Ian Smith
The Comedian's Comedian Podcast
Stuart Goldsmith
4.8 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 14 May 2026
⏱️ 86 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week I’m joined by two-time Edinburgh Comedy Award nominee, Ian Smith! You may also know him best as the co-host of the Northern News podcast with Amy Gledhill, as well as appearances on Live at the Apollo, Have I Got News For You and on his own Radio 4 series, Ian Smith is Stressed!
He’s now back with Ian Smith: Foot Spa Half Empty - a sharp, surreal and painfully relatable look at stress, love, and the kind of life choices that include buying a magic spell off Amazon. In this episode we discuss:
- the brutal on-the-job experience that actually makes a stand-up
- the uncertainty of what actually leads to TV work
- learning the value of other comedians as “outside eyes” on your material
- why comedy as therapy is limited (but why it still helps anyway)
- the stuff that gets cut from The Northern News
- and we find out of Ian Smith is happy...
Join the Insiders Club at Patreon.com/ComComPod where you can instantly WATCH the full episode and get access to 20 minutes of exclusive extras including:
- how writing for The News Quiz taught him to write on demand
- why previews are meant to be messy
- and how deadlines remove self-doubt and force clarity in creative decisions
👉 Sign up to the ComComPod Mailing List and follow the show on Instagram, YouTube & TikTok.
Catch Up with Ian: Foot Spa Half Empty is on its final leg of the UK tour. You can find all the dates and more at iansmithcomedian.co.uk. You can also keep-up-date with Ian on Instagram, @iansmithcomedy.
Support our independently produced Podcast from only £3/month at Patreon.com/ComComPod:
✅ Instant access to full video and ad-free audio episodes
✅ 20 minutes of exclusive extra content with Ian
✅ Early access to new episodes where possible
✅ Exclusive membership offerings including weekly(ish) Stu&As
PLUS you’ll get access to the full back catalogue of extras you can find nowhere else!
Everything I'm up to: Come and see me LIVE, find out all the info and more at stuartgoldsmith.com/comedy. Discover my comedy about the climate crisis, for everyone from activists to CEOs, at stuartgoldsmith.com/climate.
Get in touch: If you’re listening and thinking ‘I’d love to work with ComComPod on getting something out there’ or ‘there’s someone you should absolutely have on’ - drop us an email at callum@comedianscomedian.com!
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to the show. I'm Stuart Goldsmith. This is episode 510 of the Comedians, |
| 0:23.4 | comedian podcast, and it's the first time we've had Ian Smith, which feels remiss. He's a two-time |
| 0:28.9 | Edinburgh Comedy Award nominee. You probably know him as the co-host of the Northern News podcast |
| 0:33.5 | with Amy Gledhill, as well as you'll know him from his appearances on Live at the Apollo on, |
| 0:39.1 | Have I Got News for You, and his own Radio 4 series, Ian Smith, is stressed. And I saw his show |
| 0:45.5 | foot spa half empty, and it is brilliant. And you can see why he just, can you say continually |
| 0:52.4 | after two nominations? Let's do it. You can see why he continually |
| 0:55.3 | gets nominated. It's really sharp and it's really surreal and like sort of unassumingly surreal, |
| 1:01.4 | like not big abstract surreal, but like lovely normal ideas in the mundane world that then sort of, |
| 1:07.6 | sort of, what's the word, spiral off into surreal stuff. And it's really |
| 1:13.2 | relatable. He has got lots of stuff on stress and love. And according to the press release, |
| 1:19.0 | the kind of life choices that include buying a magic spell off Amazon. Lots to enjoy there. |
| 1:24.6 | In the first half of this episode, we're going to discuss when conversational |
| 1:27.8 | stand-up starts to look too effortless. We'll talk about some of the brutal on-the-job experience |
| 1:32.9 | that makes a comedian. We'll talk about Edinburgh preparation and why it's still emotionally stressful, |
| 1:38.0 | even eight shows in, and we'll discuss the long game of trying to earn your confidence in comedy. |
| 1:43.6 | There's never been a better time to support the podcast, of course, so you can see the full video episode with Ian, as well as some extra content, tell you a bit more about that in the middle bit. And there's a new format, Stu and A every week, kind of personal little mini videos from me, and all of the, you know, all of the other nebulous benefits that you get when you think to yourself, God, I've been listening to this forever. |
| 2:03.8 | I should probably subscribe. Well, you probably should. Here's Ian Smith. |
| 2:12.1 | You are on tour at the moment with foot spa half empty, which is, is this like a sort of glittering jewel |
| 2:19.1 | in your stand-up canon this particular show? |
| 2:24.2 | Was this the big winning show, |
| 2:25.7 | or is it the show after the big winning show? |
... |
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