Jay Foreman is a comedian, YouTuber and singer-songwriter. He’s most famous for his series Unfinished London, in which he takes an extensive look at the history and future of London’s infrastructure, and Map Men, in which he and co-creator Mark Cooper-Jones discuss a wide variety of geographical subjects, from the geopolitical (what constitutes a country?) to the oddly philosophical (why is north up?).
To me, Foreman’s YouTube channel is endlessly rewatchable: his series present interesting information in bite-size videos with a wide range of comedy that is never predictable. It’s an amazing example of how many jokes you can add in so many different ways without ever straying too far from the actual topic at hand. As someone who enjoys creating and hosting absurd pub quizzes, his work is a huge source of inspiration.
(it’s hard to be starstruck over email, but I definitely got a bit giddy when he agreed to this interview)
You recently announced a Map Men book to be released later on in the year. First of all, congratulations! What were the challenges in translating the often visual comedy of Map Men to a book format?
Thanks! That’s a very good question indeed, and it’s the one we’ve spent most of the book-writing process trying to answer. It’s a delicate balance. On the one hand, we want people reading it to feel like it’s definitely come from us, and more or less recreate the sensation of watching a Map Men episode. On the other hand, it shouldn’t just feel like a video script. We want to make use of our new medium, and be sure to include lots of stuff that could only work in book form. Neither of us has written a proper book before, so we’re learning as we go. The biggest difference between the two formats that I’ve discovered is that there’s no hiding place for subtle jokes. In our YouTube videos, we stuff in loads of background jokes in tiny text that you need to pause to read, or even notice. But in the book, every word gets read the same. So, it’s all got to be good.
On the topic of visual comedy: in your videos, you will go to great lengths for little comedic moments. What is the most work that’s gone into the smallest joke?
Off the top of my head, the most absurd amount of effort we put in for the shortest sketch was hiring a drum kit, which involved searching for days online, driving across town to put it in the car, taking it out again, practicing putting it together, painstakingly assembling it in the studio, all for an incredibly short cutaway where I play a single “ba dum tish” after a bad pun. It lasts a grand total of precisely 25 frames (one second) of video.
But the thing with YouTube is, it’s not live TV. Everyone has the ability to pause. In fact, the app rewards videos that get paused, it counts as increased viewer retention. So, counterintuitively, the less time it’s there on the screen, the more impact it has, and little efforts like these are absolutely worth it.
What does the writing process look like on an episode of Map Men? And what would you say is a typical Jay joke and a typical Mark joke?
90% of the time it’s Mark who’s come up with the episode’s topic and done the bulk of the research – he’s the genuine geography (ex)teacher. But then we divide the topics between us and go away to write half the episodes each on our own. When we meet again (sometimes over Zoom, sometimes in person), we heavily edit each other’s work. Sometimes we have really silly arguments over what precise wording is funnier. By the time we’re done editing, each script has got so much of both our fingerprints all over it, you can’t tell whose episode it was anymore.
The writing process continues long after we’ve finished the script and moved onto the storyboard. Personally I find it much easier to make big edits and changes when it’s in storyboard mode rather than just text. This storyboard is put together with Premiere Pro – the same bit of software that produces the final video, so it’s immensely satisfying to watch the whole thing slowly come together.
Mark and I have learned to write in each other’s styles over the years, and we’ve become very aware of each other’s strengths and weaknesses. I tend to focus on structure, pace and storytelling, while Mark has a really keen eye for fine detail and accuracy.
Your wife Jade Nagi is listed as director of the episodes of Map Men. What exactly does the director do, and how does it relate to the writing process?
While Mark and I sometimes do filming entirely on our own, jumping behind and in front of the camera, it’s incredibly helpful having somebody else around to direct us. Partly because it practically saves loads of time that would otherwise be spent shuffling awkwardly around, but mostly because it’s great to have somebody else give us really important directions that we can’t judge for ourselves on the day. This role has been done by a few different people over the years, including, at different times, Mark’s wife and my wife. They’re both very involved in a lot of the decision-making around Map Men, often settling arguments as to whose version of a line is funnier.
Another very popular series of yours is Unfinished London, which you initially created in 2009 as a showcase when you were looking for work in television. Since then, the entertainment landscape and the role of television have changed dramatically. How have you experienced this shift, and is working in television still an ambition for you?
The more time passes, the easier this question becomes to answer. These days, 16 years after we uploaded the first episode of Unfinished London, it’s a simple no. We are incredibly lucky on YouTube to have found a keen and growing audience. The platform gives us all the creative control we could want, as well as the ability to make as much or as little content as we feel like, at any run time, and whenever we feel like uploading. We’ve started to branch out from YouTube into TikTok as well, and discovered a new audience there. Even if YouTube suddenly implodes overnight (fingers crossed it doesn’t) I still think we’ll continue to find our audience by publishing our content ourselves, whatever form that may take.
So much of what you discuss in Unfinished London could be (or already might have been) subject to change. Do you feel like it’s inevitable that you will need to release new episodes to address information that’s gone out of date? Or are you happy to let it be?
We try our best to make our episodes evergreen, so they can be rewatched years later and still be relevant. But inevitably, some of it goes out of date. For example, we made an episode about the history of trams in London, and ended it by confidently predicting that “all-electric buses are not coming any time soon”. That turned out to be bollocks. We also did an episode all about London’s cycling infrastructure back in 2018, which I’m very pleased to say looks very dated now, since London has started building loads more cycle lanes ever since. I’m also quite pleased that our video about Heathrow’s lack of expansion continues to be completely accurate more than ten years after we uploaded it. In general, I don’t think people come to our videos for up-to-the-minute news, so I’m happy for them all to be a product of their time.
A dear friend of mine has a huge fondness of public transport and can talk extensively about why certain underground networks (such as Barcelona) are so amazing. Do you have any favorite underground networks or other notable networks of public transport?
Obviously I’ve got a big soft spot for London’s transport network, cos it’s the one I know by far the best, and I live here. But I do love checking out videos about other cities across the world, to see what we can learn from them. I’m rather fond of Glasgow’s little circular subway. It’s also very satisfying to see updates from Toulouse, where I used to live. It’s great to see that city’s network expand so quickly.
More Jay Foreman:
Trying aerobatics with Tom Scott
Questionable
24 Hours to Escape the Country
Five Minutes with Jay Foreman
YouTube