Outtake: Simon Amstell on Grandma's House, family, and self-discovery

Does the show help you embrace yourself and your personality more?
I found out who I was writing that show, especially in relation to my family. I discovered why I feel exactly the way I feel about my mother and various other members of my family. I realized why certain things in my life had happened, why I ended up in certain relationships based on my relationship with my family. Now that's all happened, I don't feel any need to write a third series. Sorry, but I think I've written all the pain out of me, all the confusion has lifted. It's been the most wonderful thing, writing that series.
Is that also why you opened up more about your family in Numb?
Oh, I talk about my father. In the first series, the father character pops in for one episode, and that was such an explosive episode we couldn't really bring him back into the house after what happened in the first series. And so I don't talk about anyone other than my father in the stand-up show, because that felt like the only thing left I had to resolve.
So that was a huge part of the growing process?
I went on a course years and years ago, and they said, "You have to complete with your past so that your actions in the present are coming from possibility rather than a response to what happened in the past." You have to understand all of those things that happened in your childhood. Otherwise, you end up marrying your father or mother or the opposite of them, neither of which is a choice, really. Both of which are sort of direct responses to past trauma.
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