Alan Davies: As Yet Untitled (2014–…): Season 2, Episode 4 - Episode #2.4 - full transcript

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I forgot you were filming,
coming out the car

and I'm wearing a coat
from the '90s, sorry about that,

I look like a very ancient
member of Oasis.

Captain fun has arrived.

Um, am I in the right place?

Alan Davies.

You know, guys, you could be
working in Hollywood, you could,

instead of filming people
getting out of cars.

There's four of them apparently...

..and one of them's a girl.

Hello, I'm Alan Davies,
this is As Yet Untitled.



This is a show where we
just have a conversation,

there isn't any agenda or plan
or prepared questions.

It's a bit of a chat and at the end
of it, we'll try and work out

a title for the show and to do that,
I need to the help of my guests,

so please will you welcome them.

APPLAUSE

Thank you very much, here they are.

Hello, hello. Welcome. Welcome.

Now, let's see who we got here.

We got Sharon Horgan,

Sharon earned her equity status
via pretentious Punch and Judy

and broke the fall of a Rhodesian
ridgeback while five months pregnant.

APPLAUSE

David Baddiel, fantastic to have
David here,



David is often confused for other
Jewish luminaries

and has suffered an awkward family
incident with a onesie.

David Baddie is here.

James Brown.

James Brown tenuously organised
a Michael Jackson search party,

and enjoyed Sao Paolo with a dwarf
and a basketball player.

James Brown is here.

And Nish Kumar, welcome to Nish.

Nish is an accidental
internet sensation.

Nish Kumar.

That feels like that could be...
Yeah, an immediate murmur of
disquiet around the room. Going...

I want got to get that out
the way immediately,

it has nothing to do with
pornography?

No, it's not porn.

How is it accidental,
that's what I think confuses

and worries people, cos that's
the excuse people usually use.

It's accidental like Kim Kardashian,
I've been leaking my own sex tapes.

Don't say leaking sex tapes.

Leaking sex is the worst sort of sex.

I've got to an age now
where it's mainly leaking.

Do you have any leaking sex?

I think I do, it's sex with
incontinence pants for me.

I've upset the audience
very early on, I'm sorry.

Fair play to be your age
having some sex.

No, that's true actually. I'll stop
playing the pensioner card, shall I?

It's very early to be doing that.
How old are you, David?

174.

No, I'm 50.

50? Yeah. When was your 50th?

I can't remember
cos I've got senility.

No, on May 28th I was 50.

Wow! Congratulations, I'm 48.

But you've had the same haircut
since you were 10.

No, no, since I was about 28.
OK, all right.

I let my hair grow.

I like it. A girl made me do it.

Thanks, Sharon. It looks...

I turned to Sharon for approval
because I don't care what
you lot think.

This show isn't normally about me.

The thing is I sometimes get offered
the chance of that operation whereby

you can have your eyes sorted out
so you don't have to wear glasses.

Lasered. Lasered, thank you.

Oh, I thought you meant
dead people's corneas.

Dead people's corneas? Transplants.

That's a horror film.

You can have a transplant. Not that?

No, not that. Hold on,
I need to go back two steps, you can

have dead people's eyes
stuffed in your face?

Yeah, this is a zombie operation.

No, but the question is, when people
have said that to me,

I've thought, "Glasses, that's part
of my brand," for want of a better

word and your hair, I wouldn't know
who you were without that hair.

It is that... Really?
Yeah, it's your thing.

I mean, there's lots of other
things about you, Alan.
He's not changing it.

No, I'm wondering
if that's what you feel,

if someone said to you, "Alan,
you're 40, whatever you are, maybe

have different hair." And you're
thinking, "No, this is who I am."

Can't imagine who would care.

Alan, when you go on a summer
holiday, like to the Caribbean,

do you get cornrows done

or do you just keep it like it is?

You know what?
I wanted to do that in Bali.

Walking past the same woman every day
and she was very friendly

and every day she'd ask, you know,
she was thinking,

"I want to get my hands
on that mess."

I thought you were going to say,
"In Barnsley."

Under no circumstances... You know
what we do in Barnsley,

wear cornrows.

So, what happened?

You was walking past a computer,

you accidentally turned the camera
on, it filmed you doing something.

Yeah. And you became an internet
sensation.

It's weirder than that.
Was the camera at a wonky angle?

It's in night vision
so you can't even tell it's me.

It was, I got an e-mail from my
friend saying, "Ha-ha. Well done!"

Now, do you know what a meme is?
Cos I didn't.

It's short. That's right, yeah.

They have these pictures where
they just find a random photo

on the internet and just change
the caption according to a theme.

So, I saw which was a guy who's
going...

and everybody changes
the reason why he's surprised

and it's a very funny thing that

people of
a younger generation enjoy.

I didn't know what one was
until I looked

They had taken a publicity
shot of me and turned it into a meme

and the title of the meme was
The Confused Muslim.

So, now, just to be clear, that is

not a religion I or any of my family
are practising members of, so

a website called The Confused Muslim
has confused me with being a Muslim.

So, Nish, can you do the face now,
on the meme.

I can show you the face,
the face is this.

LAUGHTER

That's not as confused
as I thought it would be.

It's also not particularly
inherently Islamic either.

I'm not reading the Koran
or refusing a bacon sandwich.

It's nothing particularly...

From my point of view, refusing
a bacon sandwich is quite confusing
anyway.

How many hits, though?
How many hits?

More than work that I've
legitimately put on the internet.

Basically, I got obsessed with
trying to find out what had happened

and what had happened is, I have
an... You can all see

my face, it's of an undetermined
ethnic origin and so I said on stage

that I was one of the few people
that's regularly confused with being

both a Jew and a Muslim, a website
reprinted that quote verbatim,

so now when you Google confused
Muslim, it's my fucking face.

Is it OK being on Google
as, you know, anything Muslim.

Doesn't that mean
that MI6 kind of get in touch

and stuff like that, are you OK?

I mean, given that I already
look like a Homeland extra, I think

they're probably...

You don't look like an extra.
You look like the main guy.

You look like the guy that's
got about four computer screens

and he's taken
control of the drones.

Oh, no, that was 24.
You look like the guy in 24.

If Jack Bauer comes in here,
we're fine, you're dead.

I think you do look like you work
undercover, for us.

Right, OK. So I've got the face
for it but I've got kind eyes.

Oxbridge graduate.

Exactly, sort of double agent.
Speaks Arabic.

Dresses like that most of the time
but then they put him in the gear

and send him out to Afghanistan.
I think that's what you look like.

But there is a weird
piece of circularity in being sat

opposite you, because
if you google "confused Muslim"...

You get me? No.

The three images that appear,
the first one is Jesus Christ...

..the original confused Muslim.

And the second is a picture of
Omid Djalili in the film,

The Infidel, which you wrote.

That's correct
because when you said, you know,

that you're of indeterminate
ethnicity,

I wrote a film called
The Infidel

which is about a Muslim who
discovers he was adopted and born

a Jew and to some extent, that was
based on a very old joke which you

might be the only person here who
remembers me telling, a true story.

I used to say, I've been beaten up
twice in my life,

once for being Jewish,
once for being a Pakistani

and it used to get a laugh
because people were thinking,

"Well, he could be either,
couldn't he?" That's clearly what
people were thinking

but that did happen to me
and when I was being beaten up,

this was in Wembley in about 1987,

for being a Pakistani, I did

even consider saying to the fascist
beating me up, "You don't

understand, I'm Jewish." But it
wouldn't have worked, would it?

When you were younger, you had
really black hair, didn't you?

Will you stop going on about my age?

I know I'm decaying, Alan.

You looked like a Pakistani
when you were younger

but now you really look Jewish.

Do you think?

You look like Mel Brooks playing
the 1,000-year-old man,
that's what you're saying.

That sounds like the first
line of your online dating profile.

"Used to look a bit Pakistani,
now, really Jewish."

I know women really go for that.

I wonder what you'll get
beaten up for next,

that's the interesting question.

Just by people who think, "I can
beat him up," cos he's so old.

Tell me when you organised
the Michael Jackson search party.

Very tenuous,
it's just a great story.

I was at work one day and one
of my editors came in and said,

"Do you know where Michael Jackson's
staying?" I went, "No," and he said,
"No, neither does he."

"He's in my girlfriend's office now,
he's lost."

It was about 11 o'clock on a Tuesday
morning, and his girlfriend

worked at the pre-strip joint
Stringfellows when it was just

a hub for soap stars
and footballers,

it was a celebrity nightclub and

apparently, Jacko had been shopping
in Harrods with Lionel Richie.

And if you've ever been to Harrods,

even on a Tuesday morning,
it's busy.

And Mr Al-Fayed
and Lionel Richie had lost Michael.

Lost him?

You know what it's like when you're
shopping, you start looking...

He was probably looking at some
monkey nuts and then the others
drifted off.

That's cos he's got monkeys.

He's got monkeys. Just a quick...
I am not 12 years old.

I am aware that I am a little bit
younger than everyone else here

but I do know who
Michael Jackson is.

So Jacko panics and walks through
the doors

and sees the cab rank
and jumps into a cab.

And, the cab driver, assuming
Michael Jackson knows where he's
going,

thinks, "Fuck, I've got Michael
Jackson," and he just sets off.

And he goes, "Where do you want to
go, Mr Jackson?" He goes,
"My hotel."

He goes, "And..."
And he goes, "Don't you know?"

He's in a black cab, he's going,
"I don't know where it is."

And he proceeds to describe
the hotel.

Cab driver obviously knows
a few hotels,

so the cab driver thinks, "I'll
ring round," so he gets on the radio
and nobody knows where

Michael Jackson is, so he goes,
"I'll take him

"to where the celebrities go."

So the cab driver took him to
Stringfellows.

Was this the middle of the day?

This was just before lunch.

He bangs on the door,
my deputy's girlfriend answers it

and Michael Jackson's there, with
a bloke that looks like he should be
in EastEnders and they come in

and explain what's going on,
so she starts ringing anyone she can

get hold of who she thinks will know
where Michael Jackson should stay.

Eventually, the cabbie says, "I'm
going to wait in the car cos the

"meter's still running." And he gets
back on the control and eventually

his controller goes, "He's staying
at this hotel in Knightsbridge."

So he comes back in and says,
"Right, I know where he's going,
it's OK."

Meanwhile, back at Harrods, Lionel
Richie has lost Michael Jackson

and Lionel Richie is
getting a bit nervous,

so he goes through the same doors
and sees the cab rank

and the guy in charge of the rank
goes, "You looking for Michael
Jackson?" He went, "Yeah."

Did he say, "Hello,
is it me you're looking for?"

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Sadly, because it's true,
sadly, not.

He gets in a cab
and the controller goes,

"He's gone to Stringfellows."
20 minutes later, there's a knock

at the door of Stringfellows,
and Martin's girlfriend answers it,

and there's another cabbie
and Lionel Richie.

And Rachel and Lionel Richie looked
at each other and went,
"Michael Jackson!"

I think this explains something I've
never understood, which is why,

I don't know if you know this

but Mohammed Al-Fayed, who used to
own Fulham, for reasons that

were never clear, built
a statue of Michael Jackson outside

of Fulham and I presume it's so that
he would always know where he was.

I am a British male
celebrity over the age of 45,

I cannot google the words
"child's penis", all right?

Sarah, can you tell me
about pretentious Punch and Judy?

Well, you know when you had to go
and get your equity card,

it's an actors' union, erm...

You had to get 12 contracts
from comedy venues that said

you'd performed there.

The contract was a bit of A4 that
someone printed off saying,

"He did a gig at my club for ?9."

Do you still need them?
I guess you do.

But what's the story?
Oh, the story.

I was just starting out and I'd just
moved over from Ireland.

I didn't know how to
get into a theatre show

or the normal things you do to
get an equity card

but I did know a guy who had a Punch
and Judy show and he was a kind of

out of work actor who was obsessed
with Punch and Judy and I asked

him if I could join his show
in order to, you know, get my card.

So, I didn't really think it
through, to realise I'd be

sharing a tiny little box with
a man.

It's very tight.

Is it?

LAUGHTER

With a swazzle,

the thing you put in your mouth to
make the Punch sort of noise.

It's about the size of a coin,
isn't it?

Yeah, and generally when someone has
it in their mouth, it's

covered in saliva
and they spit all over you.

I've tried a swazzle, they are really
hard to use. They are very hard.

The ones that make you talk like
that. That's how you get the voice.

Yeah, that's it. You don't need one,
though.

Unless you just had the swazzle
hidden in your mouth. What happened
to me was I put the swazzle in

and then I started doing the voice
anyway.

You don't stop doing things,
the swazzle does the work.

HIGHPPITCHED MUMBLING

Well, he was just doing Punch
with the swazzle and

I was doing all the other characters
and it was

pretentious in that he had...

Do you know the story
of Punch and Judy?

He kills his wife with
a crocodile or something.

He beats his wife up
and then he beats his baby up.

It's not really reconstructed guy,
is he? Punch, really.

Why are we showing that to children?

I don't think
they kill the baby any more.

And sausages, there are sausages.

Sausages announce the arrival of the
crocodile...

HIGH-PITCHED MUMBLING

He loves it.

..when the crocodile turns up,
and then there's his mate, Joey.

Joey? Joey? Punch and Joey?

No, that's his wife.

That's the gay version.

Judy. Punch and Joey is different.
The Old Compton Street version.

He does have a friend called Joey.

He's got a friend called Joey?

And our friend in this show was
a black Joey and so, the guy...

Oh, God the victorious.

The guy, my pretentious actor
friend who I did Punch and Judy

show with, he made the baby
black as well so there was

an issue on parentage there, which,
you know, I guess was
kind of interesting.

That's progressive casting.

Yeah, very.

Where were you doing this show?

Just in his basement.

No, in his front room.

No! In his front room.

In his front room?
Was there an audience?

There was an audience of people

and there was no charge except for
a ?5 suggested donation.

And then, I went, "This isn't going
to get me my equity card.

"We've just done it in your front
room," and he said,

"No, it's OK, we're going to take
it to an English speaking

"festival in Paris." So we travelled
to Paris with a Punch and Judy show.

Did they like it?
They didn't like it.

They didn't understand
anything about it

but the best thing was
being in Paris with this guy,

this actor guy who spent most
of his time drinking very heavily.

Wine is so cheap there,
drinking very heavily in the morning

and then I'd have to share the Punch
and Judy box with him, I really

hope he's not watching, but he did
smell quite badly of alcohol fumes.

Did he ever try it on, this guy?

No. Never? No.

He's in a little tiny box with you,
he's drunk, he's in Paris.

What's he thinking about?
Not trying it on.

Did you? Did I try it? No.

Did you get the card, though?

I did get the card

but because I did what you
did, which is got loads of people to

pretend to fill in a form saying
that I'd done it for them.

Well, I did actually do some.
Oh, sorry.

LAUGHTER

Not all of mine were fraud.

I performed it.

You were in the tent.
I deserved that.

You do deserve something for being
in there with a drunk bloke
with a swazzle.

Oh, the other slightly pretentious
thing

was that he'd play the Carmina
Burana at the end,

we had a life-size devil which,
instead of being

on his hand, he put over his head,
so it make the kids shit their
pants.

They're used to this size of puppet,
at the very end,

this massive life-size devil would
come out to the Carmina Burana.

Actually to the Carmina Burana them?
Duh-duh-duh-duh!

Yeah.

That's absolutely terrifying.

Why did that happen?

Because he was about the art of it,
rather than the actual...

the kiddies, I guess.

There were no kiddies, we never
performed... There were no kiddies?

Well, rarely, maybe a little,
I can't remember. It was ages ago.

To David now,
what happened with the onesie?

The onesie. Erm, well...

Is it an animal suit onesie?

Well, it was my son who was wearing
the onesie, quite recently,

it was only about five months ago
and as can happen with a onesie,

he got his penis
caught in the zip of the onesie.

GROANING

That is the noise people tend to
make, it's very awful

but it's the sort of injury where
you don't quite know what to do.

How much of the penis?

Well, I'll get onto that.

Can I just ask, presumably he had
already been circumcised?

Well, actually my son was not
originally circumcised.

This is a side where I don't
normally say... Was it originally?

No, we thought about it because
I'm Jewish but my partner is not

and then we decided against it
and then God intervened.

LAUGHTER

Have you, have you done that...

He didn't intervene with the onesie
thing, he intervened because,

this is possibly too much detail but
my son turned out to have a very...

Don't forget he has to go to school
and people will watch this.

Well, I'll tell you anyway.

LAUGHTER

My son turned out,
when he was about three,

he had a very tight foreskin and so,
for medical reasons,
he had to have a...

OK, so what bit was in the zip?

Basically, just, a bit
was in the zip that was causing him

a lot of pain
and we didn't quite know what do.

Have you ever done that?

I have. I did it at school.

I've got scar tissue.

Have you? Yeah, because you've got
to go back over it.

Oh, no.

I'm going back over it now
in the story, it's painful enough.

This is the bit of the story that
I don't understand.

You seem to think it's something to
do with the onesie,

I'm telling you now, it's any zip.

That's true, but the key thing about
the onesie is

he wasn't wearing pants.

Do you not wear pants in the onesie,
is it commando? It's a commando thing
isn't it, a onesie?

Yeah. So, he wasn't wearing pants,
he got part of his penis

caught in the zip, me
and Morwenna, who is my partner,

we didn't know what to do and after
a while, she said, "Google it."

How long was he screaming whilst
you were logging in?

Quite a while but the point is,
I said, "I can't." This is

absolutely true, I said, "I can't,"
she said, "What do you mean?"

I said, "I'm a British male
celebrity over the age of 45,

"I cannot google the words
"child's penis", all right?"

I may as well just phone up
Operation Yewtree...

..and hand myself in.

What happened with the penis?

It bled.

Actually, we did google it after
this

and we discovered that what you have
to do is put, like, oil on it,

like, olive oil, some kind of...
I'm going to say the word lubricant,

I wish I wasn't saying it,

and then it comes out
the zip and then he was OK.

I didn't know that, we didn't have
Google when I did that,

I was just a pair of jeans
and back down.

So, what, you just yahoo'd it?

LAUGHTER

Don't tell me you asked Jeeves,
for the love of God!

It would take too long.

But I do remember banging on my
mate's door naked with

the rabbit, trying to get him
to come out for a rabbit race.

Who was the basketball player? Was
it an NBA star, somebody important?

I'm getting the dwarf is small and
the basketball player is enormous.

Sometimes people ask me,
"James, why don't you drink?

"Why did you stop drinking?"

Anyone who knows me
never asks me that.

One particular story that stood
out in my mind before I came to

the conclusion that it would be
a good idea was,

I was flown with a few
of my colleagues to Brazil to see

the Grand Prix and there
was so much sponsorship.

This was in the days when cigarette
companies sponsored Formula 1.

Can I just... I want to hear the
story but...

You just get flown to
Brazil? All over the world, Alan.

This is when you were editor
of a huge-circulation magazine.

I invented a new type of magazine.
Everyone wanted to be in it.

Football, sport, Formula 1,
crisps, nightclubs.

So do you call them up and say...

No, no, no.
Can we get that list again?

Yeah.
THEY LAUGH

Football, sport, Formula 1.

That's all the same Venn diagram,
and then crisps.

LAUGHTER
I have this great image of a, er...

Whatever they want in the office!

Exactly. It's like the fall
of the Roman Empire, isn't it?

It was like the start
of the Roman Empire.

That's what the column was called,
What We Want.

People just said... One guy
got his teeth done, twice.

That's not that glamorous.

They would ring us and say,

"Do you want to go, four, five
of you to the Grand Prix?"

Before we'd even gone, they didn't
understand that, as you said,

just going to South America
was quite a nice thing to do,

so they sent these leather bags
over.

And mine, as the editor,
had ?4,000 in it.

It was the only time I really
got a bung.

But they didn't need to bung us
because we were going anyway!

Are you sure you weren't
some kind of mule?

LAUGHTER

That's what it sounds like.

With a note saying,
"You're going to need me."

Somewhere, a drug dealer opened
a bag full of crisps.

LAUGHTER

So we were on our way over there,

we got ?4,000
and everything is expenses paid.

What are you going to spend ?4,000
on in South America.

Oh, don't say it! Dwarves? Dwarves?

That's right.
Brazil football shirts.

LAUGHTER

We bought thousands and thousands of
grams of Brazilian football shirts.

Grams?

LAUGHTER

And...

You know...

Is this in the '90s? It was.

And we really could do anything
we wanted.

We were hugely successful, no-one
was going to tell us off for it.

No Twitter, no Facebook, no hashtag.

No comeback.

What happens in Brazil
stays in Brazil.

Or not.

Oh, right.
LAUGHTER

Anyway,
so the trick with South America is,

apart from all the grams of football
shirts you can buy,

there's also...they've got
really powerful drinks.

They've got Caipirinha
and Pisco Sour,

which both taste like soft drinks.

And the first night we were there,
I had so many of these Pisco Sours,

and I don't know to this day
how I did this,

but it is in a cricket writer's
book who was there.

I managed to spring two steps
across the middle of the road

and jump, hulk-like, over the top
of a people carrier, clear it,

roll over the other side
and stand up.

That's how drunk I was.
Shut the front door!

LAUGHTER

Not over the bonnet,
over the top of the car.

Were you a tiny bit lighter
in those days.

I was a lot lighter.
Before I was Alan's body treble,

I was... Over the top.

We went to a nightclub,
the people at the nightclub

were under the impression we were
Formula 1 drivers

because we looked quite well-suited,

we were European
and I told them we were.

LAUGHTER

We naturally had a lot of liberties,
or, er...

You know, they just let you do
what you want.

Because of the different
temperatures I was experiencing,

because of the stuff I'd ingested,

I used to spend a lot of time
in swimming pools in my clothes.

And there was this fantastic,
beautifully-lit one-man plunge pool.

So, of course,
I'm straight in there.

But I'm not in any fit state
to be walking around.

Anyway, for the rest of the night,

I'm like I'm in a human
curling game.

There's a guy following me around
the nightclub with a big sponge.

LAUGHTER

And, er...during this process,
my two mates have gone,

"We've got to get away from him,
he's an idiot."

And I found this massive guy,

he was a cab driver having around
the nightclub, he was huge.

I don't know how he got into
his car.

I gave him about ?200, I said,
"Let's just go for a drive
around Sao Paolo.

"Just take me to the worst bit
you can have fun in

"that you'd never take a tourist."

That was kind of my motto.
And I also...

LAUGHTER

It's quite a long motto.

LAUGHTER

Don't try and put it on your arm.

The other thing
I always carried with me...

I'd like to see that in Latin.

LAUGHTER
A curly thing.

I always carried a card

because I knew the state I was going
to get in, that said,

in the language of the country
we were in,

"I am drunk, please take me
to this hotel."

This is how I get home.

It was like a homing card.

Good idea. Yeah, and it worked.

They think, "Big hotel, we'll get
paid when we get there, definitely."

And, um...we were driving
around Sao Paolo

and I see this dwarf woman
walking the streets.

Prostitute dwarf woman.

How did you know?

Er...she had a very short skirt on.

Yeah, well, she's a dwarf!

Yes, she was.
LAUGHTER

She was tiny.
That's what I'm saying.

APPLAUSE

It could've been a maxi.

It was a band of gaffer tape.

And I am obviously thinking...

I didn't want to have sex with her,
but I thought,

"This will look great.
This will make them laugh."

So I said, "Let's get her
and we'll go back to the hotel."

So we arrived at the hotel about 3am

and I go through
this beautiful hotel

and the only thing in the foyer
was a compound

of really, really expensive,
floppy-eared, beautiful rabbits.

They had a more
luxurious lifestyle...

LAUGHTER

It's the only thing they had.
It was very minimalist.

Some of this stuff is a memory
and some of it is...

LAUGHTER

This is all true!

You wonder why I gave up.
Anyway, so I get to the, er...

I've picked up one of the rabbits,
I've got to the reception...

Have you got the dwarf?
# Bright eyes... #

And I could just see...
The guy didn't say anything,

I could just see in the eyes
of the concierge

a mixture of pity and fear.

And he was looking at me
and I could hear his eyes.

He was saying, "Are you sure?"

And I... He didn't say anything,
he said, "Good evening."

And I thought,
"Oh, what am I doing?"

I paid them off and left
with the rabbit.

And he didn't say anything
about the rabbit.

Maybe you were allowed to, like,
cuddle them, or something.

I don't remember much more,

but I do remember banging on my
mate's door, naked with the rabbit,

trying to get him to come
out for a rabbit race.

LAUGHTER

And the next morning,
we'd met a really nice guy

who was on a summer job, he was
a student driving us around

to and from the Grand Prix and
the tourist sites and what have you

and as we went to the airport,
he turned to my staff

and spoke to them
as if I wasn't there.

And he said, "I like James,
he's been very kind to me,

"but if he behaves in Rio
how he's behaved in Sao Paolo,

"he will be raped and murdered."

LAUGHTER

Just put that on your headstone.

"Raped and murdered. Rio. 1997."

And when you've got no control
over yourself,

that's a terrible thing to hear.

Can I say just something?

Sometimes when someone is telling
you a story,

you sort of get a bit lost,
don't you?

And there's a bit in that
I got lost in.

What happened to the dwarf
prostitute? Yeah.

I made her go home.

Because I assumed you were going
to put her on top of the big rabbit.

No. No.
LAUGHTER

And make a basketball play!

What I thought would look funny, me
knocking on my mates' doors going,

"I've got some friends!" Oh, right!

The basketball player
as the taxi driver.

Yeah, he was great.
He was fucking enormous.

It must have looked like something
out of Wacky Races

because I don't even know,

he had his seat really far back
for the legs.

Was he enormous, or just
standing next to the dwarf?

LAUGHTER

No. That was the dimensions
that appealed to me. OK.

The big tall guy
and the little lady and the rabbit.

I can understand that. And I
thought, "This will look great!"

It would have sold 400,000 copies.
Exactly.

We didn't even get a photograph.

Can I just say, as a representative
of the younger generation...

How old are you? This is exactly
what we think happened in the '90s.

You know what happened to us
when we were in our 20s?

We lived through two recessions, OK?

You guys were drinking cocaine
and whatever, eating rabbits

and carousing with prostitutes

and now I'm never going to be
able to buy a house!

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

And it was only when it began
to stink that I thought,

"It's dead. We need to bury it."

Can you tell me about the dog
falling on you?

OK. Did it fall out of a window?

No. It was my Rhodesian ridgeback.

They're quite big. They're massive.

You know what they used to be used
for, their job, like, in Africa,

is kind of, um...herding lions.

That's kind of what they do.

Is that what the pet shop man
told you?

LAUGHTER

I reckon a lion could have
a Rhodesian ridgeback.

That's what they did. They worked
in packs and they herded them.

Have you got lions? No.

She's got one little frightened lion.

But it is true. I want to hear
your story, but can I just...

I asked on Twitter the other day,

something I've always been
interested in is

what lions would do if they saw
a cat, right. Yeah?

And someone said, "They'll be fine.

"They'll just think it's
a far-away mirror."

LAUGHTER

Or a cousin. Or a cousin, yeah.

Because they're the only animals

that there is a microscopic version
and a big version. Sorry, carry on.

What about mice and elephants?
No, that's...

LAUGHTER

Mice don't look like elephants.
They do.

Mice do not look like elephants.
You've had too much to drink.

If you blew up a mouse
to be massive...

It hasn't got a trunk.

Because it hasn't grown yet.
I can't believe...

I can't believe you were looking
for a comparison and didn't go,

"Dwarfs and basketball players."

LAUGHTER

All right, then, so the dog...

LAUGHTER

So the dog...

Yeah, so they herd lions,
that's their job.

They do that sort of thing
where, like, a sheepdog,

they kind of run towards them
at the last minute,

they do a swerve and he just
wasn't very good at swerving

and he was jumping over a fence,

like a five foot high fence...

He could clear a five foot high
fence?

He cleared a five foot high fence.

And then I saw him kind
of coming towards me

and he last minute
tried to swerve me

but instead he broke my
knee in two places.

He broke your knee?! Yeah.

Did you have that T-shirt
with Lions on it?

No.
LAUGHTER

Would that have made a difference?

Roaaar!

He was trying to herd you round.
I should have tried that...

Why am I not running away?!

There's three Irish Lions there.
Yeah.

I mean, really cracked your kneecap?

Yeah, just...two fractures.

Cos you fell and landed on it, or...?

No, just his head. His head?

Was he wearing a kind
of Rollerball helmet?

So, were you in a cast
after that, then?

Just crutches, while heavily
pregnant, so that was great.

That was right the
way through to the end.

Had he seen you through the fence?

I don't think he was trying
to kill my baby!

I think...I think it
was an accident.

If he saw you through the fence
and you had that T-shirt on,

he'd just have thought, "Those are
lions in a zoo." Definitely.

Have you still got him?
What happened to him?

I feel really bad because
it was actually a she

and I obviously am just calling him
a he now cos I hate him so much.

Do you hate men? No.

No, I can't even be bothered
remembering what sex the dog was,

that's the problem.

No, we kept her for a while
and then, I think she

knocked my baby over once and then
we're like, "This dog has to go."

Yeah, before something
terrible happens.

So, we gave her to a good friend.

A good friend who's now got
a broken back, I imagine!

LAUGHTER

There was a cat across
the road from us,

and it came up our sideway once

and it was twice the size of our cat,

and our cat was terrified of it.

And then it suddenly jumped over
next door's fence, and I...

I mean, this isn't a very good story
because that's the end of it...

Oh, right.
SHARON LAUGHS

..but for some reason I'm quite
impressed by animals leaping fences

and obviously animals leap things,
don't they? That's what they do

in the wild, so it's not really
a reason to be excited.

But they don't normally knock
things over with such...yeah,

with their heads, like,
that's what they do.

Yeah, but I don't think
the dog saw you.

Why do you care about
the dog so much?

What about me?
LAUGHTER

You're still here, the dog isn't.

That is true. She's dead.

Imagine if your partner had given
you away to another family.

LAUGHTER

While she was pregnant, as well.
"I'm going to keep the dog."

That's a terrible thing to say.

My wife writes children's books
and she wrote a book called

The Great Hamster Massacre, in which
all these hamsters were killed.

Oh, dear. That's very grim.

It is quite gory but when she
had the idea with the book,

she starts telling people about
it and virtually everyone

she knew said, "Oh, we had a hamster
once and it died like this,"

and then there's all these stories...

One of my favourite ones is a girl
who had high heels on and stepped....

Oh, no.
AUDIENCE GROANS

ALAN LAUGHS HYSTERICALLY

Actually.
..straight through the hamster.

Oh, my God. I have to tell you,

that's the one thing about hamsters,

they do die quite easily and we...

We bought my son a hamster and
he really loved the hamster....

See! This is what happens.

..and it just died, right.
But someone had said,

and it said on the internet,
"You can never quite tell

"whether they're dead or whether
they're hibernating," so...

That's true.
That's goldfish, isn't it? No.

..we kept the hamster
for seven hours, right?

I'd put it on the radiator because
it said you ought to warm it up,

just in case, and it was only when

it began to stink that I thought,

"It's dead and we need to bury it."

We had the same thing,
our hamster was hamster juice

at the end of it, it had been
in that box for so long.

We put it on a hot water bottle,

I don't know, in the end

we just sort of opened its mouth

and I had the little mirror up.
I don't know, it was...

God, this is like Hamster CSI!

LAUGHTER

People coming in, "Time of death.

"Cause appears to be heel
through its neck."

Have you ever been on the
Grave Line Tour in LA?

I haven't. No. It's finished now
but it was in a big silver hearse

and it took you all around
Beverly Hills and Hollywood

and showed you where people
had died. Really?

It was like Hollywood Babylon
on wheels,

and you kind of show...it went to
where the first Superman

was murdered, and, you know,

took you to where Janis Joplin died.

It was fascinating.
And when we went past

to see the Sinai hospital,

this very camp guide that was
driving it, turned to me

and my mate, and these two massive

fat middle American tourists,

the two ladies that
were in the front

and as we went past this hospital,

the guy goes, "This is the
place where a very well-known

"Hollywood star had his
hamsterectomy."

And my mate and I were
giggling like we were kids,

cos we knew what he was talking
about, and they were going, "What?"

And he said, "You know about that?"

and he goes in to explain the
process of pet shopping,

and, which is where, allegedly,
people put hamsters into condoms

and insert them up their arse and
the dying... Sorry about that.

Don't sit like that.

There's a guy like this.

And the death throes as the
hamsters are suffocated,

bring them to orgasm.
So, hold on...

Now, hang on, I'm going
to keep going. Sorry.

So, they turn round and the guy
explains this whilst still driving

and these two women were going,

"What the fuck?"
LAUGHTER

And they turned to each other
and said, "What's a hamster?"

LAUGHTER

And I...

I lent forward and said,

"It's like a small horse."

LAUGHTER

So, how we going to edit around...?

We haven't done,
we haven't asked you,

the Jewish luminaries that
you've been mistaken for.

No. Well, as you'll know, it's one
of the things about being on telly

is that people mistake you for
other people. Are you Ray Parlour,

I assume?

No, James May.

James May? Oh, yeah, James May.

Yeah, that's true. And, erm...

In fact, I was on the train, sorry,
I was on the train the other day

and the kid came down the carriage

and stopped and looked at me,
a kid of about 14 or something,

and he goes,
"No, it's not James May,"

and walks off again.

LAUGHTER

He'd obviously gone down
to check it out.

The one that happens all the time,
and this perhaps won't surprise you,

I was at an event and I was talking
to Ronan Keating out of Boyzone

and it turned out that he was a...
You'll be interested in this.

..he was a massive fan of mine,
he said. And then he said,

"What I particularly like that you
did was Blackadder."

LAUGHTER

And I said, "No, I'm not Ben Elton,"

and Ronan Keating just looked
really cross like I'd been

deliberately trying to
trick him with my face.

And, this is absolutely true, Andrew
Lloyd Webber just thinks that

I am Ben Elton.

I heard a showbiz rumour once that
when Andrew Lloyd Webber was writing

The Beautiful Game, you know that
musical he wrote about football?

He was watching Fantasy Football,
just by chance,

and he said to one of his minions,
"Oh, go and get me that beardy,

"glasses, Jewish-looking
bloke off the telly,"

and they went and got him Ben Elton
by mistake, right.

And I thought, that can't be true,

but then Frank Skinner met
Andrew Lloyd Webber and

he said to him, "Oh, I do like that
show you do on the sofa with Ben."

This is after he'd written
a fucking musical with Ben Elton!

So, I met Andrew Lloyd Webber
once and I said to him, I said

at a showbiz party, I said, "You
know I'm not Ben Elton, don't you?"

And he just looked really
frightened and confused like,

"Oh, my God, what's wrong with Ben?"

LAUGHTER

"Is he having a nervous breakdown?"

And then a really weird thing
happened, which was he really looked

a bit frightened and he went away
quite quickly and as he went away,

he mentioned under his breath about
the woman he was with. He said,

"This is Sarah," and she
didn't hear him say it

and I thought, "That's a bit weird

"cos I know his last wife
was called Sarah,

"so I assume this isn't his wife."

And I just start talking to her,
she's very nice,

and I say, "What do
you do for Andrew?"

and she says, "Oh, I look after
the estate and the horses."

I think some kind of PA. And then,

because it was a showbiz party,

so it's a weird place, Eamonn
Holmes, who I don't know at all,

comes over and says, "Hello".

And I say, "Oh, Eamonn,
this is Sarah."

And she looked absolute daggers
at me and she said, "Is that meant

"to be some kind of joke?"

And then I realised in a flash
what had happened, right.

The woman was Andrew Lloyd Webber's
third wife,

I think her name is Madeline, but
when Andrew Lloyd Webber had left me

in a fluster, he'd confused her name
with that of his second wife,

Sarah Brightman, and I thought,

"That's too embarrassing,
I can't tell her that."

So, when she said, "Is that meant
to be some kind of joke?",

I said, "Yes."

LAUGHTER

This is scary.

It was terrible.

I thought...she said, "It's not
a very funny one."

I thought, "Yes, that's
absolutely true, isn't it?"

Of course it's not a very funny one,
I had to let this woman,

and Eamonn Holmes, an important man,
I had to let them think that

I, a professional comedian, would
think it would be funny

to introduce a man's third wife
to someone else

by the name of that man's
second wife.

I would have thrown Andrew Lloyd
Webber under the bus immediately.

I went and found Andrew Lloyd
Webber, I was so embarrassed,

in another part of the party,
this is absolutely true,

and I said to him, "Andrew,

"word to the wise, you just told me
that your wife's name was Sarah.

"It isn't Sarah, is it? No.
But I introduced her to someone else
as Sarah.

"That was really embarrassing.

"Please, never do that to
anyone else again".

And he said, "Oh, I'm really
sorry about that, Ben."

LAUGHTER

It's true, absolutely true.

I still don't know if
that was a joke.

LAUGHTER

You daren't ask,
it's too embarrassing.

Too embarrassing.

Listen, we kind of have to
draw things to a close

and we have to think about
a title for the programme.

I think we could call the show,
What We Did In The '90s...

LAUGHTER

..particularly cos of Nish's great
remark about how that has

left him out of pocket for life.

Yeah, No House For Nish?

No House For Nish.
No House For Nish,

I like that. Although, it sounds a
bit like a very serious Indian play!

East Is East in a double bill.

Yeah. What was the thing about
CSI we were doing?

That was a good line.
Hamster CSI? Hamster CSI.

Yeah. I'd watch it. I haven't
come up with anything,

apart
from My Cat Can Jump Really High.

Let's call it that!

Or, My Neighbour's Cat Jumps
Really High.

That was fascinating though.

The thing is, if we call it that,
the poor sod who's editing this

has got to leave that anecdote in.

That's why I want you to call it
that. That would be great.

The Hamsterectomy?
The Hamsterectomy,

yeah.

LAUGHTER

Have we decided on a title? No.

Do we have to keep going till we do?

It's never been this difficult, the
audience aren't allowed to leave.

LAUGHTER

I think, No House For Nish.

I like that.
Shall we call it,

The British Asian Comedian Will
Never Be Able To Afford A House...

Yeah. ..Because Of James Brown?

LAUGHTER

It wasn't only me having
a good time.

OK, so, thank you to my guests,

Nish Kumar, James Brown,
David Baddiel

and Sharon Horgan and
you have been watching,

A British Asian Comedian Can No
Longer Afford To Buy A House

Because Of James Brown.
Thank you, very much.

APPLAUSE

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd