear Me Roar (05:39)

Hmm?

Yeah.

Yes, yeah they still need to be nurtured and looked after don't they? Yeah, oh it is a good age, 11. Yeah, 10, 11 is a good age. Before they go off to the comp and then it all goes a bit mad. Then they turn into hormonal monsters.

Mrs Smith (05:53)

Yeah.

You

They can be hormonal monsters in year six as well actually, don't worry about that.

Hear Me Roar (06:09)

Yes, yeah, that's true. ⁓ goodness me. So, you went viral on Facebook. When was that?

Mrs Smith (06:17)

It was about seven years ago. Yeah, seven years ago. And I sort of started to write Mrs. Smith, just for my friends at school. And because we were all women of a certain age, I decided Facebook was the most sensible place to put her really, because I had written her down longhand in a notebook, but that gets a bit sort of clunky and passing it around. So I just used to write them on there and I kept it.

Hear Me Roar (06:27)

Mm-hmm.

Mrs Smith (06:41)

It was public, but it was still anonymous because I didn't want to sort of mix me and Mrs. Smith up. And then I wrote a post and that just went absolutely crazy. And the world and his wife decided they had an opinion on it and shared it. And there were lots of people who, because they went to school, felt they knew what it was like to be a teacher. Yeah, and that's really what happened.

Hear Me Roar (06:47)

Yeah.

Mm.

Mrs Smith (07:06)

It was all about the summer holidays.

Hear Me Roar (07:06)

So explain,

Right. okay

Mrs Smith (07:10)

Yeah, and it was all about, you know how, yes, yeah, we have six weeks of a summer holiday, but don't you dare come at me and tell me how lucky I am. And then I just explained why we needed those six weeks of holiday. And some people found that hard to take.

Hear Me Roar (07:11)

Sorry, was...

Mm-hmm

Yeah

Yeah, I can imagine the

Yeah, I can imagine the general public would have had quite a strong opinion on that. Being a teacher myself, I'm used to hearing, you've got 13 weeks of holiday. Yeah. Yeah. So can I just say, yeah, can we can we just explain what Mrs. Smith is for our listeners?

Mrs Smith (07:34)

all that holiday.

So Mrs Smith is, well she's turned into being the voice of teachers really and I started her off as an anonymous teacher and she is elements of every single person I have ever worked with. There are bits of her, of them that make up her. Also the anonymity gives me a chance to say things that everyone else wants to say.

and use language that everyone else wants to use without it being one particular person saying it. there are teachers called Mrs Smith, I know that, because I get messages from people asking me about whether I've got... know where a lost jumper is or could I help them with their homework. So people do confuse her with real ones, but she's a parody. Yeah.

Hear Me Roar (08:13)

Right

You

Yeah, a character. So your post went viral and what happened after that then?

Mrs Smith (08:38)

Well, I went from having sort of, you know, my mates following, so about 100 people, I suppose, followed her, to I think it went up to sort of about 15,000 very quickly. And it's sort of gone up ever since and I think it's about 100,000 now, yeah.

Hear Me Roar (08:50)

Wow.

Yeah, that's a fair following. how did you go from that to doing the Edinburgh Fringe?

Mrs Smith (09:02)

I had always fancied doing in my head, I'd always fancied doing a bit of stand-up and I had gone on a course that allowed me to have a go at two minutes of stand-up at the end of it if I wanted to. It was a two-hour course so I mean it wasn't one of the ones where you do it for six weeks and you you hone your craft and do all of that it was really just have a play and see if

and it was all women together so it was really good sort of supportive environment I really loved it was with people called funny women and then as a result of that bizarrely they invited us all of the people who were on the course to go to this sort of comedy networking event that was on a boat in the Thames on a Tuesday evening and I wouldn't normally have been able to go but it was half term so I went

Hear Me Roar (09:34)

Mm.

Okay.

Mrs Smith (09:52)

and they said would you like to do, would anybody like to do an elevator pitch? because there were so many people in the room and you know we all, people will support each other and lots of people got up and did sort of 30 seconds about what they were up to and I'd had a couple of glasses of wine so I decided well alright I'll say to people this is what I do and this is Mrs Smith and

I was quite happy, I think I had about 30,000 followers then, and I said, I'm quite happy to carry on writing. I enjoy doing that. I enjoy every day creating this, you know, little sort of story or, you know, venting or whatever. But can anyone suggest anything else that I could do? And several people came and, you know, talked to me about all sorts of things. But there was one person there who said, look, I'm an agent for comedians.

you're not a comedian and no that's fine and but we could take you on as a writer and so yeah that was something that we did and I sort of pootled along on their books as a as a writer and I didn't do any writing that was just sort of you know a name on a page and then I got an email in this that was that was in the October and then I got an email in the March to say look we're taking

our comedians to the Edinburgh Festival. We've got a venue, we've got accommodation, we've got spaces that need filling. Have you ever thought about doing stand-up? And I said, well, I've done a good 30 seconds. They said, well, do you fancy doing 45 minutes, four times? And I said, yeah, I said.

Hear Me Roar (11:14)

Right.

you

Hahaha!

Oh my god.

Mrs Smith (11:30)

yes and then went away and had a panic because I think you should always say yes first because there's probably a solution if I'd said no I'd have been regretting it

Hear Me Roar (11:36)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Figure it out afterwards. Yeah. So, so you went to. So you went up to Edinburgh Fringe. How did that go? What? So the name of your show up there was See Me. Is that correct? Yeah. So how was that?

Mrs Smith (11:43)

Yeah, it's fine. Yeah, so that's what I did.

yeah yes partly because

people hadn't seen me they didn't know what I look like or anything yes I had four forty five the same show four times and ⁓ they all sold out and I loved it absolutely loved it I don't know that I was particularly polished but I loved doing it

Hear Me Roar (12:01)

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's amazing. That is amazing. Yeah. To be sold out as well on all four nights. Yeah. That is fantastic, isn't Pretty cool. Yeah. Wow. So you went on from there to then develop your own show on your own terms?

Mrs Smith (12:31)

Yes, yeah, that first sort of show was that was See Me. The 45 minutes that I did at Edinburgh sort of became the first half and then I had to then write a second half, another 45 minutes. So I did that, yeah, that's sort of a bit of a difficult second album because you've got to write the second half, think, I was funny-ish for 45 minutes, can I be equally funny for another 45 minutes.

Hear Me Roar (12:58)

Yeah.

Mrs Smith (12:59)

yeah

because what i find funny is not necessarily what everyone else finds funny but there we go

Hear Me Roar (13:04)

Well, yeah. One, two, three eyes on me, which is the name of your show. And sorry, is that a teacher's thing? Yeah. Well, I assumed so, but I didn't know. ⁓ Yeah, it's it's it's.

Mrs Smith (13:17)

Yes.

Yeah, it's a call and response. So

I would say

I'd say one, two, three, and you'd have to say back, eyes on me. And then there needs to be silence in the room when you do that, you see.

Hear Me Roar (13:29)

right, okay. See, I was brought up in the Scottish school system where you just got your head kicked in. That was pretty much it, yeah. You just like had to duck a lot. Was that from low-flying board rubbers? well, low-flying teachers and everything. God, it was brutal. ⁓ So, yeah.

Mrs Smith (13:39)

you

Thank

it was

no easier where i was i don't think yeah

Hear Me Roar (13:54)

So what appeals to you so much about doing stand-up? Because obviously this is now your second tour and from what I can see on Facebook most of your nights sell out so it's obviously really popular. So what is it that you love about it?

Mrs Smith (14:12)

do you know that's a really good question I I really quite enjoy I mean anyone who says anyone who says that you know standing on a stage and people applauding you and laughing at what when you're saying something that everyone thinks is funny isn't a bit of a buzz is a liar right because it's really it's there is that buzz from it. I just love the whole sort of

Hear Me Roar (14:32)

Mm-hmm.

Mrs Smith (14:37)

I like being in the room with all those other people and we're all having a laugh together. I don't think, I find it hard to sort of in my head think people are coming to see me. I feel like I'm more in the room of facilitating everyone having a good time. That's how I sort of, that's why I enjoy doing it I think.

Hear Me Roar (14:52)

Yeah.

Yeah. Well, it's certainly a very brave thing to do. Have you had any ⁓ heckles or anything like that to deal with.

Mrs Smith (15:03)

⁓ no, but then, because I tell them they can't, when we start, so if you think you're gonna heckle, don't, right? Stop

Hear Me Roar (15:08)

Ha!

Do you say that in your best teacher voice?

Mrs Smith (15:11)

No, you know, we're all here to have a good time.

Absolutely without question. And after, you know, 39 years I can do it and mean it and there are people who still, you know, there's still that sort of concern that they might end up in detention or sitting outside the door if they can't behave themselves.

Hear Me Roar (15:16)

Yeah.

I love it. absolutely love it. So you kind of you prefer to remain anonymous. So I'll explain to people who are listening and on Spotify, whatever, and can't see what we're doing here. We're interviewing a dark screen because Mrs Smith prefers to remain

Mrs Smith (15:48)

you

Hear Me Roar (15:53)

undercover. Can you tell us a bit about why that is?

Mrs Smith (15:56)

Well, for a start, the persona when I'm on stage and also the persona as Mrs Smith on the Facebook page, Mrs Smith's quite ranty and quite sweary. And I tell regularly, tell 11 year olds to mind their language and how dare they, if they then thought that I used the F word as punctuation, I don't think they'd be too impressed with me.

Hear Me Roar (16:07)

Yes.

you ⁓

Mrs Smith (16:23)

That's partly why I do it. Also, I did partly do it because I didn't want to associate Mrs Smith with me physically because I'm not an actress or I'm not an actor or I don't perform. So I'm writing in the voice of someone, I really haven't got any ability to do character acting.

Hear Me Roar (16:43)

and

No. Do people that you work with or any of the parents or anything like that, do they know that you are Mrs Smith? Well, you know what I mean, that you write Mrs Smith and that you do all this, stand up shows and everything like that?

Mrs Smith (17:02)

yeah, the people that I work with, if they've been there long enough, they know some, if I don't tell people that that's what I do, but one or two people will tell anyone who starts at school possibly, you do know this is what she does as a sideline, don't you? ⁓ sometimes, when, you know, if it comes up in conversation, I'm, think there might be the odd parent who has an inkling as to what I do, but everyone's really

Hear Me Roar (17:16)

Hahaha!

Yeah.

Mrs Smith (17:26)

really brilliant about keeping the secret because it feels as if it's a bit like sort of a little secret society that if you know who I am then you know who I am and if you come you know I don't do the shows with a bag on my head I stand there on stage you know with the lights on and the mic and and it's it's clear who I am but I just ask people not to tell and I haven't told you what

Hear Me Roar (17:49)

Yeah.

Mrs Smith (17:52)

my actual name is so you would recognise me, you wouldn't be able to search me and find me so there's all sorts of there are ways and means and subterfuge and all of that

Hear Me Roar (18:00)

No.

Yeah, but it's nice to have the little secret as well, isn't it? It's nice to have this shared secret that's not the most vital secret in the world. It's not like we're protecting Britain from nuclear war or anything, but it's a really nice, lovely secret. tee hee is. It's a lovely one to have.

Mrs Smith (18:25)

Yeah, but if I had

less supportive senior leaders, then I could get myself into trouble, I suppose.

Hear Me Roar (18:33)

Well, yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So that's that's good that they are supportive because I would imagine some SLT might be saying, no, you really can't do this. So that's fantastic that yours do support you.

Mrs Smith (18:48)

Yeah, but

I try really hard, I never read about the children because the children are the most important thing. I I'm absolutely going to give it to politicians with both barrels if they're being ridiculous. And the same if, you know, there's something sort of said by somebody somewhere. You can use humour to sort of burst people's bubbles sometimes, can't you? And I think that's the important thing.

Hear Me Roar (18:56)

Mm.

Yeah.

Yeah. So how do you mix your stand-up shows around your work? Because it's not like you're doing shows that are five minutes away from you. You're going all over the country. How do you manage that with your job?

Mrs Smith (19:28)

I don't work full time.

Hear Me Roar (19:29)

That was going to be it.

Mrs Smith (19:30)

and teachers don't go out in

the middle of the week.

Hear Me Roar (19:34)

No, they don't.

Mrs Smith (19:35)

so

no they haven't got the energy to I mean I'm pushing my luck with a Friday sometimes so that's that's how it works I I sort of travel up on a Friday or down on a Friday or you know left or right on a Friday and and then I would use half terms or I'd use school holidays to do it

Hear Me Roar (19:42)

No

You

Yeah. Right. Okay. That might sense, doesn't it? Yeah. But the traveling, does that take it out of you?

Mrs Smith (19:59)

Yeah, I've got to go where the audience is and I've got to go when they're wanting

to come out.

Hear Me Roar (20:04)

Yes, yeah. So how do you book a tour? Do you just like phone up theatres or venues and say can I come or do they contact you? How does that work?

Mrs Smith (20:15)

Right, this is going sound really up myself, but I have an agent who does it for me.

But, and this is really important because I think some people will say why haven't you come here or why haven't you come there? In most cases I need to get somewhere to book me into a venue so that might be the venue that would book me or it might be that it's a comedy promoter in an area who uses a venue and who would book me. I can go and say would you like to book me?

Hear Me Roar (20:25)

Mm.

Mrs Smith (20:42)

and then sometimes they'll say no and you'll say cool and part of that's my own fault because I'm anonymous so they can't see what they're going to get online because there are no YouTube videos of me they can't get a feeling as to whether it would be what they would normally put into their venue there are occasionally well they'll say yes you can come here but you'll have to hire the space

Hear Me Roar (20:52)

Yeah.

Yes.

Mm.

Mrs Smith (21:08)

and that's alright but I can't do that too many times because there's a cost outlay to that so you know yeah that's how it works really

Hear Me Roar (21:12)

Mm.

Yeah.

Right, OK. That's interesting, because that was one of the ones that we were really like, how on earth do you do all that stuff? As well as work and all the rest Yeah, as well as, yeah, definitely. So are you hoping at one point to leave teaching completely and make stand up your full time career?

Mrs Smith (21:41)

Well, I'm 61, right? So I'm not going to be teaching forever. There is going to be some sort of tapering off and moving away. Yeah. And that would happen anyway, because I'm not altogether sure whether even if I didn't do what I do as well as teaching, I could manage to carry on doing going carrying on teaching till I'm 67. I just don't know that that's physically possible.

Hear Me Roar (21:48)

No.

No.

Right.

Mrs Smith (22:06)

Or actually anything that

would be any good for my mental wellbeing either.

Hear Me Roar (22:10)

No. Yeah, that's true. Right, so does that mean that you do fancy going just pure stand up? I mean, is it like a hobby or is it something that you're wanting to build?

Mrs Smith (22:22)

I think the number that I do, you'd have to say, and the taxman would also say, it's a second career. So yeah, that's what it would be. And I think you sort of, you you change your balance, don't you? So instead of being, you know, 40, 60, it would be 60, 40 or whatever, you know, you're moving from one thing to another.

Hear Me Roar (22:28)

Yeah.

Right. Well, that will be interesting to see how that works out for you once you're doing it full time and presumably you'll be having more time to write your material and develop new shows and things and go further afield.

Mrs Smith (22:58)

Yeah, yeah, I don't quite know. I've also sort of screwed myself over a little bit because the British education system is quite sort of unique. So I don't know that there are many places I could transfer talking about it in where people would get it unless you've actually worked in that system. So I think most of my audience is going to be in the UK for a start.

Hear Me Roar (23:23)

Right, okay. Yes. Yeah. But you do have a very wide audience because there's lots of teachers about, know, so you've got that large audience. Anyone who's ever been at school. Yeah. That's true.

Mrs Smith (23:35)

⁓ yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, I

It's mostly teachers, retired teachers, well, school staff. I try not to sort of make a differentiation between teachers in school and anyone else who works in the school because we all put up with the same stuff, you know, in school. ⁓Yeah, it's mostly people who work in schools, work in education in some way. Yeah, some people who just said, my mum was a teacher or...

Hear Me Roar (23:59)

Mm.

Mrs Smith (24:08)

you know, that that comes across as well.

Hear Me Roar (24:11)

Yeah, well, I'm really looking forward to we're going to your show in Hexham next May. Yeah. Yeah. So I think we're both really looking forward to going to that. Yeah. Yeah. It's going to be really interesting. We'll be the ones hanging around the stage door with our autograph books. Will you sign this for me, please, Mrs. Smith? Or.

Mrs Smith (24:34)

find

that whole thing really weird.

Hear Me Roar (24:36)

Yeah.

Mrs Smith (24:36)

I find it really weird when people say, oh, I just

want to come and talk to you. You think, goodness me, I'm in a staff room most days of the week, you know, if I was in Sainsbury's or Tesco's or wherever, I'm just a very ordinary person who just accidentally managed to do this very random thing. It's weird.

Hear Me Roar (24:53)

you

Yeah, but it's pretty, I mean, it is pretty amazing because it's so brave to do stand up and it's so difficult to juggle one, ⁓two careers essentially. And there must be quite a lot of pressure on you through all of this, but even as you're enjoying it, there must be quite a bit of pressure.

Mrs Smith (25:13)

Yes, I mean in the same way that when you're in a classroom there's ⁓ a level of professionalism you've got to sort of keep going and I suppose it's slightly different because I didn't do any of that sort of effective, it's like boot camp that people have done when they go and do stand-up so you know they might do five minutes and then ten minutes and then twenty minutes and all of that

Hear Me Roar (25:34)

Yeah.

Mrs Smith (25:38)

And that really sort of builds up your stamina and your ability to work an audience and everything else. I mean, you get an ability to work an audience if you've ever tried to persuade 10 year olds to get on with something that they don't particularly fancy doing.

Hear Me Roar (25:40)

Mm.

Mrs Smith (25:52)

but yeah I didn't do that so I think I sort of leapt straight into doing 45 minutes worth but then you know I suppose I might have to teach something really exciting like rocks for an hour you know so I suppose there is that as well isn't there

Hear Me Roar (25:53)

I'm sorry.

you

Yeah. So have you got a third tour in your head sorting out?

Mrs Smith (26:17)

my word. No, at the moment I'm just trying to make sure I can get from one end of the show to the other end of the show without really sort of it all coming crashing down around my ears. So yeah, at the moment I'm really just making sure that what I do now is the best that it can possibly be. And I hadn't even given a thought to what might come next because I think this show, because I don't do it

you know it's not as if I'm I'm not doing something like you know people do a 35 date tour and they go in you know that's 35 consecutive days or you know 35 out of 40 if I'm doing 25 dates that's over a year and a bit so I think that's probably where yeah that's the difference

Hear Me Roar (26:55)

you

Yeah.

Yeah. Have thought about writing a book?

Mrs Smith (27:07)

Yeah I have, I have. Again I'm sort fiddling about around the edges with that one though because when I do sit down to get stuff done then I need to do something on tour or all of that. I suppose I could do that. There again, there are lots of things I could do. I'd quite like to just get this one thing done really well and properly and then I can probably move on to doing the book or whatever.

Hear Me Roar (27:21)

you

Yeah.

And at the end of the day, how do you unwind?

Mrs Smith (27:34)

⁓ well I like to knit socks which is very random but I quite like to knit my own socks ⁓ I like a really nice gin and tonic I would or a beer or a glass of wine or a cup of tea I might sort might watch something or a cocktail absolutely a cocktail I would I would absolutely have a cocktail

Hear Me Roar (27:41)

you

Or a cocktail?

Mrs Smith (27:59)

I've got several in my head at the moment I would have.

Hear Me Roar (28:01)

High five I slipped that word cocktail in there because we're gonna ask you, we always ask our guests don't we about the cocktail, you do the cocktail question. Okay, Mrs Smith, if you were a cocktail, what would you be called? What would be your main ingredients and why?

Mrs Smith (28:21)

I would probably, it would definitely be gin based, right? And, it would probably have a, have some sort of citrus in it, possibly blood orange, whether that's to do with blood that I've spilled or, you know, whatever. and I probably call it something like, it's your time you're wasting or...

Hear Me Roar (28:37)

Ha ha.

that is a good one yeah very good so is that is that just gin and blood orange

Mrs Smith (28:43)

something like that one of those teacher phrases

slip a bit of tequila in there and that might sort of make it a bit more near a Negroni, no more a Margarita. Yeah or yeah I think definitely some sort of variant of a Margarita.

Hear Me Roar (28:58)

Yeah.

I think that sounds familiar.

Yeah I'm quite looking forward to trying this one. This one looks good. I like this one. I love that name it's your time you're wasting. I know, that's brilliant. How many times do teachers say that?

Mrs Smith (29:04)

Excellent.

you've got to cross your arms when you're drinking it you realise that

Hear Me Roar (29:22)

Thank so much for coming on. We are really grateful and it's been really interesting to find out about what you've been doing and how you got there. How you went from teaching to treading the boards. And you just sort of accidentally...

Mrs Smith (29:23)

Yeah

Hear Me Roar (29:43)

came along and you ended up at Edinburgh Fringe. Yeah, whole new life. Who knew it?

Mrs Smith (29:47)

And

a lot of that is to do with if someone says would you like to and you for a second think yeah what just say yes for goodness sake just say yes and do it

Hear Me Roar (29:58)

Yeah. Yeah.

That comes across in a lot of our podcasts. A lot of our guests have said that. Just say yes. Grab the opportunities. Don't turn anything down. Say yes and then see what happens. Worry about how you're going to do it later. Just do it. So yeah. Very strong theme. Right. Well, thank you so much for coming on.

It has been absolutely brilliant. And we can't wait to come and see you live. Yeah, we are. We're bringing our autograph. You bring the naughty step. You bring the naughty step. We'll sit on it. With a cocktail. With a cocktail. Right. Thanks a lot. yeah, well take care and we'll see you soon. Thanks. Bye.

Mrs Smith (30:27)

Just bring me a cocktail!

Fine by me.

Yeah, thank you very much.

Bye.

Hear Me Roar (30:45)

Bye.