Two Mr Ps: Manchester teachers and podcasters head out on the road with hilarious tales from the classroom

Two Mancunians whose hilarious tales of life in schools have made them podcasting stars are hitting the road for a massive string of live dates across the country.

Lee and Adam Parkinson, better known as The Two Mr Ps, have become stars of social media and popular podcasters with their tales of the extraordinary things that happen to teachers both in and out of the classroom.

The brothers say they are loving their rise to success and are looking forward to a number of Greater Manchester shows as they enjoy a marathon 40-date UK live tour.

The Two Mr Ps spoke to ManchesterWorld about how they started sharing tales from the classroom, the unbelievable moments that teachers face and balancing entertaining their audience with side-splitting stories and staying true to their professional responsibilities.

Who are The Two Mr Ps and how did they start podcasting?

Lee is a primary school teacher who works in his hometown of Urmston while his brother Adam is a higher level teaching assistant at a school in Salford.

They were regaling each other with some of the funny stories from the classroom while sat around the pool on a holiday in Florida and wondered about sharing the tales with the public.

As Lee had been splitting his time between the classroom and offering training for teachers and had been listening to a lot of podcasts on his drives around the country to visit schools he thought this would be the ideal format for them.

The Two Mr Ps quickly became a success as Lee had been using social media to share lesson plans, resources and tips for teachers for some time and had built up a fair-sized following.

And over lockdown, with teaching remotely the norm and schools being shut except for some vulnerable youngsters and key workers’ kids, the podcast really came into its own and found a bigger audience.

Lee said: “A lot of people were feeling isolated, working in bubbles and not having that usual staff room interaction and banter.

“The podcasts filled that hole a little bit.

“We went to weekly episodes and it helped us with our own wellbeing as well. It was an opportunity to sit and chat through things. At one point we were averaging 100,000 listeners a week which was unbelievable.”

What sort of things do The Two Mr Ps talk about?

Lee says The Two Mr Ps talk about “the things every teacher thinks but they are probably too scared to actually say”.

They share anecdotes from classrooms across the country and anonymous tales of the things that happen to teachers in their lives - stories which have their audiences both hooting with laughter and probably sometimes wide-eyed with disbelief.

Lee said: “A good one is Show and Tell. You can kids proudly showing off a martial arts belt they earned or a man-of-the-match trophy in football and rugby but then you have kids bringing in an umbilical cord or a tub of toenail clippings.

“I also have a word of advice to parents, which would be, ‘please put a lock on that drawer in your bedroom’. You wouldn’t believe the number of vibrating Harry Potter wands that get brought into school and then you have kids running around the playground shouting ‘Expelliarmus’.

“It can lead to quite embarrassing conversations at the end of the school day when they come to pick up their child.

“Kids are the most unintentional comedians, they come out with the most unbelievably funny things. They say things that seem well-intentioned but can actually be the worst insults you will ever get. And it’s not a mate in the pub having a dig, you can’t say anything, you have to just stand there and take it.”

Adam said: “One of my favourite features of the podcast is Teacher Confessions, an anonymous confession of things they’ve done or witnessed.

“We had an absolute classic of an NQT, a newly-qualified teacher, who went out on a celebration, had a few drinks, met a lovely chap and went back to his house. She got up to use the toilet and out of the bathroom walked this lad’s dad who was her school’s head teacher.”

What are the live dates in 2022 for The Two Mr Ps?

Lee and Adam had live dates pencilled in towards the end of 2019 but before they could do the shows the Covid-19 pandemic hit and the dates ended up getting rearranged and rearranged.

Now, though, Phil Mack has taken the brothers on and they are heading out on a mammoth 40-date jaunt across the UK over the next few months.

Lee and Adam say they are particularly looking forward to entertaining audiences on home turf, with Greater Manchester dates at The Met in Bury on 5 March, The Old Courts in Wigan on 6 April, The Quays Theatre in Salford on 17 April and the Middleton Arena on 6 May.

The brothers are particularly looking forward to the date at The Lowry over the Easter weekend.

Adam said: “I actually got married at Salford Quays in the spiral glass room. Going back there to do a show alongside my brother who was my best man is a very nice thing.

“Our nanna Maureen, who’s 89, also has a big part in our podcasts and she’s a bit of a cult hero. We have a feature called Nan’s Opinion where we put questions to her. She’s comedy gold.

“She’s just buzzing every time she hears us or reads anything about us or if we pop up in the paper, and she’s always bursting with pride. Touch wood, all being well she will be able to come and see us at Salford.

“We’re proud Mancs representing the city so I’m hoping the shows there are going to be really special.”

How have they taken to performing live shows?

Lee said he came up with the idea for a live show after seeing a number of other popular podcasts getting audiences out to venues to see them perform.

Adam admits he was slightly doubtful at first but audiences have been flocking to see them and it is also an opportunity to share some of the more adult humour they receive or encounter which they would not want to put on the podcast.

Adam said: “I wasn’t really sure whether people would want to come and see us doing a live show. However, the reaction has been beyond anything we could have imagined.

“The nerves go away when you realise people have actually turned up. The worst part is when you walk into an empty theatre and you’re just hoping you won’t walk out on stage to find one person clapping.”

Fortunately, that has definitely not been The Two Mr Ps’ experience so far.

Lee said: “We did the first show of our tour in Glasgow and if the others are like that in terms of atmosphere and audience engagement it’s going to be unbelievable. They were amazing.

“It was a Tuesday night and Scotland wasn’t on half term but there were people going back into the school the next day having a few drinks and a good laugh.”

However, Lee acknowledges that despite his experience of presenting to audiences in his training work the live shows are not entirely stress-free.

He said: “When I’m sharing a stage with Adam I always feel he’s one sentence away from us getting cancelled. It puts me on edge. I’ve worked quite hard to create my business and build a platform and I’m putting it on the line.”

“I would love to stand up for myself, but he’s absolutely right,” is Adam’s response.

Taking their responsibilities towards education, fellow teachers and pupils seriously

As well as building up the podcast The Two Mr Ps have gone into print with their debut book Put A Wet Paper Towel On It: The Weird and Wonderful World of Primary Schools which will be out in paperback later this year.

They also have a follow-up in the pipeline and are working on a few other ideas to build on their success.

However, while they admit to loving “riding this wave and seeing where it takes us”, in Lee’s words, the brothers are also keenly aware of their responsibility to ensure their chosen profession is shown in the right light and they treat those working and learning within it correctly.

Adam said: “We get a lot of listener stories in but in the early days we were sharing personal tales from our own schools or our early working life. We are very careful about what we share.

“We’re both still working in schools and we understand our responsibility to our children and their parents.”

Lee said: “It’s not easy being a teacher and every teacher will admit Covid has been the most challenging part of our careers. Having this to switch off and appreciate the positive side of education is great.

“It can be very pressured and negative but we’ve had messages saying teachers find our podcast therapeutic.

“We are incredibly professional and will put our children’s education at the heart of everything we do in school, but we are also human and we do have lives as well and they can be quite humorous and have moments that make us cringe.

“We’ve had stories of teachers having too many on a night out and getting picked up in taxis driven by a parent of a child in their school.

“We’re very aware of our roles as teachers, but we like to show we are human and have a funny side as well.”