On a humid summer day, Adam Buxton walks me through the songs on his debut album, Buckle Up. “There’s one called Standing Still,” he says, “which I wrote when I was feeling completely lost and hopeless. It’s about opening a packet of pasta and spilling it everywhere. I thought, Maybe I can throw in a joke about being a ‘fusilli billy’ to lighten the mood, even though the rest of the song is pretty raw—lyrics about how every morning I drink tea to quiet the thoughts I’m trying to suppress.”
What kind of thoughts? “The world overwhelms me,” he admits. “The worse the news gets, the harder it hits. I start spiraling—thinking I should drop everything and join Doctors Without Borders. But then I wonder, Is that really the best use of my skills? My wife tells me, Please don’t run off to MSF. You’re needed here. Besides, your podcast helps people too.”
At 56, Buxton strokes his salt-and-pepper beard thoughtfully. He’s traveled from his home in Norfolk—where he lives with his wife Sarah, their three kids, and their dog Rosie (a frequent guest on his podcast)—to meet at the Guardian’s London office. The Adam Buxton Show launched in 2015, the same year his longtime comedy partner Joe Cornish left to focus on filmmaking. During the pandemic, when isolation was at its peak, Buxton’s warm, easygoing conversations resonated deeply, earning him a devoted following.
Conversation matters deeply to Buxton. Raised in West London by his journalist father Nigel (travel editor for the Sunday Telegraph) and Chilean mother Valerie, he describes his dad as “gruff, pompous, conservative—constantly critical of everything I loved growing up,” while his mum was his “ally,” standing up to his father and nurturing his love of music and eventual career in comedy.
“Watching my parents, the issue was they didn’t talk enough,” he reflects. “Stubbornness and hurt feelings got in the way. That’s probably why I believe talking—even oversharing—is better than silence. Though sometimes I can hear my dad—or even my mum—in my head saying, That’s too much. Dial it back.”
Buxton’s openness invites guests to drop their guard. His friend Louis Theroux confessed to struggling with drinking during lockdown, admitting he often parented his three sons hungover. “I wondered if you could do the job drunk,” Theroux told him. “Maybe that’s controversial, but I’d say yes.” Singer Pauline Black shared stories of performing for speed-fueled skinheads in the 1970s, always braced for racist violence. Zadie Smith spoke about the “death terror” that drives her writing. How does Buxton navigate such varied conversations? “I’m just looking for a real connection,” he says.
Not all guests are famous. Syrian refugee Hassan Akkad recounted being tortured for protesting, then paying smugglers to cram him onto a dinghy from Turkey to Greece. When the overcrowded boat sank, he swam for seven hours to reach Lesbos.
“It’s important for people to talk about difficult things,” Buxton says. “I grew up with parents whose politics I disagreed with, but I still loved them. The problem now is everyone assumes the worst of each other. That’s the default—to assume bad faith.”Here’s a more natural and fluent version of the text while keeping the original meaning intact:
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Over the past few years, he’s experienced his first permanent fallouts with friends over politics. “It was really shocking when it happened because I tried to talk it through with them,” he says. “‘Surely we can discuss this?’ I said. ‘We have so much in common.’ It was upsetting and frightening when it became clear we couldn’t move past it. It really threw me for a while.”
[Photo caption: ‘Me, Joe and Louis in 1995, aged about 26, at our traditional Christmas Eve gathering at my parents’ place in Clapham.’]
He has written two memoirs: Ramble Book (2020), about his life in the 1980s and his father’s death in 2015; and I Love You, Byeee (2025), covering his TV career in the 1990s and his mother’s death in 2020. He cared for his father for nine months after his cancer diagnosis. “Before he moved in, I imagined we’d have deep conversations full of memories and closure,” he writes. “In reality, we were just two reserved men who preferred our own space.”
His mother’s death felt more sudden, even though her health had been declining for years. “You take the people who truly love you for granted,” he told Cornish in a podcast recorded months later. “I assumed we’d have more time together. Her death completely blindsided me.”
Hearing him process his grief has helped me with my own loss after my mother died. At the end of I Love You, Byeee, he thanks his mother for her love and apologizes for not asking more about her life. It’s a regret I share—questions left unasked, now with no answers. There’s comfort in hearing someone else voice that feeling. How is he coping now? “I’ve been deep in grief for a long time—looking at photos, talking to relatives, maybe dwelling too much and not moving forward enough,” he says. “I miss them terribly, and that feeling doesn’t fade. I’m surprised by how much it stays with me.”
One song still haunts him: Randy Crawford’s One Day I’ll Fly Away, which reminds him of his mother. “I listened to it the night after she died—it was one of her favorites—but this time I heard such darkness in it,” he says. “The lyrics—’I follow the night / Can’t stand the light / When will I begin / My life again?’—made me wonder where she might be now. There’s grief, and then there’s fear. The fear is worse.”
[Photo caption: Cornish and Buxton met at Westminster School in London and later formed a comedy duo.]
Buxton attended the private Westminster School in London, where he befriended Theroux and Cornish. While studying at Cheltenham College of Art, he began making self-filmed sketches for Channel 4’s Takedown TV, which led to The Adam and Joe Show in 1996. The show featured everything from toy recreations of The English Patient to footage of Buxton’s father exploring Ibiza’s nightclubs. While other shows like Spitting Image and Brass Eye mocked celebrities and politicians, Buxton and Cornish mostly poked fun at themselves.
The show ended after four series, and they later worked together on radio. With the 30th anniversary of The Adam and Joe Show approaching, would they ever make another TV series?
[Photo caption: The Adam and Joe Show.]
“Never say never, but it would be quite…””It’s weird,” he says. “Over the years, we’ve found that podcasts work well for us because we understand our dynamic in that space. We do our annual Christmas podcast together, and I don’t see that stopping anytime soon.”
With celebrity-hosted interview podcasts launching constantly, does he worry about his show’s future? “I don’t really think about it,” he admits. “I’m not on social media, I don’t track numbers—I just see if sponsors are still interested. Sometimes I wonder, if the money dried up, would I keep doing it? Probably. It’s fun. I’ll likely only stop when Rosie dies.”
From 2007 to 2009, he co-hosted a BBC Radio 6 Music show with Cornish, complete with playful jingles. His new album feels like a natural next step—a mix of “proper music” with humor, written over five years and produced by Joe Mount of Metronomy. The 15 tracks range from upbeat electropop about indecision (“Dancing in the Middle”) to bossa nova about drying dishes (“Tea Towel”), folksy musings on musical taste (“Skip This Track”), and jungle beats celebrating shorts (“Shorts”).
Though this solo project puts him in the spotlight, he still enjoys collaboration. “I love working with others—it’s about shared experiences,” he says. “That’s why I always wanted to do I’m A Celebrity. Now I get offers, but I might be too old. Not sure I could handle it physically.”
What if they offered a million pounds? “It’s not about the money,” he laughs. “I’d do it for free if the right people were there.”
He’s also open to more acting. In 2007, he had a small role in Hot Fuzz as a doomed journalist. “Maybe now I’m more castable as an older guy—some creepy roles? The dream is landing a part in a hit show, just showing up, not writing, and hanging out with talented people. That’d be great.”
Adam Buxton’s new single Doing It Wrong is out now on Decca. His album Buckle Up releases September 12.
