We speak to Mr Doodle ahead of the release of his documentary.
You can't stop his doodling! He even draws while chatting to us on the sofa about his life as Kent's best doodler.
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00:00Well, Sam is with me in the studio now, doodling away as well. I'll jump straight into it.
00:06Thank you so much for coming on to the show here, but tell me, why the documentary?
00:11So, basically, I wanted to make a film about the process of drawing on my house, and during
00:18that process, like, lots of different things happened, and whilst filming, it kind of took
00:23a different turn, and the final result ended up being more about, like, my life than just
00:28the house, so, yeah, sort of set it out to be like a ten-minute film for social media,
00:33and it ended up being this big, kind of full-length documentary about everything.
00:36I suppose that's quite reflective of the journey you go on as well. You start doodling, and
00:40then you do a huge house as well, so it reflects that journey too, but people look at the work,
00:46and you've said that you want it to provoke joy, and you want people to see the doodles
00:50and have this happiness from it, but there's sort of a darker side that unravels when watching
00:56the trailer specifically there, and I imagine the whole documentary where we're really looking
01:00inside your mind and seeing what that might be like, and the pressure, I suppose.
01:04Yeah, yeah, so, in sort of 2020, the work just kind of, there was loads of things going
01:12on, and I kind of tried to embrace the Mr Doodle character a bit too much, and kind
01:17of let it take over everything, and the film shows that process, and I think, yeah, with
01:23lots of creative projects and things, you kind of get so invested in it that you'd lose
01:27sight of everything else, and that's kind of what happened to me. I just couldn't stop
01:31thinking about the house and drawing over this house, and I thought it was going to
01:34be, you know, like, everything, and I was going to live in that, and I do live in it
01:39now, but it's just kind of, I just lost myself in it, really, and lost sense of reality in
01:44a way.
01:45And I have to ask, people would look at the house and think that would be so overwhelming
01:48for them. Of course, it's stark white there, but doodling on every single inch and every
01:53single surface, is it overwhelming? How do you and your wife manage?
01:56Yeah, we just really got used to it. I told her on the first day, you know, I met her,
02:01I was like, I want to draw in the house, and kind of warned her about what I was kind of
02:06hoping to do and stuff, and she just kind of got on board with everything, and we're
02:11really used to it. I mean, once you're in there, and you kind of live with it, it just
02:15feels nice, and it doesn't feel like how people might imagine it. They think it would
02:19give them a big migraine and make them dizzy, but you do get really used to it, yeah.
02:23In the documentary, you say you were born to draw, but you are a human being, so I suppose
02:28this is about your journey of trying to balance both those things?
02:32Yeah, I think, for me, like, kind of creating this character of Mr. Doodle, and kind of
02:38imagining I'm from Doodle Land and all these things, I've kind of built up this whole brand
02:43and persona, but just kind of spent so long doing that, that I didn't really spend enough
02:49time just being Sam, and through the journey I went on and making this film, it kind of
02:54helped me realise to not neglect that, and kind of spend time, you know, just being a
03:00normal person.
03:02And something that really fascinates me is you're talking about this personality, this
03:06persona of Mr. Doodle, and then also finding Sam within that as well, but if you were neither
03:10of those things, if you weren't Mr. Doodle, who would you be?
03:16I don't know, you mean if I didn't doodle at all?
03:21I guess, I don't know, I'd want to do something creative, something that feels like I'm putting
03:26some sort of expression into the world, maybe I'd be doing music or making films, I'm not
03:33sure really, animation or something, but it's hard to imagine I think, it's kind of, it's
03:38a huge part of my life, and I've lived with it for a long time now, so it's hard to think
03:43of anything else really.
03:44Amazing, and that documentary The Trouble with Mr. Doodle showing at the Ashford Cinema
03:48this weekend as well, just before we go as well, would you be able to hold that up to
03:52the camera so we can have a look at the last piece?
03:55It's a one line drawing, and it's just kind of weird things that come to my head, and
03:59I draw this way when I don't look at the paper, and this is kind of a little image of you
04:03in there.
04:04Amazing, we've got, Mr. Doodle drew me, amazing, thank you so much for coming in and sharing
04:10your story, of course airing this weekend your documentary, congratulations.
04:13Thanks very much.