Facebook Live with Robert Webb Thursday 31 August, 1pm

[RachelMumsnet]

We'll be live on Facebook with comedian and Peep Show star Robert Webb on Thursday at 1 when he'll be joining us to discuss his recently published memoir How Not to be a Boy. Reflecting on his own experiences, Robert will be addressing some of the common stereotypes bestowed on boys and men and asking how true - and how helpful - they really are.

Join us live on Thursday at 1 to put your questions to Robert. If you're unable to join at that time, please post up your Qs on this thread and we'll try and get as many Qs as possible to Robert on the day. Everyone who posts a question or comments during the Facebook Live will be entered into a draw to win a signed copy of Robert's book How Not to be a Boy

Did you find "your tribe" when you started university? Did you feel like you belonged?

I'm off to have a look at this book because having two ds, I think I'll find it interesting.
Ds1 who is 15 has just binge watched Peep Show. When I told him you both went to Cambridge he laughed and said 'fuck off.'

Hello Mr Webb
Not on Facebook so will ask on here:

Why (after LDFCR) have you not done Strictly?

Looking forward to seeing Back.

I enjoyed your sketches (Nazis/Numberwang/Conspiracies in particular)
and Magicians. I even watched Confetti (and still think you and Olivia should have sued).

So a "minty" question. I don't care about pundit shows/ads or the like, people have to make a living and anyone who says otherwise is up their own arse but who came up with the title Robert's Web?

Finally, talking of titles, what made you come up with how not to be a boy and the chapter headings? and is Caitlin Moran suing you?

Thanks in advance

Another thing...Talking it over/Love etc (Julian Barnes). You, David and Olivia would be perfect casting for an adaptation on screen or stage.

^ Fuck. I almost forgot... so have you ever considered theatre?

Such a shame I don't use Faceache.

Sell me your book, Robert. As a mum to a teen and a tween boy, why should I buy it? Will I still go all wibbly at you after reading it, and be filled with some marvellous insights, or will I simply laugh in recognition until I decide that a change of jeans is prudent?

As a young man, how did you get into acting? My younger brother is very quirky but absolutely hilarious. He is currently wasted in advertising but doesn't know where to start in regards to getting into comedy. Any tips would be hugely appreciated!

I haven't got a question for Robert, but I just wanted to say that the poem his wife wrote about him, All Kinds of Trouble (which he read out on his TV programme on poetry in 2009), was one of the loveliest things I've ever heard.

How do you balance having young children and what must be a pretty busy professional life? TV & comedy don't exactly sound like family friendly hours that fit around the school run!

Follow-up question: how do you and your wife balance your careers, and whose career gets more focus/how do you work out who gets time and peace to sit down and write?

No question, I just wanted to say you are fab! You've always made me laugh

Why are you always sooo sarcastic?

(Luckily we enjoy sarcasm in this house - a little too much maybe)

I'd just like to share this video of Robert Webb on Channel 4 News and to say WELL PLAYED.

Hello, love your work and have just seen the C4 interview shared on fb so will definitely catch up with the fb live tomorrow.

My question: What would your top piece of advice be for a sensitive, quirky 11 year who hates and is rubbish at football, and is starting secondary school next week?

Hello, I've just shared your C4 interview on Facebook, 'the trick' is the problem and it's great your 6 year old identifies that!

My question: I have a 3 year old boy. How can I teach him emotional skills (being able to express himself, knowing when he's upset)? The suicide rate for young men is staggering and I want to do my part to raise an emotionally adjusted male. I suspect there are things I'm doing wrong without realising.

Really enjoying the book (started binge reading it at midnight) after hearing bits on R4, your interview on R4 and now catching all the press about it. Actually enjoying may not be the right expression as the young you sounds so much like my 11 year old son that it's affecting me quite profoundly, and I stood before my keyboard weeping earlier at the excerpt about your mother's death in the Guardian (said boy came up and offered me a hug).

So how do we break this 'trick' - Ive been harping on about it for years - probably it's sharper in focus for me as I have a boy who is very sensitive, who prefers to dance than play football, who would rather sit cuddling a cat and wondering about how to save the Cloud Leopards than smash stuff up with big sticks, and who openly states that he 'hates quite alot of humanity' because of the aggression and misogyny he sees around him. Yet who knows absolutely that he is a boy.

Grayson Perry said that that the cult of masculinity is most heavily policed by men themselves - the anger Ive seen vented towards you today on twitter for admitting this toxic gendering has almost exclusively been directed by men, although Ive seen a few transactivists pile in too (an ideology which itself relies upon reinforcing the stereotype) - Men haven't had a movement like feminism, the Men's Rights Activists do not equate - they are more about knocking women back into the kitchen - there is no drive to allow men to be able to 'own' the traits and sociological symbols that would have typically been labelled as feminine, and I think that is a huge shame, and greatly damaging to men, who do not have the emotional vocabulary to express those repressed feelings and gentler side of their personalities, and probably responsible for the horribly high suicide rate of men.

How do you see a movement like that taking off? Im sure the feminists would love to support it too, seeing as it is about smashing the idea of gender, allowing boys to be happy and girls to get good jobs.

I'm interested how the stag do of your gay friend went? I asked on twitter but to know avail. Was it very fun?

Looking forward to seeing you at the glee club on weds! 78421754 is that numberwang?

Are you looking forward to competing in the Remain Indoors quiz show? Can't be long until The Event now with Trump, Putin and Kim Jong Un around. REMAIN INDOORS.

Hi Robert, I've managed to catch a few scattered moments of your Radio 4 reading of your book. You were excellent. The part about your mother today, had me in tears.

As a mother to both daughter (3)
and son (1), I've noticed some early aggression in my boy, which was not present at the same age in my girl. Do you think that this is purely down to personality, or perhaps something to do with sex? We're constantly teaching him to be 'kind' and 'nice', but what if this is not a product of a frustrated toddler who doesn't quite yet have the language to express himself, but a trait of something bigger that that? Perhaps some primordial behaviour that might serve him well in a testosterone fuelled man scape he will one day grace with his (gorgeous) presence?

I cannot waiiiittttt to read this ... I love Robert Webb as a comedian and i saw him talking about this memoir on ITV news and it intrigued me immensely, he was so candid and open when explaining his reasons for writing it.

Hello Rob, love you, love David, heard some bits of the book on R4 and it sounds like something to return to properly at a later date (mother to a 'sensitive', cuddly 6 yr old boy who owns more soft toys than you'd think possible, but who still loves shooting things with pretend guns!) but one thing I've always wondered, even though it sounds really trite now that I'm about to type it out (3/4 of the way through a bottle of Riojal), but how do you feel about the comparisons between yourselves and Armstrong and Miller? (Says a middle-aged woman who grew up with the Naked Vets...)

Was that a whole sentence? Again, apologies...

My DH was at Cambridge with you. I asked him if he watched you in the Footlights and he said no, Footlights didn't have anyone famous in them so he didn't bother going

What do you think of the next generation of Footlight stars, i.e. Phil Wang and Daphne?

Hi all! Thanks for all your questions so far - for whose of you able to join us at lunch today, the Facebook Live with Robert Webb is at 1pm (not 12.30).

Keep your questions coming and find out what Robert says live on Facebook from 1.

I've been listening to you on R4 this week and the book's on Christmas list for DSis who has 2 boys.

We have quite a few quiet, arty, non sporting, thoughtful. kind and gentle boys/men in our family and we love them the more for it! Recently had to buy a 21st birthday card for a nephew and was irritated and not a little depressed that they all seem to contain jokes about drinking too much beer, farting, and staring at women's tits.

You have 2 daughters - would you and your wife have parented a son any differently to how you have parented your daughters?

Oh, and why hasn't there been another series of Ambassadors?

Are we allowed to ask about the new sitcom BACK ?

Was this written specifically for you and David or did the writer come up with the idea first ?

Very much looking forward to watching it for many reasons, not least that DH's adopted brother has recently had to move in with us due !

I loved Peep Show and Rev, so fingers crossed that this is as big a success. I should also add that I live in Stroud, where this was filmed, so am very much looking forward to spotting local landmarks. Hope you liked our little town!

Thanks to all those who posted up Qs. We did manage to put some of them to Robert. Watch the Facebook Live here.

I really enjoyed that, thank you, and you asked my question! I shall pass on the avoiding the football advice to DS1, I think he'd appreciate it