Alan Davies: As Yet Untitled (2014–…): Season 3, Episode 11 - Jokes About James Joyce and Ballet - full transcript

APPLAUSE

Hello, I'm Alan Davies.
Welcome to As Yet Untitled.

This is the show where we have
a little bit of a conversation.

There is no real preparation or
agenda or questions or anything,

we just have a bit of a chat.
This one is a bit different, though,

because this is
the one where we come all together,

all the other bits from the other
shows that got hacked up

and put them into another
order of things

that we don't...didn't fit.

Anyway, it's a mixture.

LAUGHTER



It goes a bit like this.

APPLAUSE

Here they are.

Hello, everyone.

Welcome, welcome.

Welcome to the round table of wood.

It's nice to have you here.

Diane, you're all right with the two
drinks? I've got my snowballs, yeah.

We had a little confusion
earlier about ice or no ice

and we have settled on one of each.
Well, yeah.

It's not meant to have ice, really,

but it's quite nice with ice.

If I was having a soiree,
I would probably serve the one with

the ice and the lemon because I
think it makes it look more classy.



I think that one looks like you have
got your kid to sick in a glass

and then you are just
handing it out. It does.

But enjoy it, though.
But it's not in a full glass.

Yeah, it's not in a full glass.

I actually had an e-mail this
morning, this very morning,

from a woman who is a nurse
and she said,

"I want to give you some ideas

"because you do these weird
dark comedies,"

and she said she had a patient
who expectorated a lot

but didn't want to be bothered
calling the nurse every time.

So she kept a jug under her bed
and when she...

And she kept it in her freezer
and when she left,

after maybe two months in hospital,
she presented this frozen

jelly of phlegm to the nurse
and said, "Yeah..."

And that's what that reminds
me of as well.

Right, brilliant.

I think it looks nice.
Thank you.

Well, I have a weighty gag book
that is not even full.

It's that thick and it's that much,
about that many things.

And there's also scribblings in that
from ideas I have had.

But I've also got it on my phone,

but if I don't take that book
to a gig I blank.

By gag book, you mean your own
blank book that you write in.

Yeah. Not a book of gags.
No, not like...

Not the Observer Book Of
Toilet Humour, no.

No, my own scribblings.

Yeah, right.
They are my little lucky charms.

And even if you don't look at it
beforehand,

you need to know it's there
in case you... Exactly right.

I left my joke book at Old Rope,

a gig in central London where
people do new material.

And I left my joke book at the back
and one of the comedians just

went right through and wrote,
"This is shit," over all the ideas.

I did that
when people record their gigs.

Lots of comics record
their gigs so they can listen back.

("You're shit!") Exactly.

During their gig, going,
"That didn't go down very well,"

like that, so they listen back
to it the next morning

and there's my ghostly voice going,

"It wasn't working."

That's awful. That's like a quiet
heckle, isn't it? A quiet heckle.

I remember doing a gig at
the Tufnell Park Tavern

about 20 years ago
and it was a long room,

but there was just a woman
in the front row going,

"You're shit, you're so shit.

"You're so shit. You're just not
funny, you're not funny.

"No part of you is funny.
You're not funny."

And I could hear it and nobody
else in the audience could

and it just completely threw me.

So you look mental if you try
and respond to her. Yeah.

Oh, that's cruel. Psychotic.
We shouldn't be telling them.

They don't want people to know
that's the most...

That's the sniper heckle, isn't?

My mum follows me wherever I go.

But seriously, seriously...

APPLAUSE

Obviously it wasn't my mum,
but it did happen.

Have you done the Royal Variety
Show? No. Yeah, I did it.

Because I'm Irish, I didn't know
what to do because they said

at the end you have to bow or
curtsy and I've never done that.

Or flash. Or flash.

What did you do?
Well, I didn't know...

I kind of panicked at the end.

Well, the first one I had was
a nightmare one.

You don't know this,
but the comics they use as buffers

because they are on after...

There is a band on after you
or before you and after you.

So they are setting
the stage behind the curtain.

I didn't know this and after me

was the first appearance
of Take That,

as they got back together again.
Yeah, when they reformed, yeah.

And it was people just
waiting for me to get off.

Literally going,
"Where's Take That?"

And there was noise and everything
and I died on my hoop, literally,

do you know what I mean?

And so afterwards, instead of going
whatever you do, or curtsying,

I just turned to Charles and went...

like that.
LAUGHTER

I just waved and he literally -
I'm not messing - he just went...

When I started off I had
no act at all.

I had a few sentences
which no-one got

and a stick with a rubber band on it
that I used to go like that...

HE WHISTLES
..and the stick would
go up in the air.

If that didn't work,
I would cut it short and run off.

That was nice, what you did in
Deptford. Was it Thursday night?

I remember reading about this. Yeah.

I remember, it was back in the day

when Top Of The Pops was
still on a Thursday,

so you always would watch Top Of The
Pops then come down to the gig.

Yeah, well, before me
was Lily Savage

and then he'd clear off
and then I'd wheel all my props in

on the wheelbarrow that I'd wheeled
up from Deptford High Street,

up to New Cross.

I used to take my props in
a wheelbarrow

that I had spent all week making
at the kitchen table.

See, you don't see that any more,
do you? How long did that last for?

Here's a comic on his way
to his gig.

Someone's doing well for themselves!

Who is the bloke with
the wheelbarrow?

Oh, that will be that
local comedian, won't it?

I used to listen to Reece's radio
show when I was...

I would have been 17 and it was the,

"Oh, hello, my darling, it's me."

And I found out today that it was
kind of based on a true story.

Yeah, we just had a recurring bit
in the radio series that

linked a lot of sketches that
was just a... Beep!

"Hello, my darling,
you're not there.

"Honestly, you're not there,
you're a big woman.

"You're good, you're big...

"You're not there, but you're good.
Bye, love." Beep!

And throughout, he just progressed.
"Bloody hell, she's not there!

"She's big, she's not there,
but she's good.

"Anyway, my love,
you must be out partying,

"I don't know what the bloody hell
you're doing.

"Give us a call, love you.
You're never there but I love you.

"You're big, you're good,
she's good, she's a big woman.

"Bye, love." Beep!

But that was a genuine set of
phone calls left on our

answering machine when I lived with
my friend Robert in Wood Green.

To him - he was a man -
big woman was him

and it was his theatrical friend
Peter that would leave the messages.

Larking about.
And it was just messing around.

It was not messing around,
genuinely leaving these messages.

But that's funny.

It's hilarious, and then you have
got a mechanism to show everybody.

And if you're able to,
if that works and it is funny...

I would find it hysterical but
I thought, "Would anyone get it?"

But this did kind of...

Let's just use it as answering
machine messages throughout our...

We used it
so we could have turnaround time

when we were doing our live show to
do the costume changes. Yeah.

And it was in there peppered.

And it wasn't funny to begin with,

but when it came back
for the fifth time,

it was a grower, you know, and it is
brilliant to translate something...

Was there a local shop
for local people?

I'm sure you have been asked that
50,000 times. Yeah, there was, yeah.

We went to a shop in Rottingdean
and there was an old lady.

"Yes? Can I help you at all?"

And she thought, like,
four people going into her shop,

we must be going to kill her
and rape her for her...

for her tiny little knick-knacks,
you know,

some shells and a snow globe.

"Can I...? What do you want here?
There's nothing for you here!"

And that was it,
that was the local shop.

And then we thought, "Well,
the extension of that is they want

"to burn us in a ritual,
like Wicker Man."

So that was how we took it
and stretched it.

But, you know, it's having a
beautiful twist on an observation...

Quite a mundane thing, yeah.

Papa Lazarou was our landlord
who used to ring up,

leave messages for Steve
and he asked constantly if...

When we moved in, Steve did all
the dealings with the getting

the lease of the flat,
so he didn't know I existed.

He'd say...

IMITATING PAPA LAZAROU:
"Hello, Steve."

"No, no, it's Reece."
"Is Steve there?"

"No, no, I live here.
I rent as well."

"I want to speak to Steve."

"I've got this Hoover
belonging to you."

And then he'd ring back,
leave a message,

"I've got this Hoover,
it's just a saga now."

That's the line. I nearly lost...

"This is just a saga now"
became our bit.

Steve and I were in Soho
around the height of it.

It doesn't happen so much now

because it's nearly 20 years ago,
by the way. Depressing.

There's just a load of people
realising how fucking old they are.

And we were in Soho
and a man came up to us and said,

"Excuse me, are you local?"

and we said, "Yeah, yeah,"

and he said, "Do you know where
the Dominion Theatre is?"

LAUGHTER

He genuinely asked it.

This was when you were at
Bretton Hall

and were you sharing with
one of the League at this time?

Yeah, me and Mark were in...
Mark Gatiss were in the same year

and Reece was in the year below us.

And when did you decide to call
yourselves League Of Gentlemen?

That comes from somewhere else,
doesn't it?

It was a film, yeah,
a Jack Hawkins film.

I wanted to call us
the Porn Dwarves.

We had this big argument,
me and Mark.

This kind of sums the pair of us up,
actually. I like the Porn Dwarves.

Porn Dwarves. It's a great name.

And he is like, "Oh, God, no.
The League Of Gentlemen."

I said, "That sounds like a load
of Oxbridge twats doing

revue in dicky bows."

Anyway, Mark won the argument.

And it's like naming anything,
once you have named it is over with

and that's what you're known as.

I think you should have compromised
and gone with

The League Of Porn Dwarves. Yeah.

It's a big thing, isn't it?

It's quite a big business, you know,
celebrity porn dwarves. Yeah.

It's a specialist market.
It's a specialist niche market.

But when I was on tour in Australia

and Gordon Ramsay's
dwarf porn lookalike was...

I mean, this is...
I'm not making this up.

Are you sure? Yeah, no. I mean...

Gordon Ramsay's dwarf...
Gordon Rom... I can't even say it.

Gordon Romsay's Dworf Porn
Lookolike.

No, Gordon Ramsay,

he has got a lookalike who is
a dwarf who is a porn star,

and they're paid a lot more because
they look like famous people

and they are in great demand.

I don't know if I'd pay more
for that porn. I think that might...

Well, whatever's your bag.

Gordon Ramsay!

I really fancy seeing
Gordon Ramsay having sex,

but I'd like him shorter.

He's too tall.

He is much too tall.
No, bring me a shorter one.

It's a niche market, it really is.

Perhaps only Gordon himself would
really be that keen on this.

Will Smith is really near and
Tommy's really far behind.

Miles back. He's like that,
"Yo, Will,"

he's like,
"I can't hear you, Tommy!"

Anyway, Ellie, you had a naked
fiddle with Duran Duran.

LAUGHTER

Who hasn't, right?

And I was quite curious
to hear about that.

Um, well, this goes back to my days
when I used to be a model,

many moons ago.

And I had to go to Pinewood, and
I knew that I was doing this thing

for a band, and I wasn't quite sure
what it was. So I got there,

and I was talking to this guy
on this big sound stage,

and this guy... I was like, "Oh,
I'm doing something for Duran Duran.

"I'm not really sure what it is."
And he's like, "Oh, I know,

"because I'm in Duran Duran."

LAUGHTER

Cos I was a bit young. It was...
I know Simon Le Bon,

that's the only one I know.
And it was the other one. Yeah,
you're too young for Duran Duran.

He had white hair. He looked a bit
like Boris Johnson or an old lady.
I wasn't sure.

LAUGHTER
So I was there,

and I met Simon Le Bon,

and I just remember thinking,
"You have a really big head."

Honestly, it was like a silverback
gorilla. It was enormous.

Anyway, so then what I had to do
to do my job...

It's not that big! It is.
No, but he's quite a big bloke.

Well, I just remember, it was like
a silverback gorilla with mumps.

It was enormous. A silverback
gorilla with mumps?!

Yeah, I would go that far.

Have you ever met Tommy Lee Jones?
No. Fucking hell.

Throw something at his head,
it'll go into orbit.

It'll have gravity.

I'm not kidding. His head...

Have you ever seen it?
LAUGHING: No.

Well, watch a film, next time,
you'll see how they... I love his
films. He's brilliant.

They definitely fuck around with
perspective when he's acting.

They're like, miles ahead with
the camera. He's, like, backstage.

LAUGHTER

He's still in his Winnebago.

Just to get this...
Have you not seen it?

When you interview him, you look
at him, you go, "Hi, Tommy.

"Jesus Christ,
the size of that fucker!"

So Will Smith's really near
and Tommy's really far behind.
He's miles back.

Miles back. He's like that,
"Yo, Will,"

and he's like,
"I can't hear you, Tommy!"

LAUGHTER

It's enormous. Nothing prepares
you for it. I believe you.

I believe you. It's the most
exciting thing I've seen in showbiz.

LAUGHTER

Anyway, Simon Le Bon has got
a massive head. Sorry, sorry.

Sorry. Simon Le Bon's got a massive
head. Great tangent to go on.
It's a good one.

So I'm there to do a job,

and my job is to...

I knew it was about doing
a little bit of dancing,

and I am not a dancer.
It was for their world tour.

They wanted some backing graphics.

So what they did was they played
in their song A View To A Kill,

which was their Bond theme
that they did.

Oh, and like the Bond girl
silhouette type thing? Yes.

So then what I had to do was stand
behind a white screen with
a light behind me

so my silhouette was in front
of the white screen...

Why didn't they hire some dancers?
I don't know. I was cheap.

LAUGHTER

And then... How cheap were you?

£200 cash in hand. Really? Yeah.

And have you gone up, or...?
Well, I don't know.

We're in a recession, aren't we?

Yeah, the crunch has hit
pretty hard.

So then I had to stand behind
this white screen.

They put the music on.

I had to then get completely naked

and then pick from a variety
of stringed instruments

and then just dance around, like...

"What do I go for? Go for the cello?
Sure, why not.

"Oh, I'll try the violin."

SHE SPLUTTERS

Just trying to, like,
be sexy with a bow.

I didn't have a clue
what I was doing.

And then the band are
out there, like,

"Oh, be more sexy with the bow."

I was doing it for,
like, 20 minutes,

and then I just started thinking,
"What am I doing here?

"I've been to university.

LAUGHTER

"I did not carefully plagiarise
essays for three years

"to be doing this shit!"

To put into perspective
how little I knew,

when I... I was at
drama school for a year.

I'd been at university and then
I went to drama school for a year.

And I heard when I was at drama
school that there was

a film being made of
Captain Corelli's Mandolin,

which I had read.

And I had also been to Greece.

So I thought... You were
a shoo-in for the lead. Exactly.

I literally thought, "I'm just
about to leave drama school.

"I've got brown hair."

And I literally rang up
directory enquiries,

cos this is pre-Google,
and asked for the...

"Hi, yeah, could I have the number
for Miramax, please?"

Cos I heard that Miramax
were making this film.

So presumably got the number
of some sort of office block

and some receptionist.
And literally rang up and said,

"Oh, hi, yeah, my name's Katherine
Jakeways. I'm just about to leave
drama school,

"and I wondered if I could speak
to someone about being auditioned

"to play the part of Pelagia
in Captain Correlli's Mandolin."

Literally to a receptionist.

And the part that eventually
went to Penelope Cruz.

LAUGHTER

Not someone from Peterborough
who had once been to Greece
and had brown hair.

But I literally... She'd just
rung up five minutes before.
LAUGHTER

It was so unlucky. She was standing
in another courtyard, yeah.

So that's just to put into
perspective how little I knew
about how things worked.

And the first audition I went to,
I turned up, I didn't know
anything about it.

Did you get an audition from that?
Bullshit I got an audition!

They were like, "Give us your
number, yeah. I'll just rip that up
and put it in the bin."

I mean, they must have laughed
about it for... I like that,
though. My dad did that.

My dad, who did a bit
of amateur dramatics,

but that's all he'd done - when
Leslie Grantham left EastEnders,

he applied for the job to run
the Queen Vic. Good on him!

Because he'd ran a pub for 12 years.

LAUGHTER

He did. He genuinely said...

The letter was very much geared
towards his bar experience.

And at the end, it was, "Oh, and
I've done some amateur dramatics."

It wasn't the other way around.

Like that was a bonus.

"And not only that, not only can
I clean the pipes, right,

"I also can do a bit of acting."
"I've learnt lines in the past."

Can you tell me about all the
serial killers that you've met?

Well, when I left school

I went to work in a factory.

And there were lorry deliveries
all the time there,

and my job was to work
at the loading bay.

And if a lorry driver came in,
I'd have to give him a cup of tea.

So I'd go off and get them one, give
it to them. Then we found out...

This was the time of
the Yorkshire Ripper,

and when he got caught,
it turned out...

Were you in Leeds at the time?
No, this was in Darlington.

I was working at Newton Aycliffe,
in a factory there.

And we found out that
I'd given him a cup of tea.

GASPS AND MURMURS

LAUGHTER

When he was working...
When he was driving his lorry.

He used to drive his lorry in,
I'd give him a cup of tea.

And then, later on...

That's serial killer number one.

That's a pretty good...

I mean, when I say pretty good,
I mean...

LAUGHTER
Bit of a name-dropper. He's famous.

Number two - I was in
Old Compton Street

with a mate of mine in a bar,
in a pub.

And this bloke was just sitting
at the other side of the bar

eyeing us up. And I said,
"Look at that bloke."

He's, like, really staring us out,
just giving us the eyeball.

Then two weeks later, my mate said,
"Look," on the front of the paper,

"that's that bloke who was
staring at us in the pub."

Dennis Nilsen.

LAUGHTER
God!

So I was talking to my mate
not too long ago,

who's the bloke who was in the pub,

we were getting eyed up
by Dennis Nilsen.

And he said, "Yeah,
but do you not remember

"when we were hitchhiking
back from Glastonbury

"and that weird couple
picked us up in the car?"

LAUGHTER

No! I was going, "No!"
He was going, "It was!

"I'm telling you, it was
Fred and Rosemary West!"

LAUGHTER
Oh, my God.

It took Paul Weller a long time.

I mean, he's now done, what,
a dozen solo albums? Yeah.

Some cracking solo albums. Mm.

But still. Still, in the end,
you want him to say,

"This one's called
Tales From The Riverbank,"

and everyone'll go, "Wheeey!"

Not necessarily cos it's
even better than his stuff.

It's just cos it takes you
to a special, nostalgic place.

I went to see him in Southend,
and he got me on...

He said... We were at the gig,

and he said to me and the missus,

he went, "Come back at
the end of the set.

"Don't watch the encores, come back
at the end of the set."

We went back. We were in
the wings, watching.

He did a couple from the new album.
Then he ran into the wings,

up to me, and he goes,
"Do you want to sing Malice?"

To me! Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I went, "Yes, I do!" And then he
looked down at the missus, he went,

"Shell, do you want to join us?"

She went, "No, you're all right,
Paul."
LAUGHTER

She went, "Fatty's on stage again.
Here he goes."

And so, yeah, I sang A Town Called
Malice at his gig in Southend.

How did his fans feel?
Well, they were singing...

LAUGHTER
They were singing...

It's not their moment, Pippa.
Do you understand?

They were singing,
"You fat bastard."

And they got into quite
the rhythm with it.

And I went, "Well, I'm on stage.
You can keep singing that as long
as you like.

"I'm singing A Town Called Malice.
So, you know..."

My mum went to see Jerry Lee Lewis,
and I said, "Oh, how was it?"

And she said, "Well, it was very
good, except at the end,

"when someone had to come and help
him put his foot onto the piano."

LAUGHTER

I just realised, I've completely
fucked your show,

cos I've not worn the glasses
in the second half,

and I had them on for
the whole first half.

LAUGHTER

I'm looking at you, thinking...

I've had a drink, and I'm thinking,
"Alan's a bit blurry."

LAUGHTER

And then I've got...

Seriously, the last five minutes,
thinking,

"What do I do about my glasses?"

That's a fairly...
I mean, fuck this.

"Oh, Alan Davies!"

Maybe just now,
while I'm chatting to Pippa,

you could just take them off,
and we'll get that in a cutaway.

Yeah, there we go. Brilliant.

Really?

That's so fascinating.

LAUGHTER

That's how that works.
That's how that works.

Prefer seeing you quite clearly,
to be honest with you, mate.

I had a tri-cornered hat on
for all the first half.

LAUGHTER

Not so easy, eh?

Has your cat ever
brought in an ostrich?

If he did, though - wow,
I'd take him off the dry food.

Can you tell me about your
high-speed banoffee pie eating?

Well, again, this relates to

when Russell and I used to
live together, because...

John was a diabetic.

LAUGHTER

And as a joke...

Russell used to...

He had a lot of spare cash
lying around,

because he was doing decent gigs,

and he used to pay me to eat stuff.

LAUGHTER

No, no, no, no.

Come on! Food stuff!
Food stuff. Feeder!

You're a feeder! I'm happy
to leave it there, Russell.

LAUGHTER

Either way, what are you
talking about? I never.

Listen, how dare you?

I was doing cash gigs, so I'd
sort of do a gig for 100 quid,

and I'd just sort of
put my money down.

If I was doing, like, five gigs
a week, so I had 500 quid,
and I'd put it around.

So there would be pounds on
the floor and stuff like that.

And they used to go in my room
for spare cash

just to pay for the parking meter.
It's true.

So I thought, "I'm going to
make him earn it."

And we were out having food once
in an Italian restaurant,

and I said, "Do you fancy
eating that chilli?"

You know, they had those display
jars of really long chillies.

Oh, yeah. That I'm not even sure
are a foodstuff.

Well, you proved that.

Yeah. He was like, "I'm not even
sure it's a foodstuff!"

You got chilli madness, John.

I remember once a ramekin
of English mustard

at the Bristol sausage factory,

which again, sounds quite dodgy.

And yeah, but...

So euphemistic.

And a banoffee pie. You remember -
there's a video of that somewhere.

I don't remember this.
I feel terrible. What an arsehole.

Remember, the banoffee pie!
You said,

"Eat that in under 10 seconds,"

and about halfway it just got stuck.

And there's that horrible thing
where you're like,

"I can't carry on eating it,
and I can't spit it out.

"I'm just going to have
a pie in my mouth

"for the rest of my life."
Until it dissolves.

Yeah, till it dissolves.

All sort of breaks down into mould.
Eventually it will biodegrade.

When I was about 17, 18,

the amount I could eat for my size
was a spectacle, if you like.

I could eat a lot of food.
It was like my party trick.

Always very hungry, ravenous.

And we went for this all-you-can-eat
Indian buffet,

which if you grew up as a peasant,
as I did,

just the idea of all-you-can-eat

sends you into
a working-class frenzy.

LAUGHTER

Now, anyway, I was with my friends,
and it was one of those -

not a buffet, but you know where you
can keep ordering from the menu

once you've paid a charge,
one of those ones.

And I did - this is no exaggeration,
cos I'm not a big bloke -

I did three chicken tikka masalas,
all with rices, three naan breads.

And I thought, all of a sudden,
"I've overdone it.

"I feel a bit, like, a bit pukey."

And so we were settling up the bill,
and I said to everyone,

"I need to get some air.
I'm going to go outside."

And we'd all got outside
on the street, and that is
the last thing I remember.

Apparently - I don't know if
anyone's fully lost consciousness

when they're standing up, but
your body... I don't remember
passing out,

but you do the sort of chicken walk
for about 10... You do that.

My body did a full 10 metre walk,
and everyone...

If you're, like, the funny bloke,
people just laugh as you pass out.
No-one catches you.

"Classic, he's doing the walk!
Classic!"

Towards the road, "Legend!"

LAUGHTER

OK, I went round and
I head-butted the window

of the Indian restaurant, cut
the head open, claret everywhere.

So when I came round... I don't
remember that - I just remember,

"I feel sick," and then all
my friends looking over me.

And I don't know if you've ever
been on the floor with blood
jetting out of your body,

but it's the weirdest, most surreal
thing, cos you can't see,

cos the blood's all in your eyes
and everything.

And I was in a white t-shirt
so it looked horrific,
like a car accident.

I'd banged my head so hard,
instantly concussed

and couldn't walk or anything.

Ambulance being called
and everything.

And we all had our mobiles on,
and I was like, "If my mum calls,

"whatever you do,
don't tell her what's happened."

Cos my dad's all, everything's
always drugs or immigrants or...

You know, he's always waiting for
a right-wing thing to take a son.

And I was like, "My dad's going
to think we're off our heads."

All I'd had was half a pint
of lager. Nothing at all.

And I arrived at the hospital, in
a wheelchair with a neck thing on,

cos they didn't know if
I'd fractured any bones,

all the blood around me like that...
They always put one of those on,
no matter what you've done.

Yeah, they put the neck thing,
I was wheeled in like that.

And so my mum had phoned
my friend Amanda's phone.

She went, "Now, don't panic -
we're at the hospital..."

CLICKING NOISE

LAUGHTER

And like, what a pussy.
Completely wiped out from this.

You can still very faintly -
don't know if you can see it,

Miles, there. I had five stitches
there. Oh, yeah. Curry injury.
The curry injury.

I couldn't speak. I don't know if
anyone's ever had bad concussion,

where you're slurring.
SLURRING: So you're sort of like...

And my dad, who's a body builder,
bouncer, steroid-using,

alpha, alpha, alpha male man, yeah?

And he's in my face while
I'm in a wheelchair going,

"Just fucking tell us
what you're on, boy!

"We'll get you off this junk!"

LAUGHTER

All I was trying to say was,
"Masala."

But I couldn't get it out.
LAUGHTER

Have you ever eaten tripe? No,
but... Is that sheep's stomach?

Cow's stomach. We used to eat that
when we were little.

They used to feed us any old stuff
when we were little. Yeah.

Like spam and stuff.

Yeah, but tripe is bleached...
Spam fritters! Spam's nice.

We were brought up on... Again,
if you're in a single-parent family,

you get all the kind of quick foods.

And I used to love - you know
that ham with the face on it?

He'd be like...
Billy Bear? Billy Bear!

We grew up in the middle of nowhere
where there wasn't much craic
going on,

and sometimes I'd put it on my face

and turn to my sister and go,
"Hi, Sinead!"

And it used to really freak her out.
A whole evening's entertainment.

When I ate meat, I used to like that
pork pie with the egg in the middle.

Like, really long eggs.
You see, that was very fancy.

That was right fancy stuff. How long
are them eggs in a pork pie?

This is one of the mysteries
of the world, isn't it?

The gala pie - how do you
get the egg

to go all the way through
a gala pie?

Do you just get an egg
and stretch it?

Or just hope for the best?
Ostrich eggs.

If it's of any help to you
for future reference,

the ostrich is the only mammal
that kicks backwards only.

Only mammal...? It's the only one
that can only kick backwards.

It can ONLY kick backwards?
All other animals can kick
backwards and forwards.

So can a horse kick forward?

I've no idea.

LAUGHTER

No, they can - look at dressage.
Yeah, they'll kick you.

So an ostrich can't kick you in
the bollocks, but any other...?

Well, if you stood the other...
If you were standing behind it.

If you're having intercourse
with it, for example.

Right. I didn't think of that,
but OK, if you want.

But a police ostrich reversing
in your direction - be afraid.

Be very afraid. If the police
look back, say, "I'm warning you,

"lads, settle down. Settle down."
Bernie Clifton on board.

Bernie. Get Bernie Clifton out.
It's gone absolutely...

"Bernie, you wouldn't mind reversing
into those Millwall guys?

"They're absolutely out of control."

Never get behind Bernie.
That's what we used to shout.

LAUGHTER

Where is it they race?
They race ostriches, don't they?

Yes, in Africa. Do they?
Yeah. Or Dubai, I think.

I went to Dubai once, there was
an ostrich racing channel.

Channel? Whole channel? Yeah.

On the television, not a sort of
water gulf during which they charge.

But not with people on them,
though?

Children on them.
No, people on them, yeah.

People on them. Or cats.

It is people on them, I'm sure
it is. Nice little people.

Yeah, little nice people.
Oh, they're nice people.

Do you know the little nice
people who get ignored? Jockeys?

Cos they're just
a little nice person.

And they go on the ostriches.
You can be an ostrich jockey -
is that real? Honestly, yeah.

There's big money as well.
How embarrassed would you be -

"What's your profession?"
"I'm an ostrich jockey."

So embarrassing.
They're very dangerous, though.

They can go at 40mph. 60.

LAUGHTER

Honest! You're such
an ostrich boaster.

And their eyeballs are bigger than
their brain. Their brain's minute.

So they're really stupid
and very fast.

Has your cat ever brought
in an ostrich?

LAUGHTER
How tough is your cat?

Looking out the bathroom window -

"You know what? I might just leave
the ostrich to fight this one
for himself."

If he did, though - wow,
I'd take him off the dry food.

LAUGHTER

I just remember people talking about
the sound of the ice cream van,

and I just had no idea what
they were talking about.

Like, everyone knows the music
from the ice cream van.

I mean, we just had, you know,
a cow having a bit of a shake

in the cold, and that's
the nearest thing we'd get.

We just didn't know
what it sounded like.

An ice cream van is one of the
best sounds in the... It's like...

It just doesn't resonate with me
at all. It just...

It's a shame because it is,
it really...

It would shake you out of suicide,
wouldn't it? You just... It would.

You know, because you can't deny it.
HE HUMS ICE CREAM VAN SONG

"Oh, hang on!
Just hold on a minute!"

It's the chance of a Magnum!

"I'll have a quick Solero
and then I'll blow me brains out!"

When ours would come, he used
to sell cigarettes and all sorts,

the ice cream man. Well,
they sell drugs now, don't they?

They sell drugs.
No, they do, that's well known!

They've really gone up
in the world. Yeah.

Well, that's the Ice Cream Wars
of Glasgow in the '70s, wasn't it?

Oh, yeah. That was brutal, that was.

Yeah, they had patches
and everything.

Do you know Francis Rossi
from Status Quo is part of the

Rossi Ice Cream, you know,

the Rossi Ice Cream Crew,
Italian crew.

And Chris Rea is from the
Rea Ice Cream Crew

and they were at terrible odds with
each other in the Ice Cream Wars.

My other half will not accept
that it was socially acceptable

on our street that
the ice cream man came -

one, you could get credit...

Right? "Pay you later." Whoa,
that is one trusting ice cream man.

Look at me,
he knows I'm coming back!

I kind of like that!

Number two, you could take
your own bowl. Yes, yes!

Yeah, take your own bowl and go,
"Give us a quid's worth."

Oh, yes, that's what we used to do!

We used to just
tip the washing out, run...

..run into the street... Yeah, yeah!

..and go, "Just give us
a quid's worth." Yeah, yeah.

A basin full of ice cream? Yeah.

Well, sometimes it would be
the glass bowl that your mum

would do the stuff in.

Whatever your mum could grab -
"The ice cream man's here!

"Get your dad's hat,
your dad's hat!"

They're talking to me. I'm not mad.

There was applause over all
that so I didn't really hear it.

Who do you want to say,
"No, he didn't?"

Oh, do you know what it is? Do
you know what they're saying to me?

"You can't put a baby in the fire?"

It's because you said Dr Downlight
touched up the lassies.

No, he said the female cockroaches.

I tried to save it by saying,
"You mean the lady cockroaches?"

Alan, he's not real. He's not real?!
He's not real.

He's not going to sue from prison.
He's not real. There is no such...

Obviously there's no
Professor Downlight.

Are you joking?

I've been shitting you.
You may get lucky, but... You know.

One that's a cockroach!

I told a true story about
my testicles coming out!

And I feel terrible about that,
Russell, but...

No, he was real, but I can't...
I've no idea what his name is.

The suggestion from the gallery
was for you to go, "No, he didn't."

And then they'll cut that in.

"The fictional character didn't."

How meta! Of course he didn't!

Not in my wildest nightmares
did I suspect...

And then he said to me,

"I'm sorry, I'm so scared of them,
can you deal with it?"

When you tell people you're scared
of flying,

people look for the psychological
reasons.

Even you lot have just leaned in
like I've got problems.

"Tell us why..." What did
your therapist say about it?

The fact is, I've realised that

we should be scared of flying,
shouldn't we?

It goes at 500-600mph, we are not
designed to go up into the air.

I always think the only reason why
people aren't scared of flying

is cos there's no perspective.

You don't get the idea that
you're flying at 600mph.

But actually, if you had
really tall trees, right,

and you flew between them, everyone
would never fly again cos the speed

would be unbelievable. I just think
that, if you're scared of flying,

you've got a brilliant imagination
and that everyone else is stupid.

God, I've got to get on a flight
in a week, thanks for that.
You'll be all right.

What about if members of your family
want to go on a flight?

Ah, tough. They're not?

Yeah, I'll chuck them out the window
and say, "Do you like it?"

The thing is, when you've got...
I've got three kids and when

you've got kids, you're constantly
turning the radio down and off,

but when that's on, I get them
in. I turn it up and go,

"Look, another plane's crashed."
Oh, that's cruel!

Yeah, well, you've got to be cruel
to be kind, haven't you?

I've never been stung by a bee. Does
it really hurt? It really hurts.

I tell you what,

the only thing that hurts as much

was, recently for different TV show
on Dave, I had a tattoo...

What?! Why did you do that?

Because I got carried away.

What is the tattoo?
Well, we all had to...

Does it say Dave? It's not far off.

Dave-ja vu.

It says "The home of witty banter."

It was for a TV show and we all had
to buy Greg Davis a present for

a value of £20 and it was who
could get him the best present.

So I thought,
"I know how to absolutely

"blow the others out of the water."

Oh, yeah? "I'll give him the gift
of me remembering him."

So... What?! That's a weird sell.

So I got Greg's name
tattooed on my foot.

Permanently? Yeah, why?

Does it just say Greg? Yeah.
Which foot is it on?

It's on my left foot. Let's see it,
then. You know what to do.

You've got Greg tattooed
on your foot?! Was he grateful?

No-one ever sees your foot.
He was scared.

It was a thing where we
all had to do different tasks

and you all had to win and everyone
was taking it higher and higher.

Come on, I want to see it.
Yeah, for TV!

You took it too far, Josh.
I didn't, I won!

Look, here's a camera, here's
a camera. I'm excited about this.

I'm now worried about how
dirty my feet are going to be.

Look at those socks. Oh!

I think it's a winner.
And you're going to get rid of that?

No, cos nobody's ever going to
see it, it's on my foot.

I'm trying to think what other
words you could change it into.

It's a bit of a tricky one,
isn't it? I've asked my girlfriend

whether she'll change her name,
but she hasn't gone with it.

You could sort of turn into a
Chinese symbol so it looks kind of

all a bit artsy. Yeah, like,
the Chinese word for Greg. Yes.

There's no recovering that. What
do you mean?

You've disfigured yourself.

Oh, come on! How old
are you now, Josh? 32.

Oh, I thought you were younger.
Well, there we go.

I managed to pluck up the courage
to go to the dentist after

a long time and I had to have
a root canal,

I'd had this, like, swelling or
whatever.

But what made it worse was,
it was up here

and he was sort of digging in and
then I'm sort of laid back like that

looking up at the lights and then
he just sort of went, "Oh, my God!

"Oh, my God! Oh, God!" And then just
started, like, freaking out.

And I was like that, I've already
got a phobia and I'm thinking,

"Oh, he's seen something he's never
seen, like, is there an alien

"in there or what the hell
is going on?"

He's freaking out and then he just
went, "Oh, mate, I'm so sorry."

And he just walked backwards
and I just sat up

and there's a pigeon
sat right there.

Not in my wildest nightmares
did I suspect...

And then he said to me,

"I'm sorry, I'm so scared of them,
can you deal with it?"

Did you do other jobs? Did you
have a colourful CV like Jo's?

Er, I tried to work for the homeless
and they said I was too depressing.

Yeah. How long...

I did an interview to work
with the Simon Community

and they just said, "Look, these
people have a hard enough time."

What did you say that was so
depressing? Do you know what it was?

It was... Was it your demeanour?
No, it was the...

It was the shape of the room,
really.

The ceilings were too high? It was.
Classic comedian response.

"Terrible room!"

"The ceiling was too high."
"No warm-up act, yeah."

"The gap between the stage
and the front row was massive."

"I went on too early.
They weren't drunk enough."

Honestly, they were all...

They were sitting in front
of a window on a really hot day.

It was on my birthday,
my 19th birthday, actually.

You were depressed on your birthday?
Yeah.

Yep, yep.

The sun was shining in my eyes
and I couldn't really see them,

they were silhouettes.
And I was just...

in the kind of maudlin 19-year-old
part of my life and

they just said,
"We think you have some issues."

I was in Las Vegas on a holiday
and I was in a casino

and a bloke came up to me and said,
"I've always wanted to meet you.

"I am head of Kappa in the UK."

Vicky Pollard wore Kappa clothing.

She said, "You have single-handedly
killed us in the UK."

Really? Yeah, yeah.
He wasn't joking, either, was he?

Wasn't joking, it wasn't
like a jokey conversation.

It wasn't like...
It was like, "You've killed us.

"You have killed our business."
And what do you say?

What did you say? "I'm very sorry."
"Yeah, but no, but yeah..."

AS VICKY POLLARD: Yeah, what
it was... Was that... Yeah!

No, David Walliams told me
to say this thing...

NORMAL: And so I was like,
"Well, I'm very sorry,

"we must create a positive
character who wears Kappa and..."

But, you know, fuck 'em.

Who cares?

Did you get mixed up, did people mix
you up with Catherine Tate? Because

she was doing "Am I bothered?"
at a similar sort of time.

Yeah, people would sort of come up
to me and go, "Are you bothered?"

And I'd go...

"That... That isn't me."
They'd go...

"Yeah, it is." They'd do it like...
"Yeah, that's you."

I remember seeing you when you
used to do your act and you'd say,

"When I say I'm from Birmingham,
people would always say...

EXAGGERATED BIRMINGHAM ACCENT:
"Oh, you're from Birmingham?"

Do they still do that? They do do
that, Alan. They still do that, yes.

Didn't you used to do
a Margaret Thatcher impression? No.

Well, you did a voice that sounded
like Margaret Thatcher. No.

I do do voices, I do my
Irish mother, it's... Oh, go on.

But you used to do a sort of posh...
I do do posh voices.

Posh voices and it sounded like...
I'm trying to get you to do it.

OLD POSH VOICE: I do a very sort of,
like, you know, old sort of lady.

I talk about the oldest lady
I met on the bus, you know.

She's very, very old. What
about the one who gets annoyed?

OLD POSH ANNOYED VOICE:
The very old lady who gets annoyed!

NORMAL: I'm limited, I'm limited.

Do your Irish mother. Oh, my mum...

Talking about words and phrases, my
mother had a lovely set of phrases

and when she was tired,
she would say...

IRISH ACCENT:
"I'm falling off my stand."

Oh, that's lovely!

"I'm falling off my..."

NORMAL: She had a really gentle
Kerry West Ireland,

you know, accent.

I used to say she was really bad
at sort of discipline

because her voice was...

SOFT IRISH ACCENT: ..really gentle
like that, you know,

and she had no authority. Yeah.

She'd say, "You are grounded."

NORMAL: And I'd be like,
"You don't mean that."

My nan was...

She used to have the greatest
sentence I've ever heard in my life.

She was about 83, 84. She went,
"You know what," she said...

She goes, "I was 14
before I saw the sea."

She said, "I was 35 before
I knew what a lesbian was."

She says, "Now your mum is cooking
lasagne for Sunday dinner.

"The world's gone mad."

Anyway, listen, I've very much
enjoyed all your company.

We do need to think of a title
for the show based on something

that you've heard this evening.

I quite like, "I Was A Last-Minute
Replacement For Uri Geller."

"Fuck Off At 35,000 Feet."

"Kiss My Qant-ass."

Hang on, I'm being given
a suggestion. What was that?

"It's Not Big And Not Even A Woman."

It's Not Big And Not Even A Woman!

I'm going with "Cross Eyed Gobbler".

Welcome to Cross Eyed Gobbler
with Alan Davis.

This is Dave, not BBC Four.

"Stick Them Up Your Bum
And They'll Last A Bit Longer."

"Waiting To Listen
To The Queen's Vagina."

Is the compilation lots of bits
that haven't been used elsewhere?

It's from all the shows
in the series...

That didn't make it into...

..that didn't make it
into their individual episodes.

OK, what about "Broken Biscuits"?

Cos it feels like it's that,
doesn't it?

It's lots of odd bits
that didn't quite...

They weren't round and perfect,
so they didn't quite fit in.

I mean, you could call it
"The Shit Bits" if you want.

I was trying to elevate it
a little bit.

"The Shit Bits" is not bad.

But I reckon... In the last series,
we did a compilation show

and it was called "Lips
and Assholes." Oh, right.

Because they're the bits that get
left over in the abattoir

that get made into burgers,
don't they?

Let's call it "Burgers". "Burgers?"
"Burgers." "Tasty Burgers."

"The Scrapings And Mould."

"Scrapings And Mould?"
Is that acceptable?

Want to call it "Nigel Farage"?

The shit bit left over? Yeah.

OK, very good.

Well, thank you to all the guests
who appeared on this series.

I'm Alan Davis,
you've been watching Nigel Farage.

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