Adam Buxton and Joe Cornish built a cult following with their DIY Channel 4 show – but the pressure got to them. They reminisce over Britpop, getting cancelled and patching up their friendship
It’s a weird experience, meeting two of your closest
Friends for the very first time – even if it is over Zoom. Perhaps that sentence only makes sense to you if you’ve spent countless happy hours in the company of Adam Buxton and Joe Cornish, who have built, through their cult Channel 4 programme The Adam and Joe Show and various radio shows and podcasts ever since, a devoted fanbase, who consider themselves personally acquainted with the pair. That must be a weird experience. “Every now and again I’ll get a sense of people saying: ‘I don’t think you should have said that to Joe’ or ‘Joe was a bit mean to you there’ and I find that a little bit odd,” muses Buxton. “On the other hand, I get it. They feel as if they know us – and I think they do. They have probably spent more time with me than members of my family or friends.”
“They still don’t know the real you,” replies Cornish. “They know the special public face of Mount Buxton, not the unclimbable face that’s battered by winds and hounded by yetis.”