Julian Clary on easing anxiety: “I just forgot to have a panic attack!”
Happy Place
Fearne Cotton
4.6 • 15.2K Ratings
🗓️ 10 March 2025
⏱️ 67 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Can laughter ease anxiety? Comedian Julian Clary certainly thinks so. After living through some incredibly dark events and anxious times, he’s decided to choose to laugh and think positive thoughts.
In this chat with Fearne, Julian talks about feeling naturally happier and more comfortable in his skin as he got older. Most things, he says, just aren’t as important as you think they are, and that’s a freeing realisation. Julian also explains why he’s embraced causing outrage and even offence.
Fearne and Julian share how they’ve each combatted poor sleep, and the sleeping aids, medications, and techniques that have worked for them. Plus, Julian’s not a massive fan of therapy, so he turns the tables on Fearne and quizzes her about her experience of it...
A Fistful of Clary, Julian’s western-themed stand-up tour, will be heading out round the UK from 30th April. Get your tickets now: julianclary.co.uk
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, a massive welcome to Happy Place with me Fern Cotton. |
| 0:05.0 | This is the show that embraces laughter in difficult moments in life. |
| 0:09.0 | Today, I'm chatting to Julian Clary. |
| 0:11.0 | It would be unusual if you hadn't had loss. |
| 0:14.0 | I mean, I did happen to live through that difficult time. |
| 0:18.0 | Lots of people were dying of AIDS and there was a incongruity with being |
| 0:23.4 | a comedian and that was your job going out to make people laugh when awful things are |
| 0:28.2 | happening at home but that's the great therapy of comedy is that you can only learn that's |
| 0:33.7 | why I like being on stage it's such an escape you know because your brain can only think about one thing at a time. |
| 0:39.3 | So for those few hours, I was in a happy place. |
| 0:44.5 | Do you want to hear about a great parenting fail I did the other day? |
| 0:47.2 | Of course you do. |
| 0:48.0 | So I thought, I know what I'll do with my kids when I, because I want them to be off screens, |
| 0:52.1 | basically get them out the house, do anything. I booked one of those terrifying tree top experiences where you do sort of, you like walk on rope ladders really high up and stuff like that. |
| 1:03.8 | And I booked, by accident, here's the fail part, because otherwise it would have been lovely, the adult course rather than the child friendly one. |
| 1:11.7 | And I got there and my nine year old was like, you've booked the kid one, right? I was like, |
| 1:14.7 | hmm, was there that option? I think I just pressed the thing that said book. Get there. I've booked |
| 1:20.2 | the adult one. She's really freaking out. But my son who's 12 is desperate to do it. Me and my daughter get up there. My son is running around this thing. We are so high up. |
| 1:29.1 | Every time you step on a wobbly bit of wood, your brain says, |
| 1:32.2 | what are you doing? |
| 1:33.2 | You should not be up here. |
| 1:34.7 | My daughter was having a slight nervous breakdown. |
... |
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