Alan Davies: As Yet Untitled (2014–…): Season 1, Episode 2 - Episode #1.2 - full transcript
Thank you.
Can't believe I'm finally
going on the Graham Norton Show.
Got a choice of shirt -
it's either blue or blue.
Thought I'd give it... Yeah ...
Alan? Alan?
Alan? Alan?
I think I've had too much fruit.
Hello, I'm Alan Davies
and welcome to "As Yet Untitled".
Tonight we will be chatting
with four guests -
well, I will be - you will be
watching that,
and there's no agenda.
There are no rules,
there's no... er,
running order...
You see what I did there?
We don't even have a title
yet for the show.
By the end of the evening,
I'm hopeful
we will have a title - this
is our minimalist aspiration
for the show, so let's get on with
it.
Please will you welcome my guests.
APPLAUSE
Now it's lovely to have you
all here.
All I have is a fact about
each of you on my cards.
So we'll start with
Jessica Hynes is here,
she's a supply of monastic footwear.
Jessica Hynes.
APPLAUSE
Phill Jupitus is here,
the inadvertent sketch comic,
Phill Jupitus.
Yes.
APPLAUSE
Richard Herring, the former
author of The Phone Book.
Yeah. He's often mistaken for
Charley Boorman.
Yeah...
APPLAUSE
And Jason Byrne, the legendary
stand-up comedian
who was once actually crucified.
Yes.
APPLAUSE
Are you a motorcyclist?
I'm not at all, no.
So it's the first time...
You're so like him. I'm offended cos
I think Charley Boorman
is a hideous looking man...
No! ..and I do not look like him.
He's a good looking man, I think.
And he's also very tall.
He went round the world with
Ewan McGregor on motorbikes, right?
He did, yeah. And...
Oh, you do look like him.
Do that again with your tea up.
Oh, you do look like him.
The first time it happened to me,
I didn't know who he was.
Someone, I was in the pub,
and someone came up to me and said
"Well done on The Long Way Round,"
and I went... I went, "What?"
He went, "You know,
Long Way Round."
I went, "I don't - I don't know
what you're talking about."
He went, "You know, when you
motorcycled round the world
"with Ewan McGregor,"
like I'd forgot!
"Oh, yeah! How could I forget that?"
You know, I said,
"I'm not him."
But I do, I think I must look
like loads of people cos I've also
had things where, I wrote some
Tweet about people being impolite
and then someone said,
"Well, that's slightly ironic given
"what you were up to in
Walthamstow Curry House last night."
And you kind of go...
That's Charley Boorman!
It's Charley Boorman!
Or someone else, I don't know.
But apparently there was someone
swearing and then I said,
"Well, that wasn't me."
But that's not... I mean, it's a
good defence for Operation Yewtree,
I think this could be. It could
work out. "It wasn't me"
Try and look like as many other
people as you can.
Do you know Dennis Pennis,
what's his real name?
Kaye? Paul Kaye. Paul Kaye,
so people thought I looked like him.
And I was in Edinburgh
in the Meadows playing just a bit
of pitch and putt,
and this guy game up on his bike.
He was about 14, he went,
"Here, will you sign my stuff here."
I went, "Yeah." He goes,
"Paul Kaye, is it?"
I went, "No,"
and he goes, "You fuckin' are."
And I went, "No, I'm not,
I'm Jason Byrne." "No, you're not.
"You're Paul Kaye,
sign that there right?"
I went, "I'm not."
He goes, "You fuckin' are."
So then I just signed it Paul Kaye
and he goes, "Told you."
And he just cycled off.
Did you hear about the one
that happened to me and Vinnie?
There's a comedian
called Andre Vincent
who looks an awful lot like me.
Hmm. He does.
And we were at a gig together.
And, er, a bloke a little bit pissed
came up to Vinnie
and started poking him and going,
"Oi, yeah, Never Mind the Buzzcocks,
eh? Eh?
"Ha-ha ha-ha" And for one time,
Vinnie was able to stand back
and go, and just pointed at me.
And this bloke looked at me
and goes, "No."
Oh, my God!
And the other one was
a woman came up to me,
again it was a drunk...
Was it me?
..at the races.
It wasn't you.
Came up to me at some races
and went, "It's you, innit?
"It's You! It's you, innit?"
And I'm like, "Yeah, yeah, right."
and then she goes "Monkey! Monkey!"
I'm like "What?"
"Monkey!" And she's really,
really, really annoying.
And in your head you think,
"How quickly can I get rid of her?"
And I said, "Yes, it's me, love!"
I was in, I went to Paris with
all my friends who are Arsenal fans,
for the Champions League final
in 2006, and, er, we lost.
So we're in a bar afterwards
sort of drowning our sorrows a bit.
And Ainsley Harriott was there,
who I know quite well,
he's a big Arsenal supporter
as well.
And we're in this bar and I've got
this one friend of mine
called Sean, who's black,
and there's him and Ainsley
are the only two black people
in this bar, right? Anyway,
this guy comes over and he goes,
"Jonathan Creek, innit?
"Is this it? You?
It is you, isn't it?
"Jonathan Davies, is it? Is it?
"It's shit, that.
Shit that show anyway."
Or something like that.
And then he turns to my mate Sean
who's not Ainsley,
and goes, "And your cooking's shit
and all."
So, so perfect.
And we all started going,
"Is that cos they all look alike,
is it, sir?
Ran him out the bar.
I'd been on TV doing a charity show,
my first ever TV appearance
over here, and it was just,
I can't remember even where it was,
for Amnesty.
So I'd only been on TV once
and I was in Heathrow,
and this guy came over and this is
word for word, he come up
and he went, "Hey, you? Comedian?"
I went "Oh, yeah."
And he went "Off the telly?"
Right? Like this. I went,
"Oh, er, well, yeah."
And he goes "Is that him over there?"
And he pointed at Rory Bremner.
And I went, "Oh, yeah, I suppose
he is, yeah."
And that was it, no recognition.
Did you fly from Dublin today? Yeah.
Uneventful flight? Yeah, nobody
died, there was nothing.
What airline? Ryanair...
No, we can say Ryanair.
We can say Ryanair.
I nearly got banned from Ryanair.
You got banned from Ryanair?
Nearly. I had to apologise
and then I was let off,
but I did apologise.
What did you do?
Or as part of the apology are we not
allowed to say what you did?
I waited for a long time for a piece
of equipment to help me
wheel my two small children
out of the airport.
One was a four-month-old baby
and one was a toddler.
Do you mean a pram? Your pram?
A pram.
Do you mean a pram, yeah?
A technical piece of equipment.
She was waiting for a Panzer.
When you said that, in my head,
I just seen...
It was sort of about that high
with wheels, four wheels,
something you put
the baby in.
But all I could see was two trolleys
with your children taped to them
just being wheeled along.
Sealed up in the safety cone.
No, and I got very...
I picked up the phone
and just, I had a four-month-old
baby and sometimes...
You know, and I was just, I was
at the edge.
To be fair, that wasn't Ryanair's
fault.
The baby and toddler weren't...
She had them
at the beginning of the flight.
It was their fault. It was their
fault that I didn't have a pram.
Yeah. And so I...
Where was your pram?
And I was waiting and waiting
for my pram so I got one of those...
Was it your pram though?
It was my pram for the children.
Yeah, I just picked up a phone
and went through to the woman...
Oh a wall somewhere?
On a wall, yeah.
Like in a film -
"Get me the President!"
I was very rude... Did you have
to break glass to get to it?
I don't think I'm allowed to say the
word I used on this.
There's two words and I think I used
both of them. Wow.
Was it the F word and the C word?
No, it was the two words
I was told I couldn't say,
I used both of them
in that phone call.
And then they came down and said...
Prince Charles.
Really?
"We're not giving you
your fucking pram" - no.
"We're not giving you your pram
until you come
"and apologise to the woman
that you just spoke to".
Oh, that's so Ryanair!
And she was... Was she glowing?
She was like that.
Yeah, and they have
the horrible make-up.
"I'm so terribly sorry. I'm sorry
I called you a BLEEP."
Say that again, say that again.
"I am so sorry I called you
a BLEEP."
We're all right, we're clear.
"Norton. Norton!"
Well, the other evening...
Can you tell me
about your monastic footwear?
I used to work in The Natural Shoe
Store in Neal Street
and just loved it, cos this was
when Birkenstocks weren't really
popularly worn. You can now
kind of buy them in Tesco's,
you can buy them anywhere,
everyone.
But then they were kind of
almost considered to be
sort of miraculous footwear,
and they used to cure bad backs
and everything like that,
and you had to fit them properly
and you'd learn the names
of the styles.
And then this monk came in one day -
full habit, brown habit with
the rope round. Head's kind of
a short haircut, glasses.
He stank of cigarette smoke
and...
Ah, the old smoking monk.
Do you know him?
And he came in
and I sort of fitted him
various different styles
and he liked the Arizona style,
which is the one
with the two straps.
Are they like sandals? They're
sandals, Birkenstock sandals.
Are there two straps just
over the foot?
Yeah - there's no back strap.
He'd explained that he was replacing
the sandals that he'd made
for himself and that had lasted him
for seven years, and now he thought
he would go for it and get himself
a pair of these
cos they'd been recommended.
And then he started walking
round the shop,
sort of kicking his legs out
in front of him, like that.
And I was going,
"Why are you doing that?"
Monk style...
He said, "I just want to make sure
I can play football in them."
The ones with no back.
But I just had this lovely
idea of all these monks
in their little sandals,
and they don't have any other shoes,
they've only got that one pair.
They've also got an imaginary ball.
Smoking cigarettes
and playing football, yeah.
The ones with no back strap
are great because you can
kick them at annoying children.
I hope not, Phill Jupitus.
Do you mean...? Oh, off your feet?
Yeah, I've got Birkeys,
they're amazing.
I mean, I obviously don't get
the lesbian discount, but...
My mother had...
We called them Scholl sandals,
and they had a kind of a wooden base
or sole...
Oh, yeah, classy.
But my mum would run after us
in the house
and try and take her shoe off...
To hit you with it?
Yeah. Did you not get hit with...?
But it was a bit of wood?
No, it was like... They're very,
they're like corky wood base
and they had a big buckle and your
mum's toes were all like that.
All crunched up from carrying
loads of shopping cos your dad
needed the car,
but he didn't for work
cos she left it there all day so your
mum could have driven around
with the shopping but that's not what
happened...
Seriously, you're talking
about this right now
and I'm hearing a song.
# And my mother came for me
with a shoe from her feet
# And she beat us
till the dawn of the morning. #
But she, she... Was that racist?
She would, yeah, it was quite
common where I lived
for your mother to hit you
with a shoe.
Did you get whacked with a shoe?
The open hand.
My father's open hand.
Oh, your dad.
We used to block our arses
with our hands, and our mum
used to keep at us,
and we'd be going round in a circle
and she'd be trying to whack us with
the shoe.
And then she'd take it off
and just throw it at you.
How many siblings?
Good times!
They were brilliant, you know?
And then I go to my mother now
and my mum goes,
"I never laid a finger on you."
Which is true, technically. Yes,
she didn't touch us - it's true.
Were you beaten by a shoe?
No, I don't think so.
There was, at school, there was
corporal punishment.
Yeah, I had that. But my dad was the
headmaster
of the school I went to,
my secondary school.
Where you got beaten?
No, he did have a cane
and they had the right to do it
and then they weren't allowed to do
it without the parents' permission,
about 1981 it changed.
That is a weird phone call.
"Mr Johnson. Hello.
"It's the school here, yeah,
fine. And how are you?
"Good, yeah. We'd like to beat
the shit out of your..."
"I don't blame you."
"Yeah, I know.
He is. He's a little bastard.
"And just on the arse, really.
Probably, yeah.
"Will that be all right?"
So did you get sent to the office?
No, I got...
That would be funny,
just you and your dad.
My dad was kind of quite...
"I'm going to phone your mum...."
Ask if he can hit him.
He was quite a benign
figure at the top
and then there were two deputy
heads, called Mrs Squires,
who was just like Mrs Thatcher
at the time, and Mr Brooks.
And they were both,
they were the scary ones.
So if I did...
Oh, OK.
I once carved...
There was an old scarred desk
and I got a compass and I carved
in quite big letters,
"Sex is fun,"
when I was about 13 years old,
which to be honest is a phrase
that could only be written
by someone who's never had sex.
"What word would I describe...?
Oh, I think fun
is the word to describe it."
I mean, it is fun but I don't think
that's how you'd describe it.
And filled it in with ink.
And it was quite bad
and I nearly got into trouble
for that but I got away with it.
We used to get hit with a ruler in
school, like, on the palm like that.
On the hand? Yeah, on the palm,
but do you remember?
Did you get that where they go
like this
and then you take it away
and they'd add two on?
And then you'd have to...
Isn't that a game?
Well, that came from schools.
Did the teachers go, "Come on..."
But if you could grab it off them
and hit them in the face.
Two for flinching - bang, bang!
And then you'd have
to drink a pint.
But, yeah, no, I remember though it
being announced in the school
that, among us lot, like,
cos in Ireland it was
that corporal punishment
had to be stopped, it ended.
And then we just went back to that
school like Lord of the Flies.
You could hear the kids going...
CHANTS
We went back and we did whatever
we...
I went to a public school and I
think the feeling was
that the school had total control
of your entire world, you know.
So there was nowhere you could go to
tell on anyone for doing anything.
They'd throw board rubbers that
would hit you and land on you
and throw keys at you. Our maths
teacher used to throw board rubbers.
And pull you by the hair like this
and come up behind you and belt you.
I remember sitting in music
with my friend Ian
and we were trying to remember
all 22 teams in the First Division,
and that's really hard.
And we'd just got Coventry
and we had two to go
and then we both just got clouted
over the back of the head,
Mr Dolan, who was a mild man,
who was the music teacher.
Never smiled,
but not unpleasant.
It was the only time anyone
saw him do it.
he got us both - bang - like that,
as hard as he could.
Oh...
Honestly...
1812 Overture.
His hands would do the cymbals.
Did you bang your heads
off each other?
No, he didn't, I don't think.
Ian was really quite strong.
Did you both say
the name of the last two teams?
"Ipswich Town!"
"Thank you, Mr Dolan,
may I have another?"
We had a teacher, very old,
he would stand in for a teacher. I
think he was around 90, Mr Norton.
And he would
be at the blackboard
and, you know, he'd have his duster.
And as he turned around we used
to go, "Norton...
Norton!" Right?
And he knew this, it was
a game, basically.
He was just going... He'd be rubbing
the board harder and harder
and we'd be going, "Norton!"
And then every kid, there's about
50 kids in this class,
they're all going, "Norton! Norton!"
And then he would just go,
"You bastard!"
And throw it as hard as he could
into the middle,
and whoever it hit, won.
He'd go "I did it! Norton!"
I went to an all-boys school
and there was a teacher who
was in her 20s who we all fancied.
And I think...
Oh, that's good.
I think she knew that we all fancied
her and we imagined...
Do you think?
Did she drop things?
I mean, hundreds of sexually
maturing boys.
She is the only female in there -
what do you think she thought?
I'd say it was much harder to get
out of the door after class, was it?
Yeah. No-one got up.
No-one got up She just left!
"Right, you can go now." "Oh..."
Ah, the insistent knocking
during her lessons...
There was one boy in my year
who claimed
he was having an affair with her.
Oh, wow...
And we didn't know...
Plea for help, cry for help.
..if he was or not.
And it became, it seemed most
unlikely that she would choose him.
He started wearing a waistcoat
and a watch chain
and generally living a life that
wasn't really him.
He told us all he was having an
affair with the prettiest teacher
we'd ever seen, and we all kind
of had to go along with it
because we couldn't go to her
and say, "You're not - are you?
"With him?" Was it pipe and velvet
jacket, sat there, cravat,
"Well, the other evening..."
Virtually!
He went overnight from being
the weedy boy to suddenly
he adopted, I don't know
if it was cos of the snooker,
cos he did look a bit like Steve
Davis in a waistcoat and a chain.
But anyway, to this day...
Did he tell you? Did he
just announce it one day?
He told someone and it went round
the school
in about four and a half seconds.
"You'll never guess who Miss
'Smith'" - we shall say -
"is shagging. It's 'Dave.'"
It wasn't Dave.
And you never found out in the end
if she...? To this day.
In a way, what I'm doing now is
I'm putting it out there
in the hope the truth will
come back to me.
He's married to her now.
We lost four French teachers.
The last one, she had enough
because we had a French lab,
and we had the earphones
and the microphone on here
so we could answer her back
when she asked questions in French
and we'd be able to answer
and listen to tapes and stuff. But...
She could hear you in her
headphones?
Yes, she was like basically
MCing the class.
So she got all these voices
coming into her head?
Did you go to school in the future?
In the distant future?
But this is why it was
called the French lab.
We didn't know, this was amazing.
So we went in and unfortunately,
when we had to do our work,
you know, start writing stuff down,
she was trying to work away,
but we sussed that if you put the mic
into the ear, pushed it into the
ear, it would go "woooo."
So she's trying to...
You took her mind from her.
She's trying to work
and all she can hear is "woooo."
You did this to
four human beings?
This sounds like sort
of Guantanamo Bay.
Our school had
2,000 children in it.
What, what, what?
How many were in your school?
Well, the first school I went to
there were 1,500,
and then I got on a scholarship
into a boarding school
and there were 400 and that was
a bit more weird.
Were you boarding?
Yeah, yeah.
And so what age did you leave there?
16, and then...
And did you go onto sixth form?
No, I went to sixth form college
down back near home
because there was girls.
Ah.
Were you doing art,
because you've always been a
cartoonist, haven't you
Yeah. Did you do art at college?
No, the funny thing was I didn't.
I mean, I chose incredibly poorly.
I did Russian O level.
Wow! Maths A level,
geography A level, when I hadn't
passed the O level.
Pottery. Oh, I loved pottery.
Bit of ceramics, got to love that.
I did pottery GCSE.
And A level economics that I
didn't know a thing about.
It was a busy year.
Covered in clay, confused.
SPEAKS IN RUSSIAN
All the motors
and everything like just going...
We're getting a lot of suicides
with Blueberry.
Richard, you were writing
The Phone Book?
When I came to London,
I did a few.
The first job I did was I worked
at a lighthouse parts
manufacturing company in Brentford.
It was just down in sort of
Brentford. In Brentford?
Brentford town centre? That kind
of '60s sort of...?
And then I worked in Ealing
at the West London Phone Book.
And it was just as they were getting
to putting it into computers,
so in 1989, 1990.
So the 1990 book.
And so we had to learn how to type
stuff into the computer,
which was quite easy. But we spent
a lot of time messing around.
There was an ex-directory
computer there,
which you could look up
basically rude words
and find out what people...
There was loads of people called
"Wank," just loads of people.
But my favourite one was there
was someone called Dr Wank,
who wanted to be ex-directory but it
sounds like a kind of pornographic
James Bond villain.
"Hmm, yes..."
I was sharing a flat with Stewart
Lee at the time,
the comedian and his...
The comedian.
The comedian. Well, yeah,
some say.
And he worked for the Macmillan
Encyclopaedia of Horticulture
at the time. We had very...
It was like we had...
Oh, wow.
Seriously, I mean thigh deep
in vaginas.
Wow! Wow! You boys!
I changed Stewart, in the computer,
the phone book was in his name
so I changed his name
from Stewart Lee to Stewart Wee.
And I thought I'd get caught,
but I got away with it.
And we were really hoping that
someone, we were hoping like a kid
would ring up one day and go,
"Is Mr Wee there? Ha-ha!"
And Stewart could go,
"Well, actually the joke's on you
"because my name is Stewart Lee,
we changed that specifically
"for this purpose so..."
But we got one call for Mr Wee,
which was...
They said, "Is Mr Wee there?"
And I went "Stew, Stew -
"finally it's happened, Mr Wee."
And he came through and said,
"Hello, Mr Wee speaking," and it was
a guy trying to sell mattresses.
And Stew listened to his whole
spiel and then said,
they were orthopaedic mattresses,
"That sounds very interesting but
the thing is I'm incontinent..."
"I have to have my mattresses
specially made so that they can cope
with that."
And he went, "Oh, um, well,
thank you," and sort of hung up.
And that guy - I'm presuming has
a story that he dines out on,
of the time he rang up Mr Wee.
But it wasn't, the joke's on him
cos it's Stewart Lee.
I actually used to work in a call
centre, like a cold-call centre.
Where you had a pile of
thick sort of things
that had been filled out
by other people. Yeah.
And then you'd get the number,
you'd have sort of detail,
and it was a Bacardi Breezer trial,
one of them I remember.
And having to ring up these
people who'd been given
Bacardi Breezers to try.
And some of them weren't in
kind of great shape?
And I do remember one guy,
the Bacardi Breezer thing,
starting to talk about his state
of mind and how alone he was
and just finding it very, very...
"Yeah, yeah. No, I know.
I understand."
And I've kind of got a pile
of things I have to get through
but I can't. I'm thinking, you know,
just as long as he doesn't,
you know, mention suicide,
I'm probably all right.
But I could probably steer him
in the right direction,
but just this idea of him
with this kind of
sad, flavoured Bacardi Breezer
trial bottle sort of sitting alone,
you know, so thrilled that someone's
called him,
and it's just me,
from a call centre.
I was like... When he gets to the
end talking about how sad he is,
do you have to go,
"Well, have you tried pineapple?"
Yes. "So which was it? A, B, or C?"
"We're getting a lot of suicides
with blueberry."
I remember walking,
I was on Clifton Suspension Bridge,
and there's a sign saying, er,
"If you're depressed or sad then you
might consider ringing this number,"
and it's The Samaritans.
A Samaritans phone.
And there's no phone. There's
no phone anywhere you can see.
And I think if anything's going
to tip you over the edge,
it's the idea that there's someone
on the end of the phone
but there just isn't a phone.
Oh the Golden Gate Bridge, it's...
It should have been the phone
that you had at the airport.
Every hundred yards on the
Golden Gate Bridge
there's a phone and a...
There's someone there 24 hours a day
for that very purpose.
To say "Don't jump. Come on."
Tell me about being crucified,
what does that feel like?
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, this was... Oh, my God...
Can I just check that you aren't
Jesus? That would be...
Yeah, no, I'm ... Before we go any...
Cos you're still here.
Yeah, no, I'm fine. I don't know
what I was going to show you there.
Stigmata! Place your fingers into
my wounds and believe!
Which was, um... But Jesus wasn't
actually nailed through the palm.
No. It was through the wrist, cos
the nails will just rip out -
that's what happens there -
he would just fall off the cross.
You don't have to be roped as well
round the arms to hold yourself?
They put it right through the bone
there, so you'd stay up.
They must have tried it.
The Romans must have tried it,
and they must've just kept
slipping off.
Going, "Oh, lads, not again?!"
How do you know that about the bone?
Is that a fact that's out there?
Because I'm a Catholic
and it's drilled into you, Alan.
"Do you know how
he was put up on the cross?"
We're like seven in class going,
"What?"
"Yeah, that's right it was nailed
to his wrist
"and he was kept up by his bones
"while he bled to death,
you little bastards!"
And then he went, "And now -
and now we'll do a bit of English".
But anyway, anyway...
..the time I got crucified, I worked
in a warehouse, er, my job...
What?! The time you got crucified?
I'm backtracking. I'm backtracking.
Best issue of Storage Wars ever.
Can you imagine going...?
Anyway. $1,000 for that.
Anyway, I was in a warehouse
and we...myself,
I used to do a lot, play a lot
of tricks on people
just have a bit of fun.
Like myself, my mate PJ, I used to
make him tea,
but I'd put little tiny washers
and bolts in the bottom of it.
And he'd be like talking
away and next minute he'll go -
and he'll swallow a little washer
And then, at the end of the year,
they would drag him
round the warehouse with magnets.
So... So...
And then, another day...
We should have done that!
Another day, um,
a work experience guy arrived,
and on his first day we taped him up,
and we brought him outside,
and taped him to a pole
and put a grid on his head.
And the police came up and got out
and went, "What are you doing?"
to the guy.
And he went, "They've taped me up!"
And they went, "Feckin' idiot!"
and got back in
Er, another guy, er, another time,
I just tried...
There is a reason for all this.
I then got...
The company was owned by
an English company,
and the warehouse wasn't
running too smoothly,
so they sent over an English person,
who came over -
a manager to look after us.
Um, about four days in it was
that guy's birthday,
so we gaffer taped him completely.
The English guy?
Yeah. The new boss?
The new boss, we taped him...
And we burned him!
No, no. We're beginning to see
a pattern here.
"Why is it not going well?"
"I think it's..."
We taped him, right?
We then...we then hung a motor
chain out of the ceiling
and we hooked his...
we tied around his ankles
and we brought him
up into the ceiling on a motor...
It's like something
out of Reservoir Dogs
This isn't a prank!
So we're there with the motor
control going...
And he's going "I'm going to kill
you! You're dead! You're dead!"
And then we brought his birthday
cake out
and we put it on the ground and we
lowered him in and out of the cake.
And he's just like this going...
"You're dead! You're dead, Jason!"
I'm going...
And then we've let him
down and took the chains off him
and we'd ordered a courier,
but before the courier got there we
put the said man into a flight case,
locked it
and the courier guy arrived -
he was always an old guy so he never
really knew what was going on.
So inside - our man -
the warehouse manager's going...
We lifted him up, put him
in the back of the van
and that guy delivered him
to a theatre.
It's a cross between Fargo
and Tarantino.
Were you crucified for the crimes
you committed?
Some - quite rightly.
Anyway, he was delivered to the
theatre and the lads opened up
and he was in the theatre and they
didn't even let him, didn't
give him a lift back. He had to walk
back covered in tape and cake.
So then... So there was many
pranks like that
and we would like tie up bikes
and....
Had he lost his sense of authority
after that?
Was it difficult for him
the next day?
There were more pranks after that?
You weren't fired?
You didn't lose your jobs?
Nobody would fire us.
Like we tried...
Could you talk me through your six
month assessment meeting?
Yes, yes!
"Well Jason there's been an awful
lot of the...the old horse play."
There's people on the ceiling
and they're hanging there.
Cakes and chains, Jason.
Cakes and chains.
We tried to get sacked. PJ said,
"This is it, we're going to get
sacked today. This is it."
Two of you or more than two doing
these pranks? Myself and PJ.
You were the ringleaders.
We decided we'd have a theme
day and we said we'd play
the song "Five Four Three Two One"
as many times as we could.
So we went in and we put it on at
nine in the morning. It was like...
# Five, four, three, two, one
de-de-de-de
# Five, four, three,
two, one. #
And that song ends...
# Five, four dum dum... #
And then we'd wait a few seconds
and all you hear is
# Five, four... #
So we've brought it up to lunchtime
cos the bosses literally knew
what we were trying to do
and they stayed in their Portakabins
and didn't come out.
So about ten-to-one Dinar -
I can say his name he's a lovely
fella - he came out and he just
went, "Turn it off!"
Right?
And we went "No, no, no, no, no,
it makes us...
"it helps us work. It helps us work"
And he went, "Turn it off!
Turn it off!" Right?
He took the tape out
and he ripped it up and put it away.
But we'd gotten the tapes out of a
bin outside, cos it was in a
magazine, it was taped to it.
Oh, so you had loads of them? Yes.
He ripped it up and we
went, "OK, fair enough we won't do it
"again." So we waited about 40
minutes. He settled
back in and then
he was on the phone doing an order.
And next we all hear is...
# Five, four..."
And he just drops the phone,
he comes out of
the Portakabin and goes,
"Right that's it!"
And he gets in his car
and he goes home!
So a lot of people were waiting
to get me on my 21st.
A lot of people. And everybody had
all decided they'd meet up early
in that warehouse before I got in
that day.
And I got in, and I pulled across the
big door, and they're all standing
there - everybody I'd done like over
the years - they're like this.
And behind them
in the ceiling is a massive crucifix.
And it's made out of trussing - you
know like what they hang lights off.
So it's all out that way and all that
way,
and it has "JXX1" written on
the top.
And I went, "Oh, no, please,
seriously?" And they went, "This is
it Jason."
So I ran around the warehouse. They
all chased me and then they got
me and they stripped me down to my
underpants and they chained me
and taped me to the cross, on the
ground, and they...
So I'm on the ground. Next minute
all the motors and everything like
goes...
And they hung me
in the ceiling, right?
OK? For the rest of the day.
Now, you might, I dunno... OK,
educated people, crucifixion,
you die mainly from asphyxiation
because what happened to people when
they got crucified was if you hold
your arms out like this for too long
you can't use your lungs properly.
So I started to get faint up there.
And they were going
"Yeah, yeah, whatever." I went,
"I feel dizzy. I don't feel well"
And they were setting
off pyrotechnics underneath me.
They had smoke machines,
they were just so and everything.
Do you know what they did?
Oh, my God. They got beans
and poured it on top of the
pyrotechnics and exploded them up.
So anyway... So eventually I...
They did that to Jesus as well.
Yes.
Cut to a cave in Limerick with
a big boulder.
"Put him in here."
Yes, "Jason walks again."
So my girlfriend finally
arrived at lunchtime and she went
"Get him down he's..." You know?
So I got down I was all faint
and...
So anyway that was grand, I retired
to recover.
# Happy birthday to... #
I got that.
But then, six months later, my lung
collapsed in the warehouse.
So I was talking to my mate PJ
and I was going...
And the next minute I went...
So we never believed each other cos
we did terrible things.
And I went...
and I started to fall on the ground
and he went, "Ha, you dope!"
And I went,
"Peter there's something wrong"
And he went "Yeah, yeah, yeah," and
kicked me in the back.
And I went,
"No, I'm kind of breathing funny."
And he went, "Yeah, whatever," and
he's kicking me.
I'm in hospital with a drain in me
and PJ going "Oh, Jason, man,
I'm sorry."
The slitty eyes...
And he took my finger out
and he went,
"Now, you can tell that on stage".
I did a show in Edinburgh in '92
called The Love Child of Alan Ladd
and this was because... Yeah.
My name's Alan as you know and
that's supposedly
because my mother had a crush
on Alan Ladd - the movie star.
My mum died when I was six,
so I don't really know much about
what she thought.
But I know this because my dad,
when Alan Ladd came
on the television would say, "Oh
"your mum liked him," and then he'd
always remark on how short he was.
He'd say things like,
"She must be standing in a hole."
Yeah. Things like that.
I did this show called
The Love Child of Alan Ladd. Yeah.
And it was on at midnight at no-one
was really coming to it
but the promoter sent a PR person.
I said to them,
"Why don't we pretend that the
Alan Ladd family are upset about
it."
So they hired an actress to play
a relative of Alan Ladd who did
an American accent. Oh, my God.
And they got her on local radio
in Edinburgh -
can't remember which station -
and then phoned me up.
I had to pretend that the call
had come out of the blue.
And then we had a row about it,
with me saying, "Look there's no
offence. I mean it's not...
"It's very affectionate about Alan
Ladd. I'm named after Alan Ladd -
my mother loved Alan Ladd."
"You shouldn't use our name and
our estate want all the profits
from the show.
"Well, there aren't any, that's
the reason we're doing this."
It was fun. It was the only real bit
of the run of the show
that I really enjoyed doing - the
fake publicity stunt.
And then as I was walking down the
hill back to where I was staying,
there was one of those boards
outside a newsagent and it said,
"Film star love-child anger".
And so I just nicked it, you know?
Had it on my wall for years.
I was absolutely horrified to
discover that
I was named after Prince Philip.
Hmm.
Were you really? Yeah.
I don't have much time for him,
it has to be said.
Royalty in general. I'm ...
You don't return their calls?
I'm fuckin' named after one.
He's a good one to be named after
though, isn't he?
What the racist, pointed -
"Slitty eyes"...?
You can do him as well!
You can do him!
You're doing him!
Oh, my God, it is just like...
Yeah. And it's one of those things
that your mother'll just drop in.
Mum was really really good at just
telling me hideous facts when I'm
in the middle of a beverage at home.
We're chit-chatting about this, that
and the other, and I'm
sitting and the telly's on
and there's a wedding or something
I'll go, "Those sponging bastards
look at them!" She goes,
"I don't know what you're on about
you're named after one!"
What people might not know about
you, Phill, cos you can do
Prince Philip quite well, but one
thing that you're not...
I don't think you've fully
exploited that you can do
so many voices - you can do
all of the Simpsons.
"I am the best. I am the best."
My favourite Homer one is,
"It's still good. It's still good"
Were you...
when anything - any food drops?
No the best, the best Homer
quote ever,
and it's one of the most beautifully
written Simpsons bit,
is when he goes to Vegas and he
goes, "Guess how many boobs I saw,
Marge?"
And he's sat there
and he's completely pissed
and he goes, "15!"
I did meet Dan Castellaneta who
does Homer's voice
and he came to the
Edinburgh Festival.
He didn't seem to mind doing a bit
of
Homer and a mutual friend
said, "He'll do some Homer
"he won't mind. I'll ask him." And
then you're chatting to him
and then he suddenly goes,
"Can you lend me some money, Alan?"
But completely as Homer - it comes
out of his mouth and it's weird.
Well in Kilkenny at the comedy
festival... Have you been to that?
Yeah, yeah, a few times, in the
nineties. ...which is great.
So Dan Castellaneta was there
and George Wendt was there.
They were doing improv.
And Dan wasn't doing the voices.
So of course Irish people being
the Irish started going, "Homer!
"Homer! Homer!" And then he just
went, "Oh, OK, I'll
"do Homer but I'll do it as long as
you all close your eyes." Right?
And so we all closed our eyes.
And he did Homer going into Cheers
talking to Norm.
And it was the best thing
you'll ever hear.
Right. Wasn't it at Kilkenny when
George Wendt was there...
Dylan? Yeah.
You tell it, everyone
knows this story.
Phill, go on. Do you know it?
Yeah, but it's just everyone...
Everyone had agreed not to call him
Norm. Everyone agreed not to when
George Wendt walks into a bar...
Not to call him Norm?
Don't go "Norm!"
Don't go "Norm" when he walks in.
He gets it all the time ...
Don't mention the Norm. Yeah.
He walks into this busy bar
and everyone looked round
and he was braced, nothing
happened, they carried on drinking.
He was, "Ah, brilliant! Fantastic"
had a lovely, lovely evening.
And then he goes into the toilets -
Dylan Moran is on the floor,
sparko, unconscious.
And Wendt goes, "Oh, my God, this
guy." and he wakes him.
He wakes Dylan. "You all right?"
And Dylan Moran's lying there and
opens his eyes and goes, "Norm!"
That's not how I heard it. No? You
tell it. On the toilet?
That he's on the toilet. Norm's
on the toilet - sorry, George.
No, Dylan's on the toilet.
Dylan's on the toilet?
Yeah. It's not Norm.
Dylan's in the loo.
He's actually in the one place,
George, where he's really going
but he hasn't secured
the door properly and Dylan Moran
pushes the door and he sitting
on the toilet and goes, "Norm!"
and closes the door.
Do you know Ricky Grover? Remember
Ricky? Yeah.
OK, Big Ricky. Big Ricky.
Oh, Buller. Yeah, love Buller.
He's in EastEnders or whatever.
Ricky's brilliant.
I'd never met him but I was going
to do like a gig with him.
I was going to do an open spot.
I had all my little props and it
was all just arrived from Ireland.
And Ricky collected me - huge
ex-boxer. I'm in the car, we drive
to the gig, we do the gig and
we turn round and we go back home.
And we're driving along the motorway
and he seems nice - don't
really know him - it's all fine,
and then he turns in, he turns
into a lay-by, turns the engine off
and goes, "Right - go ahead"
"I'm sorry? What?"
And he went, "It's to
pay for the petrol. Go ahead, get
yourself round that." Right?
He's the most intimidating man alive
but... And I was... He's huge.
I'm going, "Um, can
I not just give you the money?"
He went, "Oh, I'm only having
a laugh!"
I was white as a ghost.
Well it's quite a good tactic, isn't
it, if you want to go and see
what they do, and then go,
"Oh, I was only having a laugh."
The size of him,
I would have eventually...
On the subject of genitalia...
Oh, yes.
..what is it about your testicles
that are so stressed?
They're "stress-ticles".
"Stress-ticles". I was working very
hard
and my left testicle started to
balloon and it was like,
"Oh that's really, that's really
sore." I was in Australia
and they did blood tests
and everything. They're going,
"We don't know what's wrong with
you." We thought
I'd maybe caught something in the
water, or whatever, like when
I was drinking, cos sometimes there
can be an E Coli thing, you know?
And my kidneys were starting to hurt
and my wee was on fire and...
and the ball was just getting bigger
and bigger.
And then I just went home,
I got home to Ireland
and I got to a specialist.
And he went, "Let me stop you there.
Is your ball big?" "A bit yeah."
"Are your kidneys sore?"
"Yeah." "Is your wee hurting you?"
I went, "Yeah," "Right, it's stress.
"Your balls are getting bigger
because of stress." I went, "Stress?"
He goes, "Yeah, you must be very
stressed right now.
"I get many men in here
when they're stressed." Cos when men
are stressed, they do that with
their bum and their testicles,
they go...
..like this when they're stressed.
So I had basically been
pumping my ball up!
I have never heard of this.
I know. And, right,
he gave me a prostate examination
just to make sure it wasn't
too bad in there. But what
happened is that had gone up
a little bit and I was on my side,
and he did the usual examination,
on my side, but he just...
They just have to go like that and
take it out again. But he went in...
When he took it out,
did your ball go...
No, but he... What
he did was... I was on my side
and he put it in and he got
my prostate and then he manoeuvred
his finger some way and he pressed
something and I went, "Whoooh!"
# Five, four, three, two, one..."
But he pressed something, right?
I felt something weird up my penis,
I don't know what it was. Whoa!
It was his finger!
He had pressed something that shot
up my penis and, er,
he took me finger out and he went,
"Now, you can tell that on stage."
And I said,
"Were you not examining me?"
He goes, "No,
I put that extra bit in for you."
For material?!
Yeah. He said, "Maybe you
can tell a joke about that."
He goes, "That's an extra button."
And he's a doctor?!
Now listen, we have to
think of a title for the programme.
Er, The Wank Doctors.
Dr Wank - The Wank Doctor.
Crucifixion Swell. Swell Ball? Er...
I'm quite interested in that penis
thing.
Like what happened there?
You know, like ...?
The prostate? Yeah, what did he do?
We all want to know!
There's a bit where your...
basically your wee comes out
and he'd pressed the bottom of that
and the pain shot up through
there like a spiral. It went...
Sex is Fun fits in with that.
Yes, Sex is Fun.
Only if he'd carved it into this
desk.
Yeah. I think that when you do
the next series, here's what
you should do. Just for a laugh,
just get four comedians that
have not seen the show at all
and then, er, when they come out,
just have a revolver in the middle
of the table and one bullet.
Right? Then the next week, a
rat in a cage
with like a head-sized hole in it.
It's time for someone to wear
the hat of fun.
I'm surprised that Richard hasn't
already carved it into the desk.
I could do. I can,
if you give me a compass.
Well, I think it's an excellent...
Sex is Fun? Yeah.
I agree. ..an excellent title.
I'm happy with that.
I'd like to thank Jessica Hynes,
Phill Jupitus, Richard Herring,
Jason Byrne. You have been
watching "Sex is Fun". Good night.
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
Can't believe I'm finally
going on the Graham Norton Show.
Got a choice of shirt -
it's either blue or blue.
Thought I'd give it... Yeah ...
Alan? Alan?
Alan? Alan?
I think I've had too much fruit.
Hello, I'm Alan Davies
and welcome to "As Yet Untitled".
Tonight we will be chatting
with four guests -
well, I will be - you will be
watching that,
and there's no agenda.
There are no rules,
there's no... er,
running order...
You see what I did there?
We don't even have a title
yet for the show.
By the end of the evening,
I'm hopeful
we will have a title - this
is our minimalist aspiration
for the show, so let's get on with
it.
Please will you welcome my guests.
APPLAUSE
Now it's lovely to have you
all here.
All I have is a fact about
each of you on my cards.
So we'll start with
Jessica Hynes is here,
she's a supply of monastic footwear.
Jessica Hynes.
APPLAUSE
Phill Jupitus is here,
the inadvertent sketch comic,
Phill Jupitus.
Yes.
APPLAUSE
Richard Herring, the former
author of The Phone Book.
Yeah. He's often mistaken for
Charley Boorman.
Yeah...
APPLAUSE
And Jason Byrne, the legendary
stand-up comedian
who was once actually crucified.
Yes.
APPLAUSE
Are you a motorcyclist?
I'm not at all, no.
So it's the first time...
You're so like him. I'm offended cos
I think Charley Boorman
is a hideous looking man...
No! ..and I do not look like him.
He's a good looking man, I think.
And he's also very tall.
He went round the world with
Ewan McGregor on motorbikes, right?
He did, yeah. And...
Oh, you do look like him.
Do that again with your tea up.
Oh, you do look like him.
The first time it happened to me,
I didn't know who he was.
Someone, I was in the pub,
and someone came up to me and said
"Well done on The Long Way Round,"
and I went... I went, "What?"
He went, "You know,
Long Way Round."
I went, "I don't - I don't know
what you're talking about."
He went, "You know, when you
motorcycled round the world
"with Ewan McGregor,"
like I'd forgot!
"Oh, yeah! How could I forget that?"
You know, I said,
"I'm not him."
But I do, I think I must look
like loads of people cos I've also
had things where, I wrote some
Tweet about people being impolite
and then someone said,
"Well, that's slightly ironic given
"what you were up to in
Walthamstow Curry House last night."
And you kind of go...
That's Charley Boorman!
It's Charley Boorman!
Or someone else, I don't know.
But apparently there was someone
swearing and then I said,
"Well, that wasn't me."
But that's not... I mean, it's a
good defence for Operation Yewtree,
I think this could be. It could
work out. "It wasn't me"
Try and look like as many other
people as you can.
Do you know Dennis Pennis,
what's his real name?
Kaye? Paul Kaye. Paul Kaye,
so people thought I looked like him.
And I was in Edinburgh
in the Meadows playing just a bit
of pitch and putt,
and this guy game up on his bike.
He was about 14, he went,
"Here, will you sign my stuff here."
I went, "Yeah." He goes,
"Paul Kaye, is it?"
I went, "No,"
and he goes, "You fuckin' are."
And I went, "No, I'm not,
I'm Jason Byrne." "No, you're not.
"You're Paul Kaye,
sign that there right?"
I went, "I'm not."
He goes, "You fuckin' are."
So then I just signed it Paul Kaye
and he goes, "Told you."
And he just cycled off.
Did you hear about the one
that happened to me and Vinnie?
There's a comedian
called Andre Vincent
who looks an awful lot like me.
Hmm. He does.
And we were at a gig together.
And, er, a bloke a little bit pissed
came up to Vinnie
and started poking him and going,
"Oi, yeah, Never Mind the Buzzcocks,
eh? Eh?
"Ha-ha ha-ha" And for one time,
Vinnie was able to stand back
and go, and just pointed at me.
And this bloke looked at me
and goes, "No."
Oh, my God!
And the other one was
a woman came up to me,
again it was a drunk...
Was it me?
..at the races.
It wasn't you.
Came up to me at some races
and went, "It's you, innit?
"It's You! It's you, innit?"
And I'm like, "Yeah, yeah, right."
and then she goes "Monkey! Monkey!"
I'm like "What?"
"Monkey!" And she's really,
really, really annoying.
And in your head you think,
"How quickly can I get rid of her?"
And I said, "Yes, it's me, love!"
I was in, I went to Paris with
all my friends who are Arsenal fans,
for the Champions League final
in 2006, and, er, we lost.
So we're in a bar afterwards
sort of drowning our sorrows a bit.
And Ainsley Harriott was there,
who I know quite well,
he's a big Arsenal supporter
as well.
And we're in this bar and I've got
this one friend of mine
called Sean, who's black,
and there's him and Ainsley
are the only two black people
in this bar, right? Anyway,
this guy comes over and he goes,
"Jonathan Creek, innit?
"Is this it? You?
It is you, isn't it?
"Jonathan Davies, is it? Is it?
"It's shit, that.
Shit that show anyway."
Or something like that.
And then he turns to my mate Sean
who's not Ainsley,
and goes, "And your cooking's shit
and all."
So, so perfect.
And we all started going,
"Is that cos they all look alike,
is it, sir?
Ran him out the bar.
I'd been on TV doing a charity show,
my first ever TV appearance
over here, and it was just,
I can't remember even where it was,
for Amnesty.
So I'd only been on TV once
and I was in Heathrow,
and this guy came over and this is
word for word, he come up
and he went, "Hey, you? Comedian?"
I went "Oh, yeah."
And he went "Off the telly?"
Right? Like this. I went,
"Oh, er, well, yeah."
And he goes "Is that him over there?"
And he pointed at Rory Bremner.
And I went, "Oh, yeah, I suppose
he is, yeah."
And that was it, no recognition.
Did you fly from Dublin today? Yeah.
Uneventful flight? Yeah, nobody
died, there was nothing.
What airline? Ryanair...
No, we can say Ryanair.
We can say Ryanair.
I nearly got banned from Ryanair.
You got banned from Ryanair?
Nearly. I had to apologise
and then I was let off,
but I did apologise.
What did you do?
Or as part of the apology are we not
allowed to say what you did?
I waited for a long time for a piece
of equipment to help me
wheel my two small children
out of the airport.
One was a four-month-old baby
and one was a toddler.
Do you mean a pram? Your pram?
A pram.
Do you mean a pram, yeah?
A technical piece of equipment.
She was waiting for a Panzer.
When you said that, in my head,
I just seen...
It was sort of about that high
with wheels, four wheels,
something you put
the baby in.
But all I could see was two trolleys
with your children taped to them
just being wheeled along.
Sealed up in the safety cone.
No, and I got very...
I picked up the phone
and just, I had a four-month-old
baby and sometimes...
You know, and I was just, I was
at the edge.
To be fair, that wasn't Ryanair's
fault.
The baby and toddler weren't...
She had them
at the beginning of the flight.
It was their fault. It was their
fault that I didn't have a pram.
Yeah. And so I...
Where was your pram?
And I was waiting and waiting
for my pram so I got one of those...
Was it your pram though?
It was my pram for the children.
Yeah, I just picked up a phone
and went through to the woman...
Oh a wall somewhere?
On a wall, yeah.
Like in a film -
"Get me the President!"
I was very rude... Did you have
to break glass to get to it?
I don't think I'm allowed to say the
word I used on this.
There's two words and I think I used
both of them. Wow.
Was it the F word and the C word?
No, it was the two words
I was told I couldn't say,
I used both of them
in that phone call.
And then they came down and said...
Prince Charles.
Really?
"We're not giving you
your fucking pram" - no.
"We're not giving you your pram
until you come
"and apologise to the woman
that you just spoke to".
Oh, that's so Ryanair!
And she was... Was she glowing?
She was like that.
Yeah, and they have
the horrible make-up.
"I'm so terribly sorry. I'm sorry
I called you a BLEEP."
Say that again, say that again.
"I am so sorry I called you
a BLEEP."
We're all right, we're clear.
"Norton. Norton!"
Well, the other evening...
Can you tell me
about your monastic footwear?
I used to work in The Natural Shoe
Store in Neal Street
and just loved it, cos this was
when Birkenstocks weren't really
popularly worn. You can now
kind of buy them in Tesco's,
you can buy them anywhere,
everyone.
But then they were kind of
almost considered to be
sort of miraculous footwear,
and they used to cure bad backs
and everything like that,
and you had to fit them properly
and you'd learn the names
of the styles.
And then this monk came in one day -
full habit, brown habit with
the rope round. Head's kind of
a short haircut, glasses.
He stank of cigarette smoke
and...
Ah, the old smoking monk.
Do you know him?
And he came in
and I sort of fitted him
various different styles
and he liked the Arizona style,
which is the one
with the two straps.
Are they like sandals? They're
sandals, Birkenstock sandals.
Are there two straps just
over the foot?
Yeah - there's no back strap.
He'd explained that he was replacing
the sandals that he'd made
for himself and that had lasted him
for seven years, and now he thought
he would go for it and get himself
a pair of these
cos they'd been recommended.
And then he started walking
round the shop,
sort of kicking his legs out
in front of him, like that.
And I was going,
"Why are you doing that?"
Monk style...
He said, "I just want to make sure
I can play football in them."
The ones with no back.
But I just had this lovely
idea of all these monks
in their little sandals,
and they don't have any other shoes,
they've only got that one pair.
They've also got an imaginary ball.
Smoking cigarettes
and playing football, yeah.
The ones with no back strap
are great because you can
kick them at annoying children.
I hope not, Phill Jupitus.
Do you mean...? Oh, off your feet?
Yeah, I've got Birkeys,
they're amazing.
I mean, I obviously don't get
the lesbian discount, but...
My mother had...
We called them Scholl sandals,
and they had a kind of a wooden base
or sole...
Oh, yeah, classy.
But my mum would run after us
in the house
and try and take her shoe off...
To hit you with it?
Yeah. Did you not get hit with...?
But it was a bit of wood?
No, it was like... They're very,
they're like corky wood base
and they had a big buckle and your
mum's toes were all like that.
All crunched up from carrying
loads of shopping cos your dad
needed the car,
but he didn't for work
cos she left it there all day so your
mum could have driven around
with the shopping but that's not what
happened...
Seriously, you're talking
about this right now
and I'm hearing a song.
# And my mother came for me
with a shoe from her feet
# And she beat us
till the dawn of the morning. #
But she, she... Was that racist?
She would, yeah, it was quite
common where I lived
for your mother to hit you
with a shoe.
Did you get whacked with a shoe?
The open hand.
My father's open hand.
Oh, your dad.
We used to block our arses
with our hands, and our mum
used to keep at us,
and we'd be going round in a circle
and she'd be trying to whack us with
the shoe.
And then she'd take it off
and just throw it at you.
How many siblings?
Good times!
They were brilliant, you know?
And then I go to my mother now
and my mum goes,
"I never laid a finger on you."
Which is true, technically. Yes,
she didn't touch us - it's true.
Were you beaten by a shoe?
No, I don't think so.
There was, at school, there was
corporal punishment.
Yeah, I had that. But my dad was the
headmaster
of the school I went to,
my secondary school.
Where you got beaten?
No, he did have a cane
and they had the right to do it
and then they weren't allowed to do
it without the parents' permission,
about 1981 it changed.
That is a weird phone call.
"Mr Johnson. Hello.
"It's the school here, yeah,
fine. And how are you?
"Good, yeah. We'd like to beat
the shit out of your..."
"I don't blame you."
"Yeah, I know.
He is. He's a little bastard.
"And just on the arse, really.
Probably, yeah.
"Will that be all right?"
So did you get sent to the office?
No, I got...
That would be funny,
just you and your dad.
My dad was kind of quite...
"I'm going to phone your mum...."
Ask if he can hit him.
He was quite a benign
figure at the top
and then there were two deputy
heads, called Mrs Squires,
who was just like Mrs Thatcher
at the time, and Mr Brooks.
And they were both,
they were the scary ones.
So if I did...
Oh, OK.
I once carved...
There was an old scarred desk
and I got a compass and I carved
in quite big letters,
"Sex is fun,"
when I was about 13 years old,
which to be honest is a phrase
that could only be written
by someone who's never had sex.
"What word would I describe...?
Oh, I think fun
is the word to describe it."
I mean, it is fun but I don't think
that's how you'd describe it.
And filled it in with ink.
And it was quite bad
and I nearly got into trouble
for that but I got away with it.
We used to get hit with a ruler in
school, like, on the palm like that.
On the hand? Yeah, on the palm,
but do you remember?
Did you get that where they go
like this
and then you take it away
and they'd add two on?
And then you'd have to...
Isn't that a game?
Well, that came from schools.
Did the teachers go, "Come on..."
But if you could grab it off them
and hit them in the face.
Two for flinching - bang, bang!
And then you'd have
to drink a pint.
But, yeah, no, I remember though it
being announced in the school
that, among us lot, like,
cos in Ireland it was
that corporal punishment
had to be stopped, it ended.
And then we just went back to that
school like Lord of the Flies.
You could hear the kids going...
CHANTS
We went back and we did whatever
we...
I went to a public school and I
think the feeling was
that the school had total control
of your entire world, you know.
So there was nowhere you could go to
tell on anyone for doing anything.
They'd throw board rubbers that
would hit you and land on you
and throw keys at you. Our maths
teacher used to throw board rubbers.
And pull you by the hair like this
and come up behind you and belt you.
I remember sitting in music
with my friend Ian
and we were trying to remember
all 22 teams in the First Division,
and that's really hard.
And we'd just got Coventry
and we had two to go
and then we both just got clouted
over the back of the head,
Mr Dolan, who was a mild man,
who was the music teacher.
Never smiled,
but not unpleasant.
It was the only time anyone
saw him do it.
he got us both - bang - like that,
as hard as he could.
Oh...
Honestly...
1812 Overture.
His hands would do the cymbals.
Did you bang your heads
off each other?
No, he didn't, I don't think.
Ian was really quite strong.
Did you both say
the name of the last two teams?
"Ipswich Town!"
"Thank you, Mr Dolan,
may I have another?"
We had a teacher, very old,
he would stand in for a teacher. I
think he was around 90, Mr Norton.
And he would
be at the blackboard
and, you know, he'd have his duster.
And as he turned around we used
to go, "Norton...
Norton!" Right?
And he knew this, it was
a game, basically.
He was just going... He'd be rubbing
the board harder and harder
and we'd be going, "Norton!"
And then every kid, there's about
50 kids in this class,
they're all going, "Norton! Norton!"
And then he would just go,
"You bastard!"
And throw it as hard as he could
into the middle,
and whoever it hit, won.
He'd go "I did it! Norton!"
I went to an all-boys school
and there was a teacher who
was in her 20s who we all fancied.
And I think...
Oh, that's good.
I think she knew that we all fancied
her and we imagined...
Do you think?
Did she drop things?
I mean, hundreds of sexually
maturing boys.
She is the only female in there -
what do you think she thought?
I'd say it was much harder to get
out of the door after class, was it?
Yeah. No-one got up.
No-one got up She just left!
"Right, you can go now." "Oh..."
Ah, the insistent knocking
during her lessons...
There was one boy in my year
who claimed
he was having an affair with her.
Oh, wow...
And we didn't know...
Plea for help, cry for help.
..if he was or not.
And it became, it seemed most
unlikely that she would choose him.
He started wearing a waistcoat
and a watch chain
and generally living a life that
wasn't really him.
He told us all he was having an
affair with the prettiest teacher
we'd ever seen, and we all kind
of had to go along with it
because we couldn't go to her
and say, "You're not - are you?
"With him?" Was it pipe and velvet
jacket, sat there, cravat,
"Well, the other evening..."
Virtually!
He went overnight from being
the weedy boy to suddenly
he adopted, I don't know
if it was cos of the snooker,
cos he did look a bit like Steve
Davis in a waistcoat and a chain.
But anyway, to this day...
Did he tell you? Did he
just announce it one day?
He told someone and it went round
the school
in about four and a half seconds.
"You'll never guess who Miss
'Smith'" - we shall say -
"is shagging. It's 'Dave.'"
It wasn't Dave.
And you never found out in the end
if she...? To this day.
In a way, what I'm doing now is
I'm putting it out there
in the hope the truth will
come back to me.
He's married to her now.
We lost four French teachers.
The last one, she had enough
because we had a French lab,
and we had the earphones
and the microphone on here
so we could answer her back
when she asked questions in French
and we'd be able to answer
and listen to tapes and stuff. But...
She could hear you in her
headphones?
Yes, she was like basically
MCing the class.
So she got all these voices
coming into her head?
Did you go to school in the future?
In the distant future?
But this is why it was
called the French lab.
We didn't know, this was amazing.
So we went in and unfortunately,
when we had to do our work,
you know, start writing stuff down,
she was trying to work away,
but we sussed that if you put the mic
into the ear, pushed it into the
ear, it would go "woooo."
So she's trying to...
You took her mind from her.
She's trying to work
and all she can hear is "woooo."
You did this to
four human beings?
This sounds like sort
of Guantanamo Bay.
Our school had
2,000 children in it.
What, what, what?
How many were in your school?
Well, the first school I went to
there were 1,500,
and then I got on a scholarship
into a boarding school
and there were 400 and that was
a bit more weird.
Were you boarding?
Yeah, yeah.
And so what age did you leave there?
16, and then...
And did you go onto sixth form?
No, I went to sixth form college
down back near home
because there was girls.
Ah.
Were you doing art,
because you've always been a
cartoonist, haven't you
Yeah. Did you do art at college?
No, the funny thing was I didn't.
I mean, I chose incredibly poorly.
I did Russian O level.
Wow! Maths A level,
geography A level, when I hadn't
passed the O level.
Pottery. Oh, I loved pottery.
Bit of ceramics, got to love that.
I did pottery GCSE.
And A level economics that I
didn't know a thing about.
It was a busy year.
Covered in clay, confused.
SPEAKS IN RUSSIAN
All the motors
and everything like just going...
We're getting a lot of suicides
with Blueberry.
Richard, you were writing
The Phone Book?
When I came to London,
I did a few.
The first job I did was I worked
at a lighthouse parts
manufacturing company in Brentford.
It was just down in sort of
Brentford. In Brentford?
Brentford town centre? That kind
of '60s sort of...?
And then I worked in Ealing
at the West London Phone Book.
And it was just as they were getting
to putting it into computers,
so in 1989, 1990.
So the 1990 book.
And so we had to learn how to type
stuff into the computer,
which was quite easy. But we spent
a lot of time messing around.
There was an ex-directory
computer there,
which you could look up
basically rude words
and find out what people...
There was loads of people called
"Wank," just loads of people.
But my favourite one was there
was someone called Dr Wank,
who wanted to be ex-directory but it
sounds like a kind of pornographic
James Bond villain.
"Hmm, yes..."
I was sharing a flat with Stewart
Lee at the time,
the comedian and his...
The comedian.
The comedian. Well, yeah,
some say.
And he worked for the Macmillan
Encyclopaedia of Horticulture
at the time. We had very...
It was like we had...
Oh, wow.
Seriously, I mean thigh deep
in vaginas.
Wow! Wow! You boys!
I changed Stewart, in the computer,
the phone book was in his name
so I changed his name
from Stewart Lee to Stewart Wee.
And I thought I'd get caught,
but I got away with it.
And we were really hoping that
someone, we were hoping like a kid
would ring up one day and go,
"Is Mr Wee there? Ha-ha!"
And Stewart could go,
"Well, actually the joke's on you
"because my name is Stewart Lee,
we changed that specifically
"for this purpose so..."
But we got one call for Mr Wee,
which was...
They said, "Is Mr Wee there?"
And I went "Stew, Stew -
"finally it's happened, Mr Wee."
And he came through and said,
"Hello, Mr Wee speaking," and it was
a guy trying to sell mattresses.
And Stew listened to his whole
spiel and then said,
they were orthopaedic mattresses,
"That sounds very interesting but
the thing is I'm incontinent..."
"I have to have my mattresses
specially made so that they can cope
with that."
And he went, "Oh, um, well,
thank you," and sort of hung up.
And that guy - I'm presuming has
a story that he dines out on,
of the time he rang up Mr Wee.
But it wasn't, the joke's on him
cos it's Stewart Lee.
I actually used to work in a call
centre, like a cold-call centre.
Where you had a pile of
thick sort of things
that had been filled out
by other people. Yeah.
And then you'd get the number,
you'd have sort of detail,
and it was a Bacardi Breezer trial,
one of them I remember.
And having to ring up these
people who'd been given
Bacardi Breezers to try.
And some of them weren't in
kind of great shape?
And I do remember one guy,
the Bacardi Breezer thing,
starting to talk about his state
of mind and how alone he was
and just finding it very, very...
"Yeah, yeah. No, I know.
I understand."
And I've kind of got a pile
of things I have to get through
but I can't. I'm thinking, you know,
just as long as he doesn't,
you know, mention suicide,
I'm probably all right.
But I could probably steer him
in the right direction,
but just this idea of him
with this kind of
sad, flavoured Bacardi Breezer
trial bottle sort of sitting alone,
you know, so thrilled that someone's
called him,
and it's just me,
from a call centre.
I was like... When he gets to the
end talking about how sad he is,
do you have to go,
"Well, have you tried pineapple?"
Yes. "So which was it? A, B, or C?"
"We're getting a lot of suicides
with blueberry."
I remember walking,
I was on Clifton Suspension Bridge,
and there's a sign saying, er,
"If you're depressed or sad then you
might consider ringing this number,"
and it's The Samaritans.
A Samaritans phone.
And there's no phone. There's
no phone anywhere you can see.
And I think if anything's going
to tip you over the edge,
it's the idea that there's someone
on the end of the phone
but there just isn't a phone.
Oh the Golden Gate Bridge, it's...
It should have been the phone
that you had at the airport.
Every hundred yards on the
Golden Gate Bridge
there's a phone and a...
There's someone there 24 hours a day
for that very purpose.
To say "Don't jump. Come on."
Tell me about being crucified,
what does that feel like?
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, this was... Oh, my God...
Can I just check that you aren't
Jesus? That would be...
Yeah, no, I'm ... Before we go any...
Cos you're still here.
Yeah, no, I'm fine. I don't know
what I was going to show you there.
Stigmata! Place your fingers into
my wounds and believe!
Which was, um... But Jesus wasn't
actually nailed through the palm.
No. It was through the wrist, cos
the nails will just rip out -
that's what happens there -
he would just fall off the cross.
You don't have to be roped as well
round the arms to hold yourself?
They put it right through the bone
there, so you'd stay up.
They must have tried it.
The Romans must have tried it,
and they must've just kept
slipping off.
Going, "Oh, lads, not again?!"
How do you know that about the bone?
Is that a fact that's out there?
Because I'm a Catholic
and it's drilled into you, Alan.
"Do you know how
he was put up on the cross?"
We're like seven in class going,
"What?"
"Yeah, that's right it was nailed
to his wrist
"and he was kept up by his bones
"while he bled to death,
you little bastards!"
And then he went, "And now -
and now we'll do a bit of English".
But anyway, anyway...
..the time I got crucified, I worked
in a warehouse, er, my job...
What?! The time you got crucified?
I'm backtracking. I'm backtracking.
Best issue of Storage Wars ever.
Can you imagine going...?
Anyway. $1,000 for that.
Anyway, I was in a warehouse
and we...myself,
I used to do a lot, play a lot
of tricks on people
just have a bit of fun.
Like myself, my mate PJ, I used to
make him tea,
but I'd put little tiny washers
and bolts in the bottom of it.
And he'd be like talking
away and next minute he'll go -
and he'll swallow a little washer
And then, at the end of the year,
they would drag him
round the warehouse with magnets.
So... So...
And then, another day...
We should have done that!
Another day, um,
a work experience guy arrived,
and on his first day we taped him up,
and we brought him outside,
and taped him to a pole
and put a grid on his head.
And the police came up and got out
and went, "What are you doing?"
to the guy.
And he went, "They've taped me up!"
And they went, "Feckin' idiot!"
and got back in
Er, another guy, er, another time,
I just tried...
There is a reason for all this.
I then got...
The company was owned by
an English company,
and the warehouse wasn't
running too smoothly,
so they sent over an English person,
who came over -
a manager to look after us.
Um, about four days in it was
that guy's birthday,
so we gaffer taped him completely.
The English guy?
Yeah. The new boss?
The new boss, we taped him...
And we burned him!
No, no. We're beginning to see
a pattern here.
"Why is it not going well?"
"I think it's..."
We taped him, right?
We then...we then hung a motor
chain out of the ceiling
and we hooked his...
we tied around his ankles
and we brought him
up into the ceiling on a motor...
It's like something
out of Reservoir Dogs
This isn't a prank!
So we're there with the motor
control going...
And he's going "I'm going to kill
you! You're dead! You're dead!"
And then we brought his birthday
cake out
and we put it on the ground and we
lowered him in and out of the cake.
And he's just like this going...
"You're dead! You're dead, Jason!"
I'm going...
And then we've let him
down and took the chains off him
and we'd ordered a courier,
but before the courier got there we
put the said man into a flight case,
locked it
and the courier guy arrived -
he was always an old guy so he never
really knew what was going on.
So inside - our man -
the warehouse manager's going...
We lifted him up, put him
in the back of the van
and that guy delivered him
to a theatre.
It's a cross between Fargo
and Tarantino.
Were you crucified for the crimes
you committed?
Some - quite rightly.
Anyway, he was delivered to the
theatre and the lads opened up
and he was in the theatre and they
didn't even let him, didn't
give him a lift back. He had to walk
back covered in tape and cake.
So then... So there was many
pranks like that
and we would like tie up bikes
and....
Had he lost his sense of authority
after that?
Was it difficult for him
the next day?
There were more pranks after that?
You weren't fired?
You didn't lose your jobs?
Nobody would fire us.
Like we tried...
Could you talk me through your six
month assessment meeting?
Yes, yes!
"Well Jason there's been an awful
lot of the...the old horse play."
There's people on the ceiling
and they're hanging there.
Cakes and chains, Jason.
Cakes and chains.
We tried to get sacked. PJ said,
"This is it, we're going to get
sacked today. This is it."
Two of you or more than two doing
these pranks? Myself and PJ.
You were the ringleaders.
We decided we'd have a theme
day and we said we'd play
the song "Five Four Three Two One"
as many times as we could.
So we went in and we put it on at
nine in the morning. It was like...
# Five, four, three, two, one
de-de-de-de
# Five, four, three,
two, one. #
And that song ends...
# Five, four dum dum... #
And then we'd wait a few seconds
and all you hear is
# Five, four... #
So we've brought it up to lunchtime
cos the bosses literally knew
what we were trying to do
and they stayed in their Portakabins
and didn't come out.
So about ten-to-one Dinar -
I can say his name he's a lovely
fella - he came out and he just
went, "Turn it off!"
Right?
And we went "No, no, no, no, no,
it makes us...
"it helps us work. It helps us work"
And he went, "Turn it off!
Turn it off!" Right?
He took the tape out
and he ripped it up and put it away.
But we'd gotten the tapes out of a
bin outside, cos it was in a
magazine, it was taped to it.
Oh, so you had loads of them? Yes.
He ripped it up and we
went, "OK, fair enough we won't do it
"again." So we waited about 40
minutes. He settled
back in and then
he was on the phone doing an order.
And next we all hear is...
# Five, four..."
And he just drops the phone,
he comes out of
the Portakabin and goes,
"Right that's it!"
And he gets in his car
and he goes home!
So a lot of people were waiting
to get me on my 21st.
A lot of people. And everybody had
all decided they'd meet up early
in that warehouse before I got in
that day.
And I got in, and I pulled across the
big door, and they're all standing
there - everybody I'd done like over
the years - they're like this.
And behind them
in the ceiling is a massive crucifix.
And it's made out of trussing - you
know like what they hang lights off.
So it's all out that way and all that
way,
and it has "JXX1" written on
the top.
And I went, "Oh, no, please,
seriously?" And they went, "This is
it Jason."
So I ran around the warehouse. They
all chased me and then they got
me and they stripped me down to my
underpants and they chained me
and taped me to the cross, on the
ground, and they...
So I'm on the ground. Next minute
all the motors and everything like
goes...
And they hung me
in the ceiling, right?
OK? For the rest of the day.
Now, you might, I dunno... OK,
educated people, crucifixion,
you die mainly from asphyxiation
because what happened to people when
they got crucified was if you hold
your arms out like this for too long
you can't use your lungs properly.
So I started to get faint up there.
And they were going
"Yeah, yeah, whatever." I went,
"I feel dizzy. I don't feel well"
And they were setting
off pyrotechnics underneath me.
They had smoke machines,
they were just so and everything.
Do you know what they did?
Oh, my God. They got beans
and poured it on top of the
pyrotechnics and exploded them up.
So anyway... So eventually I...
They did that to Jesus as well.
Yes.
Cut to a cave in Limerick with
a big boulder.
"Put him in here."
Yes, "Jason walks again."
So my girlfriend finally
arrived at lunchtime and she went
"Get him down he's..." You know?
So I got down I was all faint
and...
So anyway that was grand, I retired
to recover.
# Happy birthday to... #
I got that.
But then, six months later, my lung
collapsed in the warehouse.
So I was talking to my mate PJ
and I was going...
And the next minute I went...
So we never believed each other cos
we did terrible things.
And I went...
and I started to fall on the ground
and he went, "Ha, you dope!"
And I went,
"Peter there's something wrong"
And he went "Yeah, yeah, yeah," and
kicked me in the back.
And I went,
"No, I'm kind of breathing funny."
And he went, "Yeah, whatever," and
he's kicking me.
I'm in hospital with a drain in me
and PJ going "Oh, Jason, man,
I'm sorry."
The slitty eyes...
And he took my finger out
and he went,
"Now, you can tell that on stage".
I did a show in Edinburgh in '92
called The Love Child of Alan Ladd
and this was because... Yeah.
My name's Alan as you know and
that's supposedly
because my mother had a crush
on Alan Ladd - the movie star.
My mum died when I was six,
so I don't really know much about
what she thought.
But I know this because my dad,
when Alan Ladd came
on the television would say, "Oh
"your mum liked him," and then he'd
always remark on how short he was.
He'd say things like,
"She must be standing in a hole."
Yeah. Things like that.
I did this show called
The Love Child of Alan Ladd. Yeah.
And it was on at midnight at no-one
was really coming to it
but the promoter sent a PR person.
I said to them,
"Why don't we pretend that the
Alan Ladd family are upset about
it."
So they hired an actress to play
a relative of Alan Ladd who did
an American accent. Oh, my God.
And they got her on local radio
in Edinburgh -
can't remember which station -
and then phoned me up.
I had to pretend that the call
had come out of the blue.
And then we had a row about it,
with me saying, "Look there's no
offence. I mean it's not...
"It's very affectionate about Alan
Ladd. I'm named after Alan Ladd -
my mother loved Alan Ladd."
"You shouldn't use our name and
our estate want all the profits
from the show.
"Well, there aren't any, that's
the reason we're doing this."
It was fun. It was the only real bit
of the run of the show
that I really enjoyed doing - the
fake publicity stunt.
And then as I was walking down the
hill back to where I was staying,
there was one of those boards
outside a newsagent and it said,
"Film star love-child anger".
And so I just nicked it, you know?
Had it on my wall for years.
I was absolutely horrified to
discover that
I was named after Prince Philip.
Hmm.
Were you really? Yeah.
I don't have much time for him,
it has to be said.
Royalty in general. I'm ...
You don't return their calls?
I'm fuckin' named after one.
He's a good one to be named after
though, isn't he?
What the racist, pointed -
"Slitty eyes"...?
You can do him as well!
You can do him!
You're doing him!
Oh, my God, it is just like...
Yeah. And it's one of those things
that your mother'll just drop in.
Mum was really really good at just
telling me hideous facts when I'm
in the middle of a beverage at home.
We're chit-chatting about this, that
and the other, and I'm
sitting and the telly's on
and there's a wedding or something
I'll go, "Those sponging bastards
look at them!" She goes,
"I don't know what you're on about
you're named after one!"
What people might not know about
you, Phill, cos you can do
Prince Philip quite well, but one
thing that you're not...
I don't think you've fully
exploited that you can do
so many voices - you can do
all of the Simpsons.
"I am the best. I am the best."
My favourite Homer one is,
"It's still good. It's still good"
Were you...
when anything - any food drops?
No the best, the best Homer
quote ever,
and it's one of the most beautifully
written Simpsons bit,
is when he goes to Vegas and he
goes, "Guess how many boobs I saw,
Marge?"
And he's sat there
and he's completely pissed
and he goes, "15!"
I did meet Dan Castellaneta who
does Homer's voice
and he came to the
Edinburgh Festival.
He didn't seem to mind doing a bit
of
Homer and a mutual friend
said, "He'll do some Homer
"he won't mind. I'll ask him." And
then you're chatting to him
and then he suddenly goes,
"Can you lend me some money, Alan?"
But completely as Homer - it comes
out of his mouth and it's weird.
Well in Kilkenny at the comedy
festival... Have you been to that?
Yeah, yeah, a few times, in the
nineties. ...which is great.
So Dan Castellaneta was there
and George Wendt was there.
They were doing improv.
And Dan wasn't doing the voices.
So of course Irish people being
the Irish started going, "Homer!
"Homer! Homer!" And then he just
went, "Oh, OK, I'll
"do Homer but I'll do it as long as
you all close your eyes." Right?
And so we all closed our eyes.
And he did Homer going into Cheers
talking to Norm.
And it was the best thing
you'll ever hear.
Right. Wasn't it at Kilkenny when
George Wendt was there...
Dylan? Yeah.
You tell it, everyone
knows this story.
Phill, go on. Do you know it?
Yeah, but it's just everyone...
Everyone had agreed not to call him
Norm. Everyone agreed not to when
George Wendt walks into a bar...
Not to call him Norm?
Don't go "Norm!"
Don't go "Norm" when he walks in.
He gets it all the time ...
Don't mention the Norm. Yeah.
He walks into this busy bar
and everyone looked round
and he was braced, nothing
happened, they carried on drinking.
He was, "Ah, brilliant! Fantastic"
had a lovely, lovely evening.
And then he goes into the toilets -
Dylan Moran is on the floor,
sparko, unconscious.
And Wendt goes, "Oh, my God, this
guy." and he wakes him.
He wakes Dylan. "You all right?"
And Dylan Moran's lying there and
opens his eyes and goes, "Norm!"
That's not how I heard it. No? You
tell it. On the toilet?
That he's on the toilet. Norm's
on the toilet - sorry, George.
No, Dylan's on the toilet.
Dylan's on the toilet?
Yeah. It's not Norm.
Dylan's in the loo.
He's actually in the one place,
George, where he's really going
but he hasn't secured
the door properly and Dylan Moran
pushes the door and he sitting
on the toilet and goes, "Norm!"
and closes the door.
Do you know Ricky Grover? Remember
Ricky? Yeah.
OK, Big Ricky. Big Ricky.
Oh, Buller. Yeah, love Buller.
He's in EastEnders or whatever.
Ricky's brilliant.
I'd never met him but I was going
to do like a gig with him.
I was going to do an open spot.
I had all my little props and it
was all just arrived from Ireland.
And Ricky collected me - huge
ex-boxer. I'm in the car, we drive
to the gig, we do the gig and
we turn round and we go back home.
And we're driving along the motorway
and he seems nice - don't
really know him - it's all fine,
and then he turns in, he turns
into a lay-by, turns the engine off
and goes, "Right - go ahead"
"I'm sorry? What?"
And he went, "It's to
pay for the petrol. Go ahead, get
yourself round that." Right?
He's the most intimidating man alive
but... And I was... He's huge.
I'm going, "Um, can
I not just give you the money?"
He went, "Oh, I'm only having
a laugh!"
I was white as a ghost.
Well it's quite a good tactic, isn't
it, if you want to go and see
what they do, and then go,
"Oh, I was only having a laugh."
The size of him,
I would have eventually...
On the subject of genitalia...
Oh, yes.
..what is it about your testicles
that are so stressed?
They're "stress-ticles".
"Stress-ticles". I was working very
hard
and my left testicle started to
balloon and it was like,
"Oh that's really, that's really
sore." I was in Australia
and they did blood tests
and everything. They're going,
"We don't know what's wrong with
you." We thought
I'd maybe caught something in the
water, or whatever, like when
I was drinking, cos sometimes there
can be an E Coli thing, you know?
And my kidneys were starting to hurt
and my wee was on fire and...
and the ball was just getting bigger
and bigger.
And then I just went home,
I got home to Ireland
and I got to a specialist.
And he went, "Let me stop you there.
Is your ball big?" "A bit yeah."
"Are your kidneys sore?"
"Yeah." "Is your wee hurting you?"
I went, "Yeah," "Right, it's stress.
"Your balls are getting bigger
because of stress." I went, "Stress?"
He goes, "Yeah, you must be very
stressed right now.
"I get many men in here
when they're stressed." Cos when men
are stressed, they do that with
their bum and their testicles,
they go...
..like this when they're stressed.
So I had basically been
pumping my ball up!
I have never heard of this.
I know. And, right,
he gave me a prostate examination
just to make sure it wasn't
too bad in there. But what
happened is that had gone up
a little bit and I was on my side,
and he did the usual examination,
on my side, but he just...
They just have to go like that and
take it out again. But he went in...
When he took it out,
did your ball go...
No, but he... What
he did was... I was on my side
and he put it in and he got
my prostate and then he manoeuvred
his finger some way and he pressed
something and I went, "Whoooh!"
# Five, four, three, two, one..."
But he pressed something, right?
I felt something weird up my penis,
I don't know what it was. Whoa!
It was his finger!
He had pressed something that shot
up my penis and, er,
he took me finger out and he went,
"Now, you can tell that on stage."
And I said,
"Were you not examining me?"
He goes, "No,
I put that extra bit in for you."
For material?!
Yeah. He said, "Maybe you
can tell a joke about that."
He goes, "That's an extra button."
And he's a doctor?!
Now listen, we have to
think of a title for the programme.
Er, The Wank Doctors.
Dr Wank - The Wank Doctor.
Crucifixion Swell. Swell Ball? Er...
I'm quite interested in that penis
thing.
Like what happened there?
You know, like ...?
The prostate? Yeah, what did he do?
We all want to know!
There's a bit where your...
basically your wee comes out
and he'd pressed the bottom of that
and the pain shot up through
there like a spiral. It went...
Sex is Fun fits in with that.
Yes, Sex is Fun.
Only if he'd carved it into this
desk.
Yeah. I think that when you do
the next series, here's what
you should do. Just for a laugh,
just get four comedians that
have not seen the show at all
and then, er, when they come out,
just have a revolver in the middle
of the table and one bullet.
Right? Then the next week, a
rat in a cage
with like a head-sized hole in it.
It's time for someone to wear
the hat of fun.
I'm surprised that Richard hasn't
already carved it into the desk.
I could do. I can,
if you give me a compass.
Well, I think it's an excellent...
Sex is Fun? Yeah.
I agree. ..an excellent title.
I'm happy with that.
I'd like to thank Jessica Hynes,
Phill Jupitus, Richard Herring,
Jason Byrne. You have been
watching "Sex is Fun". Good night.
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd