Sean Lock, Jimmy Carr and Jon Richardson play Carrot in a Box on 8 out of 10 Cats Does Countdown.

We’re very happy to welcome back writer, comedian and podcaster Kevin Day (@kevinhunterday) back to the show to talk comedy, football and more.

The reason we wanted to have Kevin back on the show was to discuss the British panel show on TV, following the death last year of Sean Lock. Kevin worked with Sean on a number of shows and has written for dozens of shows including Have I Got News for You, 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown, Here Comes the Buzzcocks and many more. We talk about why they are so popular in the UK and haven’t really worked as well in the US. But we do talk about one of the shows that has succeeded in both places and that’s Whose Line Is It Anyway. We talk about improv comedy, the genius of Paul Merton and Tony Slattery, among others, the culture of improv in the US vs the UK and the challenge of doing improv vs stand up. We also talk about the problems of diversity in booking panel shows and the difficulties of avoiding tokenism.

We also talk about podcasts as a means for young comedians to get exposure and segue that into chatting about comedians doing football podcasts, including Quickly Kevin, Comedians Playing Fantasy Premier League and, maybe the grand dame of the genre, The Tuesday Club. We also reminisce about Kevin doing the Chappers podcast more than a decade ago with Mark Chapman, Graham Poll and Roy Meredith.

That leads into actual football chat. We recorded this on Transfer Deadline Day, but not much talk about that. We discuss the arrival of Patrick Viera at Crystal Palace and how much Kevin is enjoying the football at Selhurst Park this year, the rivalry (derby?) with Brighton and the challenges that brings with hosting The Price of Football with Seagulls supporter Kieran Macguire. We also talk about the proliferation of London football clubs, rivalries and tribalism and comparing that to American sports. (Disclaimer: I accidentally swapped Alabama and Auburn in my story and flip-flopped the fandom of the tree killer in that heated blood feud. My apologies to the fans of both teams.)

Kevin is always a great guest and we hopefully to get back in the near future to continue the chat about British sportswriting vs American sportswriting and the other stuff we ran out of time to discuss.