Hello, my name is Jameela Jamil.
And as I Weigh community has continued to grow, it was really important to me to continue the mission of passing the mic to other activists
in order to share their stories and perspectives from around the globe.
Jamie Windust is not only a young trans writer, cultural commentator and model based in London,
but also just such a joy to learn from and with.
In this series In Their Shoes, Jamie asks an array of guests about the obstacles they've overcome to live life to the fullest in their shoes.
It is a show about obstacles, perseverance and spirit.
It's a bit silly and irreverent, but mostly just fun.
And I'm so excited for you all to enjoy it with me.
I stand up because my guest today also does stand up.
Today, I am joined by the effervescent Tom Allen.
Hello.
I will sit down.
I had to stand up just because of my clothes.
Well, it's a fabulous outfit.
[Jamie] Thank you very much.
Is it more comfortable standing up or sitting down?
Standing up.
Sitting down I'm.
It's asphyxiating.
It's, my tits are through my chest, which is where they should be.
Yeah, that's perfect.
Well, thank you for sitting alongside me.
It's my pleasure.
Now, I want to talk to you about something that I think we might both have in common.
Oh no, look, you can get it sorted. Just go to the doctor.
No, go on. What is it?
Exuberance through fashion.
Well, that is
that is very flattering that you consider me to be that.
I hope I'm a little exuberant.
Come on you've got a mustard sock on.
Well I'm glad didn't go unnoticed.
When I was a teenager, I loved the idea of tailoring in a very old fashioned way, in a very formal, starchy way.
And
Starchy.
I love starch.
I love a starched wing collar, a detachable one.
You have to, is there anyone laundry left that doesn't?
I love it when you see people from sort of late Victorian through to kind of the end of the second world war
they would wear high wing collars, starched.
Right up.
Can't move.
and then often have a tie with it.
Not a bow tie, but just a necktie.
Because I do know this about you.
You enjoyed a Victorian getup.
Yeah, I would dress in Victorian clothing as a teenager to try and distract people from the fact that I was gay.
Which, looking back you know, I don't know how well thought through that was.
A top hat and a cane screams heterosexuality.
No one's going to suspect a thing.
Did you find it transported you somewhere else because you didn't want to be where you were?
Well, fundamentally, yes, that was what it was.
There was no means to express it because it wasn't a time when people really talked about their sexuality.
With no means to express it, I think I just I
I turned my discomfort in on myself and really I just wanted at that point to be anybody else at any other era.
And so I wanted to be transported to another era in the past, which of course would have been much more oppressive.
I could imagine you up a chimney.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
*Oo la la.*
Well, that's the other thing isn't it whenever anybody fantasizes about living in a previous era, they're always in a sort of very, like, high status kind of luxury.
You know, this segment of it.
Yeah.
Which of course is very unlikely.
The majority of people were having a miserable miserable time sweeping chimneys.
I mean, I imagine the Bromley children of the Victorian era were not the elite.
No, I didn't think they were.
I didn't know what Bromley was at that time.
I think it was just a market town on the you know, on the way to London.
So I probably would've been, you know, trading in hay or something.
Hay.
I mean.
Hay for sale.
Which in a way is what I do as an adult.
Gay for hay.
I'm hay for pay.
That would have been the name of my market store.
Hay for pay.
Hay, for pay. Yeah.
Only time travelers would have understood what it was a reference to.
What did you think the reaction was?
Because I think sometimes fashion can be a bit of an icebreaker slash a bit of a Marmite.
Because with me it either makes people want to be like, hello. You look amazing.
Or it makes people want to be like die.
Right. Right, right. Yes.
Did you find it nourishing or did you find it kind of polarizing?
Did you think people were kind of torn by it?
I think I felt that in this life you can feel different and you can try and hide it.
Or what I feel is I should just go to the total opposite and go, I feel different so I'm going to be as different as I can be.
Yes.
And so that, I think, was one of the motivating factors.
Looking back, maybe it was a strange way behaving, but it's nonetheless what felt right.
It got you here.
That's the main thing.
[Jamie] Right here.
On this chair, which I love.
On this Oliver Bonas chair.
How have you found now, because style evolved, have you-
do you still see fashion as something that you use as the outlet to be like this is as me as I can be?
Well, I don't know if you relate to this, I felt very much like I'm going to do this.
This is going to be my thing.
But I know that if anybody had gone,
"Oh, yeah, I feel like that, too. I'm going to dress in Victorian clothing."
I would have murdered them.
No I get that because if anyone if anyone else like with my face whenever I see people copy my face.
And that's what it is it's copying.
Yeah.
Blatant, flagrant plagiarism.
Only I invented blush.
Yes everybody knows that.
Yeah you feel very kind of protective of those things.
Yes.
[Jamie] It's like your armor.
Yes, I think so.
Formal, late Victorian, early 20th century clothing is my thing.
It's your thing.
My thing.
Only you invented the suit.
So what I'm saying there is I invented the suit.
I think with fashion, though, it can be quite internally difficult.
Like for me, getting to a point where I was like, "I don't give a fuck."
Right.
Because you essentially have to overcome your internal shame.
Did you find comedy a route out of shame?
At times I thought it was a means of hiding myself again and putting on a performance.
And then actually I think I only really hit my stride with stand up when I went,
"Oh, I only tell stories about the things that I'm ashamed of."
Yeah.
And that's kind of led me to the book as well. Talking about shame.
We spend so much energy going, "Oh gosh, I can't believe I did that. Oh, I'm so embarrassed. I'm so different."
You know, I remember once I wore a bowler hat because I was going to London and I was getting on the train.
Obviously.
And one of my teachers got on the train and he was so embarrassed.
He like walked off like walked.
[Jamie] Off the train?
He walked into another carriage and sat down.
My teachers were embarrassed by me.
It should've been the other way round.
In comedy, so how did you do the flip of being like, "I'm going to tell stories that."
I think it was
"I was ashamed of but now I'm owning them."
I think it was just realizing, well, you know, sometimes audiences will like you, sometimes they won't.
You may as well just do whatever the hell you want.
To me at times it felt like I was screaming at my inner self, my inner child going,
"Look, you've got to you've got to get on board with you. You've got to like you."
There's only one.
That's all you're going to get.
You may as well try and enjoy that.
And it's sort of trying to I think message to myself of like, "This is who you are. You can be who you want to be."
My dad's always said, "The world takes you at your own valuation."
Whoa.
It's a good slogan I think.
Like a chartered surveyor.
For example, a chartered surveyor.
He is not a chartered surveyor.
What would my evaluation be?
Oh, very high.
Very high.
Very high. Right.
Low interest rates.
Well, they're at record lows.
How's my APR?
I would say it's like so many things set by the bank of England base rate probably not delivering a great return,
but that's the same the world over.
You are unlikely to make a high APR.
Good for borrowers. Not so good for savers.
I saw the other day you had MTV at your house.
But at your mum and dad's house?
I did MTV Cribs but I still live at home with my mom and dad.
How is that please?
Actually, a lot of fun.
And ridiculous considering that like the famous ones, are like Mariah Carey walking around her massive house with a salon in the basement.
And it's you in Bromley.
Showing them my mum and dad's water softener,
which they're very proud of, actually.
No shame.
No shame. No shame.
No shame.
The more non shaming you are the more people go,
"That person. They like themselves. I like them."
Yeah. Well, like, for example, like you as a 55 year old.
[Jamie] 55 year old.
Man.
Yes, I imagine in 18 years time.
Yeah. That might be how I'll feel.
Like for example living at home when I've spoken about that before.
[Tom] Yes.
A lot of people would think that's shameful.
Yes.
And it's like, if you just own it and you're like, "I might just go live at home. I don't care."
It's a funny comedy line.
Yeah like I say, it's just sort of reprograming some of those
well, for me, it was reprograming some of those kind of negative self thoughts.
Self thoughts? That doesn't make sense.
And exercise has helped me a lot with that,
and I would say I struggle when I'm busy, but making time for things like yoga, with yoga, with Adriene.
Yoga with Adriene.
I love her.
Yeah, it's very easy to fall into that trap, especially with like exercise.
When you do exercise for mental health reasons.
Yes.
It can quickly kind of fall into that like, "Oh, should I be doing it?" like
"Oh my body's changing. Let's keep going from my body rather than my mind."
I, that's so interesting.
I absolutely felt that and I've not had that articulated before.
And one of things I did during the lockdown was read up on codependency, which I'm told I am,
which I know a lot of people are
it is, you know, a wide thing that a lot of people have.
But essentially, as I interpreted it, it is like you
you don't do things for your own self.
You do things to get value, validation from other people.
Yeah.
Exactly like what you're saying I think.
That exercise, you start off going, "Oh, this is great for me and I feel great."
And then and then go, "Oh, imagine if I felt great and I felt that I looked perfect."
Which of course in my experience I've never been able to achieve the perfection.
It's lies.
It's true.
It's all true.
I don't know, then I'm somebody who's never really had a partner.
So I suppose I go, should I be more sort of trying to conform and trying to be a certain type so that I'll attract a type?
Yeah.
And then I go, "Maybe I quite like being on my own."
Well yeah. You've got Linda. You've got Mum and Dad.
I've got Mum and Dad and an inflatable co-host.
Thank you.
My name's Jamie.
[Jamie] With that codependency,
[Tom] Yes.
How did you.
Because I think it's two very different things.
One thing realizing that you may be codependent.
Yeah.
How did you then process you kind of trying to deal with that and kind of process that for you?
I think part of it is just checking in and going, "I don't, I don't know if I need to do that or what do I want to do?"
Sometimes all you need is just to go, "I need some downtime."
It's downtime.
You know.
Meditation.
I'm, meditation, yoga with Adriene.
I'm worth it.
But you can't have downtime, Tom.
No.
Because you are about to...
Die?
Die.
Yes. No you're about to another series called Bakeoff: Extra Slice.
Indeed, which I'm very excited about.
I actually find your show more interesting.
Bless you for that.
Because I love anything with teams.
Thank you.
And the stress level of normal Bake Off
Sorry, Just Bake Off
Bake Off: The Amateurs.
Yes, is not as intense as yours.
When they make the sugar.
The sugars showpieces are so tense.
And there's always somebody who smashes it on the floor,
which is terribly sad and heartbreaking.
Liam is normally sent in to do any kind of human connections work.
Yep.
And I'm normally there to make sarcastic comments.
But Liam was out of the room and so I had to go in.
It was terrible I was trying to pick up bits off the floor.
They were crying.
I was suggesting they make a brooch.
It was, it was,
it was an interesting experience for all of us.
I think, yeah, I find comedy very like with just like people.
[Tom] Yes.
Or just like socially or meeting new people like comedy is that route into just breaking the ice severely.
Yes.
How do you, do you find that quite difficult with your image?
Like do you find people expect you to just constantly be funny?
And then it kind of means that the conversations you actually want to have can't always be taken seriously.
I think that if you are human about it, then that's what people like.
Right.
You know, the classic example is of like a loved one dying.
And then somebody finds something funny and, you know.
Yeah.
In the, in the moments after.
Not immediately happens, but in the
as it happens, like hysterical laughter.
Not to sound like I'm, you know, some quote on a piece of driftwood in someone's bathroom, but there is happiness and sadness in every moment.
I think that it's all part of the same schema.
Schema?
Never used that word before.
Schema.
Schema, it sounds very German.
Ready?
I mean, I guess.
Jam then cream or cream then jam?
Jam then cream.
Jam then cream. Fine.
Matt Lucas or Sandi Toksvig?
How can I choose between my children?
Matt Lucas, because he's he's there now.
But I do love Sandi.
If you knee length hair for a day, what would you do?
Oh, swish everywhere.
Swish.
Like that.
Everywhere.
Would you rather spend the day handcuffed to me or spend the day with me handcuffed to you?
I'm very indecisive, so I'll be handcuffed to you.
You can-
Finally.
Show me.
Show me what did you get up to today?
Carluccios or The Ivy?
Toughie but it has to be up toe lucc.
I've been waiting to say.
Who looks better, me or you?
Oh, of course you.
Thank you.
How much wood would a wood cha cha if a wood could wood?
I would say approximately 25 kilograms.
Are you sure?
I don't know I've never met one.
Phone a friend?
Don't have any.
None who'd pick up a phone call.
Who answers their phone?
Jeez. It's not the nineties.
So we are four months away, Tom.
From 2021.
What do you have to look forward to?
I am very much looking forward to
well, I did mention, I think my book is coming out in November.
So No Shame is published on the 12th of November.
Also, I'm doing Bake Off: Extra Slice, which is the after show for the, as you say, main Bake Off show.
I do that. Joe Brandt hosts it and I crop up doing bits with the audience in their cakes they brought in.
Also, I'm doing There's Something About Movies for Sky One,
which Alan Carr hosts, and I get to sit next to Jennifer Saunders.
What else have I got?
Nothing.
Any tour? Going back on tour? Any thoughts of a tour?
I was planning, I was hoping to go on tour towards the end of next year, but that might be pushed back slightly
because so many people had to move their own tour from this year back.
Right okay yeah.
Unless I just do a series of matinees.
Pantomime.
And, of course, a constant pantomime, which basically my life is.
Well.
Pot kettle.
Well look I mean, it's
in a way, isn't life wonderful a pantomime?
What a lovely note to end on.
Oh no it isn't.
Fucks sake.