Jon Richardson and Lucy Beaumont Interview – Jon and Lucy’s Christmas Slumber Party

Jon Richardson and Lucy Beaumont are planning a Christmas getaway for some of their closest friends: Roisin Conaty, Romesh Ranganathan and Rob Beckett. In a unique seasonal special, Jon and Lucy are joined by comedy buddies to eat, drink and have fun during a night away from the post-Christmas and pre-New Years lull as they remember the lull. ‘past year.

Here Jon and Lucy tell us about their comedians’ office party, who are the best at buying gifts and advocating for lunch.

Tell us about the Christmas slumber party and what we can expect from it.

Jon: I think Channel 4 wanted a hard-hitting news review of the year, but since we didn’t see anyone, we wanted to have a few drinks with some friends. It ended up being kind of a hostage-taking where we took the money from Channel 4 and locked our friends in a cottage and made them drink with us. Hope people get the heat out of it, it’s almost like watching a family reunion – there is tension, people who are late, people who are mad at the food, people who want to play games and people who don’t. There is a real traditional Christmas family atmosphere.

Lucy : It’s a blow to me when he says people who don’t want to play games. His family is like the Waltons, it’s not about freebies or anything, it’s just about playing board games with each other. While I want to sit down and watch TV on my own. I find it hard how nice they are to each other, its not about Christmas, you are supposed to be stressed and anxious and drink a lot on Christmas Eve and then have a hangover and a dispute.

Like John says, you very rarely get the chance to do stuff with your buddies, so it was like a sweetheart. We’ve all known each other for a long time, John and Roisin used to do gigs together when they started and me, Rob and Romesh did. With the comedians, you don’t have a working night, so it was like an office party.

Were they well behaved guests?

Lucy : Not really. Rob Beckett is mean and always wanted to keep it down.

Jon: Rob Beckett was like the ugly toddler who had clearly become very excited when he arrived, didn’t want to eat his vegetables, and only wanted to play with his toys. Romesh was sort of the cranky dad who tried to keep everything together.

Lucy : Roisin was like the aunt who treats her like a party and wants to let go.

Jon: I feel like the stereotype of the mother running around trying to cook everyone’s food, but everyone was ungrateful so I started to slip on and threw my bib on the floor.

Lucy : I was a bit like the distant father who dreamed of being elsewhere.

What kind of hosts are you? It wasn’t in your own house, so did that increase the pressure to keep things tidy?

Jon: I think it’s worse when you’re not in your own house because you’re more paranoid about breaking things. I am more relaxed in my own house because when guests come I only give them cheap dishes or glasses. You can tell how much I respect you by which glass you receive. If some people ask for a whiskey they will get a cut glass tumbler and some people might get an old plastic Batman mug. In someone else’s house, if someone breaks something, it goes on your deposit. I’m very paranoid about my Airbnb reviews, I have to get a good review to be a good guest. I was pretty tense all along to be honest.

So you had a big reunion with your friends, but in front of the camera. Has it changed anything?

Lucy : You totally forgot about the cameras, which is not necessarily a good thing.

Jon: We deliberately haven’t planned much either. There was a comfortable living room and kitchen and we just chatting and chatting, it feels very natural. I kept trying to get people to talk about the news of the year and they didn’t want to.

The show looks back on some of the highlights of 2021. How has this year been for both of you?

Jon: We were luckier than most, we managed to film our sitcom all summer when things were a little more relaxed. Our daughter was able to go to school normally, she is at the reception, we were certainly luckier than most. It’s that social side that you miss, the thing we haven’t done is go eat together or invite friends over. I think we’ve all gotten used to a new system where you don’t do these things and all of a sudden it seems like a big step to have people over for drinks.

Lucy : We did well, we worked a lot.

Jon: You can divide Covid and blockages into people who are lucky enough to have a spare bedroom where the partner who snores and has had everyone’s breasts that day can go and people who don’t. . We have this and there is a TV and we have separate Netflix accounts which I would really recommend this time of year.

The show airs on December 27th, what does that kind of downtime between Christmas and New Years generally look like to you?

Jon: This is the few that I look forward to this year. We are visiting my family before Christmas, we have a few people coming here for Christmas Day, and then we will go to Lucy’s family on Boxing Day. The 27th will therefore be the first day we will be home. I like it little when you have to eat all the food. It goes from not opening things up and saving them for Christmas all of a sudden on the 27th, having to eat everything before everyone gets back to work, then you start having stilton and sausage on toast for the little one. -breakfast. This is when I really come to life, that there is a deadline. I’ll have eight avocados with my lunch.

Have you ever argued over what to watch on TV on Christmas?

Lucy : It’s the only thing we don’t argue about, we have the same tastes. Anything from the working class, we love. We like British good deals in Blackpool and Great British Deals Abroad, Glasses box because it reminds us of people we know.

Jon: We don’t argue but we don’t watch the things we want to watch. It was up to me to watch sports every night and Lucy would watch Sunset sale is he called? You would exclusively watch property and lifestyle programming and I would watch sports – that’s the real meaning of marriage. We watch a lot of Glasses box and First meetings.

We expect to see a little edgy with your friends on Christmas sleepover. Is it getting messy?

Lucy : It gets complicated, I’ve been drunk from the start. They all make up for it. Roisin doesn’t drink but you would probably think she is the most drunk of everyone, she doesn’t really need to drink. I treated it well like my end of the year …

Jon: Roisin doesn’t drink and everyone has young children, so it kind of became a fad pretty early on. Romesh made cocktails when we arrived and this combination of alcohol, sugar and tired parents is deadly. We have a sugar high, then an alcohol high, then we have food and at that point it’s kind of crazy.