Ep. 554 - John Thomson - Best known for The Fast Show and Cold Feet
My Time Capsule
Cast Off Productions
4.8 • 842 Ratings
🗓️ 19 January 2026
⏱️ 70 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
John Thompson is best known as a principal cast member of The Fast Show. He went on to star in the hit ITV drama Cold Feet as Pete Gifford. He studied drama at Manchester Polytechnic where he met Steve Coogan who secured him a job on Spitting Image and they continued to collaborate on many comedy projects over the following few years. The two won the Perrier Comedy Award in 1992 .
John Thompson is our guest in episode 554 of My Time Capsule and chats to Michael Fenton Stevens about the five things he'd like to put in a time capsule; four he’d like to preserve and one he’d like to bury and never have to think about again .
Follow John Thompson on Instagram @johnthomson2 .
Follow My Time Capsule on Instagram: @mytimecapsulepodcast & Twitter/X & Facebook: @MyTCpod .
Follow Michael Fenton Stevens on Twitter/X: @fentonstevens & Instagram @mikefentonstevens .
Produced and edited by John Fenton-Stevens for Cast Off Productions .
Music by Pass The Peas Music .
Artwork by matthewboxall.com .
This podcast is proud to be associated with the charity Viva! Providing theatrical opportunities for hundreds of young people .
To support this podcast and get all episodes ad-free, please sign up here - https://mytimecapsule.supercast.com. All money goes straight into the making of the podcast.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to my time capsule. My name's Mike Fenton-Stevens. And once again, |
| 0:16.3 | my time capsule is the podcast where people tell me five things from their life they wish they had in a time capsule, four things they cherish, and one thing they'd like to bury and forget. And that's it. My guest in this episode is John Thompson. John is an English comedian, narrator and actor, best known for his roles in The Fast Show, men behaving badly, cold feet, |
| 0:39.3 | 24-hour party people, Grimsby and Coronation Street. While at university, John met Steve Coogan, |
| 0:46.6 | who secured him a job on Spitting Image. They continued to collaborate on such programs as |
| 0:51.7 | The Dead Good Show, a 1993 Granada TV pilot, also starring |
| 0:56.2 | Carolina Hearn, Coogan's Run, The Paul and Pauling Calf video diaries, in which he played |
| 1:02.1 | Fat Bob, and Knowing Me, Knowing You, with Alan Partridge, for which he also wrote. |
| 1:07.8 | John also appeared in Steve's live shows as Compaire Bernard Reiton and the two |
| 1:12.9 | performers reunited in the 2002 film 24-hour party people. They also won the Perrier Comedy Award in |
| 1:20.4 | 1992 for their act at the Edinburgh Fringe. John played supporting roles in the first series of |
| 1:26.7 | Stuart Lee and Richard Herring's TV show, Fist of Fun, |
| 1:30.5 | and in 1994, most memorably, he appeared in the BBC sketch series The Fast Show, |
| 1:35.8 | remaining with it until it ended in 2001. |
| 1:39.2 | He played characters such as Chip Cobb, The Deaf Stuntman, and Roger the Nouveau football fan, |
| 1:45.2 | but it's as the Jazz Club host, Louis Belfour, that he is most remembered, |
| 1:50.1 | with the catchphrase, nice. |
| 1:52.6 | John also appeared in the Fast Show Live and the spin-off Ted and Ralph. |
| 1:56.9 | He played Pete Gifford in the ITV comedy drama Cold Feet, |
| 2:00.3 | which earned him a nomination for Best Comedy Actor at the British Comedy Awards in 2001. |
| 2:06.4 | In 2015, he joined the cast of After Hours as lovable Jeff, reuniting with his old friends, Craig Cash and Carolina Hearn, who played his wife Sheila. |
| 2:16.7 | He was a contestant in the 2013 series of Celebrity Master Chef. |
| 2:20.9 | His voice can be heard narrating a number of popular TV shows, |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Cast Off Productions, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Cast Off Productions and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.