Ed Gamble and James Acaster: ‘The audience can tell there’s genuine enthusiasm’
With their Off Menu podcast, this comedy pairing have become the most beloved UK double act of a generation. Here, they discuss the show’s expansion, live performances and their favourite music of 2025
In conversation, as on their phenomenally popular Off Menu podcast, Ed Gamble and James Acaster are the ideal double act, ducking and weaving between each other’s observations with perfect comedic timing. Across the seven years of the podcast – where guests from the world of entertainment choose their dream meal for the zany Acaster and his straighter sidekick Gamble – it has been downloaded nearly 200 million times and become the topic of many a pub chat (you have your own dream menu written out somewhere, be honest).
Next year, Gamble and Acaster will bring Off Menu to the Royal Albert Hall for six sold-out gigs launching their new Tasting Menus segment, where a guest rates a surprise set of dishes. Ahead of the gigs, the pair discuss the expansion of the podcast, what makes them tick as a duo, and Off Menu’s impact on their careers.
Tell us about the Tasting Menus format and how you decided to expand the Off Menu card…
Acaster: We were trying to work out a way to get guests back on. Other podcasts can just have people on whenever. With this format, once they’ve done their dream [menu], you can’t get them back on and go, “Is that still your dream?” We didn’t want it to be too convoluted, so if we’re getting a guest back on, it’d be good to actually get a past menu back on as well and get a reaction to that. The first one we recorded was with John Kearns as a test, and we said that if it goes well, we’ll keep doing them. It flowed quite naturally.
Gamble: It’s a way of getting fan favourites back onto the podcast, and people that we know will chat well around any format, because it’s very loose. It’s just pitching more dishes at them, but it inevitably goes off in loads of different directions.
Who is the most requested returning guest from fans?
Gamble: Bob Mortimer is always pretty heavily requested…
Acaster: …probably on every TV show and podcast ever! [The Inbetweeners’] Joe Thomas as well. Someone told me on the Tube this week that we should get him back on.
You’re playing some sold-out Royal Albert Hall shows next year. Any plans to take to the house organ as I saw Sigur Rós do recently?
Gamble: We could play the podcast theme tune on the organ. You probably have to pay extra though so we’ll discuss the rates…
Acaster: We might be slightly further down the list of people that the Royal Albert Hall would like to use the organ than Sigur Rós…
Gamble: We might then play the Rugrats theme as the big closer…
The podcast is now on YouTube! It seems one of you is more excited about the prospect than the other…
Gamble: James is not interested in being on YouTube. This is mainly [producer] the great Benito, who is rightly thinking we should move with the times and put up video episodes, because that’s what everyone does. There’s been suggestions about doing some other things on YouTube, some food-based Off Menu content, but James does not want to do it.
Acaster: I don’t want to have to do extra content or look nice for the camera!
Gamble: I started podcasting in 2008 and you just looked like an arsehole and it was fine. Now, suddenly it’s like a TV show!
Acaster: Ben’s done a really good job today – he’s completely refurbed [our studio room], it looks great for cameras, and I couldn’t be more angry about it.
Gamble: It’s a fucking pain in the arse, to be honest. But we respect our fans, and thanks for watching.
How do you think your work together on the podcast has influenced your work as presenters and comedians separately?
Gamble: It definitely helps to sell tickets to both of our shows, but how it’s impacted me creatively is a harder question. I think I’m more willing to improvise and explore angles. When something gives you an audience that already knows you when they come, it makes everything slightly easier and gives you more opportunity to mess about.
Acaster: You become aware of how whatever you’ve been doing outside of standup changes your audience’s perception of things. Back in the day when both of us were on Mock the Week, we had an audience that probably isn’t the same audience as now. That’s not saying one’s better than the other, but you just do notice a different sense of humour and a different vibe when they come up to you afterwards and chat to you at stage door. Maybe you end up subconsciously writing for the audience in front of you, or sometimes there’s a comic deliberately pushing back against that to create some fun tension in the room.
Can you pinpoint how your chemistry has changed and evolved on the podcast since it began?
Acaster: The main thing that I think should be at the [core] of every podcast is that you talk about something that you yourself are interested in and want to talk about and hear about, and could stand to talk about over and over and over again. It has to be something that you like, and the audience can tell there’s genuine enthusiasm there. We recorded an episode today, and as the guest was describing the food, I didn’t have to fake being interested in it; I wanted to know more. When we came up with the idea for it, we weren’t thinking, ‘This will be our dynamic,’ but pretty early on those dynamics established, and it still feels the same. It has evolved a bit though. Sometimes when you have American or Canadian guests, often we fall into the role of Ed being my translator with them. We didn’t know when we started that Ed would be the one they look to, going, “You’re the reasonable guy.”
Gamble: I’m what Americans and Canadians imagine an English person is like. Then they meet James, and they’re baffled, so they have to look to me to be like, “It’s fine. I’m here. Here’s what this guy’s saying.”
Acaster: When I shouted, “Poppadoms or bread?!” they would look to Ed and say, “What did he say?” like I’m not there. Not once ever has a guest looked at me and said, “Sorry, what did you say?” They just look straight ahead and they say [to Ed], “What? What did he say?”
Gamble: But if they asked you, you’d just shout it again…
You’re both big music fans – what have you been spinning in 2025?
Acaster: My favourite records of this year are the caroline album caroline 2, the Water from Your Eyes album and the Nourished by Time album. I also think it’s been an incredible year for hip-hop – the Billy Woods album, the Earl Sweatshirt album, the Open Mike Eagle album… I’m very much looking forward to the Danny Brown one as well. I haven’t been to loads of gigs this year, but I went to see Cameron Winter. I’ve been listening to that album all year – it’s incredible.
Gamble: James starts talking about music and my brain translates it as, “Blah blah blah blah!” There is just so much in there. I’ve got such a bad memory with what I’ve been listening to, but the best gig I’ve been to all year is an Australian metal band called Battle Snake, who are incredible, inventive, genuinely funny and write banging metal songs. Metal’s about nostalgia anyway, so you can just put on something from 1999 and pretend you’re young again.