Mo Gilligan - That Moment When: Life Stories from Way Back Then

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First published by Ebury Spotlight in 2021

Copyright Momo G Limited 2021

The publisher and author have made every effort to credit the copyright owners of any material that appears within, and will correct any omissions in subsequent editions if notified.

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Cover design by Yoshitaka Kono

ISBN: 978-1-473-58920-9

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To everyone who has supported me on
this incredible journey so far.
Thank you
Youve changed my life.

This book is a work of non-fiction based on the life, experiences and recollections of the author. In some cases names of people have been changed to protect the privacy of others.

Whos this Mo Gilligan guy, then?

Its a good question, a fair question and, if you have read anything about me in a newspaper or online over the last two years or so, you probably think you know the answer. There has been a history of me and my life put out there, and it runs roughly like this:

Young Black comedian. Grew up in south London. Worked in Levis. Did the Coupla Cans video online. Drake shouted him out and made him famous. Did some live comedy and went on television. The end.

Well, thats a great story for a Hollywood film, but the truth is that it hasnt really been like that. Or, rather, it hasnt been quite like that. There has been a whole lot more going on in my life than just that.

Life is all about moments. Or Mo-ments! Mo-ments when things happen. But things dont just happen of their own accord. You have to work hard at them. You have to grind away in order to become successful. Well, this book is the story of my grind.

Or rather, again, its more than that. Its the story of the grind before the grind.

That Moment When is the story of how Mosiah Gilligan turned into Mo the Comedian, then turned into Mo Gilligan. Its about the me that existed before I started doing comedy, as well as after. And its about the different sides of me that people probably dont know about.

Let me try to put it in food terms

My true story has got lost in media coverage, a bit like the dumpling in a bowl of the soup you get from a Caribbean takeaway. You know the feeling when youre poking around in the Styrofoam cup looking for it? Youre like, Woah! Wheres the dumpling gone?

Well, this book is like finding that last dumpling in the oxtail soup when you think theyve all gone.

That Moment When pulls out those hidden dumplings from my life. It fills in the story that people think they know. It says, Yeah, I worked in retail, and whats wrong with that? There are thousands of people doing that every day big shout out to them!

Because I was working in retail, yeah, but I was also hustling like mad to get my comedy career started. I was telling jokes at weddings, running my own comedy night, and travelling up and down the country to perform at shows when I couldnt even afford my train fare home.

This is the story of where I came from, how I began, the good gigs that I played and the ones that didnt go so well. The things I did right and the mistakes I made. Its about the Mo-ments that got me from where I started to where I am now: from being that young Black kid on a south London council estate to going viral with Coupla Cans, fronting The Lateish Show, joining The Masked Singer and, as I write this, having just sold out my first show at the O2.

Rah! How did all that happen to this Mo Gilligan fella? Well, this book explains it all and it starts in a time where the most important things in my life, after my family, were my friends and an adventure playground.

When youre a kid, your world is small and you know it off by heart. Life is defined by those small moments you share with your mates on the block, on the estate and down the road. Youre a little community and your friends are the only guys that matter. Its a time of freedom.

I sometimes think we spend our adulthoods trying to get that freedom back. It was so pure and good-spirited. When youre a kid, school might be shit, yeah, but everything else is fun. Playing is everything, fun is the only thing that matters and the most fun of all is playing out.

Playing out is what you live for as a kid. As an adult, you live for going to festivals and on holidays, or going raving with your mates. But when youre a kid, the summer holidays are the best thing because you get to play out for six weeks. Everybody playing out for six weeks! Man, it felt like it went on forever! It felt like six months! It was just the best time.

The crucial thing you needed to play out was a bike. We thought about bikes like kids think about consoles today. Nobody really had consoles as they were so expensive. It was all about having a bike. If you got a bike, it wouldnt be a new one. It would have been passed down to you by a brother or cousin. Off youd go, to the park and down to the woods. Sometimes, you didnt even know where you were going. You and your mates would cycle for hours. Youd get lost and take ages to find your way home. Sometimes, your parents wouldnt even notice youd gone. Other times, theyd be worried sick: Where the hell have you been?

And then youd be in trouble. Big time.

Wed cycle to Dulwich Park, which wasnt all that far, and have a mad-fun day. Wed have no money at all: or, if we were lucky, someone might have 50p and wed spend it on ice poles or onion rings. The taste of the summer, man!

If your bike ever broke, you had to figure out how to fix it yourself. Shit, how could we be fixing bikes? We were just little kids!

If you wanted to play out on your bike, youd have to make sure everyone else had their bike as well. Who wants to ride on their own? We had skateboards, as well, but not cool skateboards they were just like wide, flat, round planks of wood on wheels.

I grew up in Denmark Hill, south London. It was our playground. Wed go to the top of one of the hills around our estate and skateboard back down. Cars would be coming around the corner and we would be zooming straight towards them at 20mph. Our only brakes were our feet.