Alan Davies: As Yet Untitled (2014–…): Season 3, Episode 3 - I'm Locked in with a Ham and I'm Not Coming Out - full transcript
ALAN DAVIES: AS YET UNTITLED 03
CTO M745D/82
BF000000
Always look right and left
when you're crossing the road.
It's a very clever thing to do.
This is the Hospital Club. Haven't
been here since 1873 when I had TB.
Oh, we're here. This is gonna be fun,
because I'm wearing a yellow dress.
Won't be long. Just doing my prep.
Oh, I love them! I love them all.
APPLAUSE
Hello. I'm Alan Davies
and this is As Yet Untitled,
the show that is completely
unprepared, unrehearsed, unscripted.
Our sole aim for the evening
is to come up with
a title for the show and to that end,
I need some talented
and brilliant guests.
Fortunately, I have four of them.
Please will you welcome my guests.
APPLAUSE
Welcome. We have Jo Enright here,
for whom opportunity nearly knocked
and she's NOT a master criminal.
Jo Enright.
APPLAUSE
Jim Moir. Jim Moir is very much
aware of the aggression of pigs.
Yeah.
APPLAUSE
Aisling Bea,
who likes taking in old men
and whose mum was not loving it.
APPLAUSE
And Justin Moorhouse. Justin
Moorhouse is very wary of piracy.
APPLAUSE
Very welcome. It's nice to see you,
Jo. I saw Jo in the corridor
and I don't think I've seen you
for about 20 years. Thanks, yeah.
She's been in that corridor,
waiting around going,
"Ooh, when will Alan come back?"
I'm very much enjoying
this lemon approach.
Thank you very much. Charity shop.
Well, you know, I kind of guessed,
but it's great
when you find something like that
in a charity shop.
We were saying before the show,
me and Aisling,
somebody very happy died.
Someone might have been
married in that.
It's got that kind of look about it.
I would say 1972? Really?
Well, you can tell
by the rounded collars, can't you?
I thought that was '60s. Am I wrong?
I think those collars, '72.
Can't remember what you call them.
I'm impressed. It's a
Peter Pan collar, I think, is it?
Is that what that's called?
Yeah, I think so.
Someone in the audience went "Yep."
What a strange heckle -
"Yeah, that's what you call them!"
They're very confidently
nodding at me.
Oh, somebody else.
Give me another, give me another.
Give me a different type of collar.
I've recently started
wearing the tank top
because I'm 45
and I've decided to improve my life.
I want to dress as a toddler.
So I started wearing the tank top.
Now, if you try and find a tank top
on the internet, you won't get one.
Really? They're now called
slipovers. They've been re-branded.
Do you remember the bodywarmer?
Yeah.
That's now the gilet. Yeah.
The tank top is now a slipover.
Is that right?
She's like the sage of
all things fashion!
She's just like that..."Hmm."
What's the difference
between a slipover and a pullover?
One just slips up
because it's so big.
The other one, you have to pull.
You have to pull over, yeah.
A slipover's a thing
that you do, though - you slip over.
You pull over as well
if the police ask you,
"What you wearing that jumper for?"
It's true. You pull over.
"Pull over! Where did you get it?"
I remember the bodywarmer.
So bad! First thing I said.
Everyone used to wear bodywarmers...
Not everyone.
In your world. In my world.
I've never worn one. Have you worn
one? Have you worn one?
I've worn a bodywarmer.
I come from a long line of people
with very cold bodies and hot arms.
It's a strange affliction!
No, you have hot bodies and cold arms
with the bodywarmer.
No, your body's cold
so you can warm it up.
What you're doing is getting your
body up to the level of your arms.
Exactly, yes. But you can never buy
sleeves on their own, can you?
That would be good, wouldn't it?
Where are all the sleeves?
There's a warehouse full of sleeves.
Is that right?
Is that what they do?
Cut the sleeves off?
Or long gloves, that would do it,
wouldn't it?
I grew up in a house.
I don't know if anybody... Did you?
Yes, it was amazing, Alan.
Four walls and a roof.
I grew up in a house without
central heating. Did anybody else?
Yeah, it wasn't invented. Yeah.
And it means that kind of
psychologically...
When you spend the first 18 years
without central heating,
you always feel kind of cold.
You're scared you'll lose it again.
You're scared to go outside
in case you lose the heat again.
Did you have a fire?
We had a gas fire in the living room
and a gas fire in the front room
and you couldn't read in bed,
because your hands were freezing
and your nose would go freezing.
No, I do remember that - hot water
bottles and pulling the...
I used to put my school clothes
on in bed.
Just have them there, drag them in,
try and put your trousers on.
Putting me tie on was the hardest
thing, under the covers.
And then just slip out to school
under the duvet.
When I was renting flats in London,
you'd always lift it up and
use the hairdryer to warm the bed.
My friend set her bed
on fire doing that.
She had no heating in her house
and put the hairdryer on,
then just looked away and it went...
They had to put it out.
It was very dangerous.
Warm, though. Yeah, very warm,
in fairness.
When I was a student, we had ice
on the inside of the windows.
Yeah, I did too. There's a lot
of murmuring. Yeah, yeah.
A lot of murmuring about that, when
the condensation froze overnight.
There are people alive today
who don't know the sound
of the windows rattling... I know.
..in the wind.
Do you remember the storm of '87?
It's like being
round your grandad's house.
It's just like a day... "There are
people that don't know..."
The storm in '87,
I was at university in Kent.
I was in Whitstable in Kent.
In Sevenoaks,
there used to be seven oaks,
and in the morning, there were six.
And that's true.
That is true. One of them
I've got in my kitchen now.
Have you? Well, it's what I was told
when I bought the house in Kent.
There's a really nice part
of the kitchen
made out of this really nice oak.
And it's one of the oaks?
That was one of the trees
that came down at Sevenoaks.
You know what they did?
They planted seven oaks
and now they've got eight,
so now it's confusing.
I was right in the thick of that
storm. I was doing a warm-up
for Doctor and the Medics
at the Astoria
and we all went back to this hotel
afterwards and someone said,
"Have you seen
what's going on outside?"
There was bins and trees
flying through the air.
So I got in the taxi
with the only taxi driver
who was driving around that night
and he was insane.
He said, "This is fantastic fun,
isn't it?"
I thought, "I've made a mistake
getting in the car with you."
And he went right across
Regent's Park,
right across the grass
and everything,
because there was no-one out to stop
him doing whatever he wanted.
Oh, my God!
And I got back to my house in
Deptford and I couldn't find it,
because all the trees had fallen
down in front of the flats.
Eventually worked out where
I might be and crawled through...
It was like going through a jungle.
And I had to smash a window
to get in.
It was amazing, wasn't it?
I remember the chimneystack
fell down next door.
But we lay there all night
with the window...
You felt like the window was going to
come out of its... What is it?
Frame. Frame. Frame.
That's why I'm here -
any architrave-based enquiries.
I instinctively went to you!
I don't know why I did it.
Because of the bins.
I used to involved
in plastic building supplies.
Did you really?
Yes. I could talk to you
about opal four-quad polycarbonate.
I wish you would.
Well, if anyone watching this has
got a problem with their, er...
You know your traditional...
Not your traditional,
the cheap conservatries that people
have on the back of their houses
next to their wheelie bins...
They have that lining on the roof.
What happens is when it's cut,
the plastic gets inside them and
if it's not cleared out properly,
it has a spider effect it will blow
the whole roof and it's a nightmare.
Why does mine leak?
That woman over there is...
Trying to tell us.
I'll have to come and have a look.
Would you? Yeah, yeah.
It's only now and then, which is the
strange thing. It doesn't leak...
Is it when rains?
..when it's not raining!
When it rains, in various places
now and then. Yeah, yeah.
It's got a mind of its own.
Do you think it's someone playing
tricks on you? Do you think it is?
"Oh, this will drive you nuts now!"
There's a ghost in the conservatory?
Yeah, that's where
they normally hang out.
I did a wedding. I'm a stand-up
comedian. I've never done a wedding.
Been asked loads of times to do
weddings and I've always said no.
Like a stranger's wedding?
Yeah, but then this guy
eventually said to me,
"Look, I think you'll be all right.
I've seen you a few times.
"It's at my house." And he lived in
Something Something Hall.
I thought, "Well, even if it's not
all right, he's got enough money."
You know?
And I did a bit of stand-up
and the band for the night
were The Hothouse Flowers.
Oh, I love them. What?! Oh, my God!
I said, "I'd love to meet
The Hothouse Flowers!
"Where are they?" And they went,
"They just went into
the conservatory."
They waiting in the conservatory
and I went,
"Really? Is that the Hothouse
Flowers in the conservatory?"
And they went, "Yeah." I was
going... Do you get it? Yeah!
It'll be a tough gig.
I went, "Was it a hothouse...?"
They went, "Dunno."
And The Hothouse Flowers
were lovely.
Did you do stand-up at a wedding?
Yeah.
I've never heard of that
before in my life.
That sounds like the most awful,
awful experience.
I've done, I would say,
ten stand-up gigs in me life.
And they've all been diabolical,
but one of them was at a big posh
mansion place. Yeah.
And it was the last one
I ever did and I thought,
"This is gonna go bad." And I've
been a vegetarian for then years
and it was a very big house
and I locked myself in a room
with a York ham...
..and got rid of the ten years of
vegetarianism.
And I didn't do the gig. I said,
I'm in here with a ham
and I'm not coming out."
But sometimes things get
sucked up the back,
like socks and jogging bottoms.
Can you tell me why
you're not a master criminal?
Well, the reason...
OK, I'm actually quite rubbish.
I'm quite embarrassed by this story,
really,
because I'm not that person
any more.
But when I was 17, I used to run
a launderette in Birmingham
on my own, as a part-time job.
And people would come in, obviously,
and bring their service washes,
and it was my job to
sort of wash them and dry them.
And sometimes I'd kind of
give them back damp
and just put a few 20 pence pieces.
I thought you just
tumble-dried and folded them.
Oh, no, it's quite complicated.
Very complicated.
And one day
I was doing this lady's wash.
She bought it in in the morning
and I washed it and I was drying it
and as I was drying it,
I saw a pair of jogging bottoms
that I quite liked.
And the flesh is weak.
And so I took them, basically,
thinking, they're not a name -
they're not Adidas. Not even
Primark - hadn't been invented.
I just took them and thought
she'd never notice.
So anyway, she came and I smiled
her off. She left.
And this is why I'm not very
good at this sort of thing.
I actually wore them the next day.
To the launderette?
Working in the launderette.
The day she's most likely
to come back and say... Yes.
"There wasn't a pair of jogging
bottoms in there, was there?"
I know, I know!
Were they really distinctive?
Did they have Madonna
down one side or something?
They were really plain,
but because I'm only 4'10",
it's difficult to get things
that are the right length.
Oh, no. Was she 4'10" as well?
She must have been.
I didn't measure her. I just...
just stole them very quickly.
Anyway, I thought I'll never see her
again and she can't prove anything.
You know?
Did you have a look in the back
and there's a name there?
Two mistakes there. I WILL see her
again and she WILL prove this.
So anyway, the counter
came up to my waist.
And the jogging bottoms did.
And she came in when I was behind...
The next day, I was wearing them,
she came in
and I was behind the counter
pressing myself up and she was like,
"I don't know what happened.
I bought my jogging bottoms in."
And I lied, basically, and went,
"It's the machines."
Some things never come out.
"Sometimes things get
sucked up the back,
"like socks and jogging bottoms."
And I kept them, and that was it.
She fell for that?
She fell for that. She went away
and believed me, because...
Because it was the machines. Yes.
So I wore them all the way through
my drama degree for three years.
You got a lot of use out of them.
They served me well, Alan. Yeah.
I'm still embarrassed. I still go
red when I tell that story.
I don't know what made me do it.
It was just one of those mad things.
You were young and desperate
and working in a launderette.
I understand.
I was young and desperate.
I think I wanted to see what it
felt like to just take...
Just to steal something -
to be that kind of person.
Like Winona Ryder.
Remember when she just took...?
Yes, it was a Winona Ryder moment.
It was. A moment of madness.
She did it on Rodeo Drive, didn't
she? Which is high-end fashion.
I remember stealing
Boots peppermint...
Because loads of the girls
were stealing and I was like,
"Oh, God, got to get in on this
stealing vibe. Everyone's doing it."
And I went into Boots,
which had opened up an Ireland
and was like, "If I'm going
to steal from anyone,
"I'll steal from The Man." I
took peppermint foot massage cream.
Oh! And still even when I have
peppermint tea or anything,
I'm still like, "Oh, God,
I was a criminal once!"
The smell of it...
Did you put it on your feet
and then stride back into the shop,
taking a walk?
"Wait a minute! You'll never
catch me, boys!" Yeah.
Most people in their teenage years
do a little bit of shoplifting,
don't they? Yeah. They've tried it.
The worst bit is five years after
that, whenever you're in the shop
and you're not stealing, you think
people are looking at you.
Yeah. How do you not look like
you'd look like you don't look like
you look, like you think you look?
You wish you'd stolen more stuff
in the '80s. There was no cameras.
That's right. There was no CCTV
on the streets.
We should all have nicked more stuff.
I heard once, I don't think
you can do it now,
but you used to be able to go into
a supermarket and eat things in it.
Yeah, as long as you'd eaten it.
If you'd eaten it...
Oh, my mother was a big old,
little grape here, a little bit...
We used to take a little Calor gas
camping stove in with us,
set it up with a frying pan.
Bacon and eggs.
My friend, she gets, like, a steak
and puts in that it's potatoes,
so it weighs like potatoes.
Then buys herself a steak!
I don't have the balls to do that.
That appears to be flawless. Yes.
Tell me why you like to take in
old men.
I think that's a reference
to when...
I've been in England about
eight and a half years now
and when I went to drama school
over here and I was quite...
I didn't have loads of cash
at the start
and in my second year
of drama school,
I got my heart broken by a guy...
Aww! Yeah, no, it's fine.
Don't worry about me. Heartless
people here. Don't even care.
But I got my heart broken by a guy
and I decided to go out
with my friends in Stoke Newington
and get absolutely hammertoothed
with the drink.
And I spent all of my cash
on all of the drink
and my ex-boyfriend turned
up at this bar and I was like,
"Oh, no, he's here! I have to hide."
And I remember trying literally
trying to do this,
"Don't tell him I'm here.
I'll just hide!"
Thinking, "He'll never know
it's me!"
We only spent two years together.
As if he wouldn't know.
"Oh, God!" So I collected up
my things and like,
"I've got to sneak out!"
And so I snuck out of the pub,
like this.
And just as I came out,
my bus flew by and I'm like,
"Oh, no, I have no money!"
And I kind of thought
maybe I'll go into this taxi office
and see if I can charm
a taxi out of them.
You know when you're like, "Mm-hm!
I'll just charm a taxi out of them.
"They won't be able to resist this."
And I went in and of course,
that didn't work.
And I turned around and there was
a man in his early seventies,
who was going,
IRISH ACCENT: "Listen. Right,
I, I, I'm not going to pay 50 quid
"to get down to Clapham.
"I have to be back in Angel in Upper
Street tomorrow morning at 6am.
"That's only three hours away.
"I'm not going to pay it,
so just give me half-price,
"cos I need to come back
quite soon."
And the taxi man
was having none of this.
They were sick of Irish people
trying to charm deals out of cabs.
But I was like...light bulb!
I was like, "Excuse me,
are you from Ireland?"
He was like, "I am."
"Listen, I live in Angel,
"so if you pay for the taxi back to
Angel, you can stay at my house."
"Ahhhh!"
So I was living with my sister
and basically
woke up in bed the next morning.
This doesn't get saucy at all,
don't worry. Oh, Geoffrey!
But woke up the next morning
and my sister said to me,
"Aisling, have you been in a play
with an old man?"
I was like, "What?!"
"There's an old man on the couch."
And I was just like,
"He said he'd be gone by six o'clock
in the morning."
And I went downstairs, like,
"Excuse me!"
And he's like, "Oh, I'm sorry.
I must have fallen asleep."
But Sinead was so annoyed at me.
"Aisling, he could have raped us!"
I was like, "Ah, listen, no!"
I said, "Would you tell her
you were never going to rape us?"
And he was like,
"I was never going to rape you."
And he left. Sinead was like, "You
can't, just because someone's Irish,
"you can't just bring them
and leave them on the couch.
"It's really bad." I was like,
"Yeah, in hindsight, when you put it
that way, it's really bad."
I really learnt my lesson
from bringing old men home.
I did it once as well. Did you?
Yes. You took an old man in?
Well, I befriended an old tramp
and he had...
You know those things
in your throat?
Yeah. A dickie bow?
He had a thing on.
"I talk like a robot."
I thought he was fascinating,
because he said he was a poet.
I met him in the pub.
He was about 80 and he told poems
in kind of an electronic way
through his neck.
So all me mates went off somewhere
and I said,
"Well, come back to our house.
"They've all gone off. Come and have
a drink at my house in Brixton."
So they all came back. I'd gone to
the toilet or something,
but they all came in
and all I saw was this bloke
doing electronic poetry
through his neck on the sofa.
And then I came in and they said,
"What's happening here?"
"I thought he was interesting
so I brought him home."
But from then on, he kept
turning up on the doorstep.
He kept coming back? Yeah.
That's what they'll do, homeless
people, if you give them a home.
I can't sign on with a huge tan,
so I put talcum powder
all over my face.
Can you tell me about your
"thinner voice"?
My thinner voice.
Right, I tell people this...
This is a story that I tell
people and they go, "Hmm."
I swear on my child's life
this happened.
This was about 12 years ago and
we were doing some gigs in Shanghai.
And it was all right.
Not a lot to do in the day,
cos we didn't really...
There's not a lot to do.
This was in Shanghai? In Shanghai.
Not the strip club? No, in Shanghai
in China. Actual Chinese town.
So she said,
"Let's go for a massage."
And in China, they often train
blind people to do massage,
when they're kids.
So they get blind kids
and teach them how to do massage.
And we went for this massage and
this blind man, he was about 20...
He was great. He was brilliant and
it was like 5 pence or whatever.
It was so cheap and they did massage
and it was great afterwards.
And as I got off the bed,
he said to me,
"I'm very sorry, I'm going to have
to charge you more." I said, "Why?"
And he said, "Because you're a lot
fatter than you sound."
It sounds like a joke.
APPLAUSE
I did one. It was a big posh
American production,
so I had the biggest Winnebago ever
and after finishing filming
for the day, she said,
"Would you like a massage, sir?"
And I usually say no. "Oh, go on,
then, yeah, I will."
So this woman comes in and she says,
"Sit down on this chair"
in the middle of my Winnebago.
So there's a window
and there's people wandering by.
So she does me back and all that
and she goes,
"I'm going to do your feet now."
So I'm sitting in this chair
and she goes right down,
she's going like that on me feet.
And the next thing, all the crew
are looking through the window.
"That's lovely! That's just great."
I'll say no more.
Whenever you go away, it's like,
you're in a hotel or something,
and there's a menu of massage.
You go, "I'll have a massage.
"It'll be all right."
What's it like getting
a massage as a man?
I've only ever had massages from
women. There is something oddly...
It's very odd when a stranger,
they just like get you
to take off all your clothes
and they really get...
Cos now there's a big thing.
Because no-one
ever really touches your arse.
You hold a lot of tension, cos
you're sitting on it all day,
so a big thing
when you get a massage -
it's like knead it like bread.
But it's so weird to have a
stranger... Who told you that?
..sticking their thumb...
This old man, he was staying
at my house,
he was from Northern Ireland
and I have to say
I felt very relaxed after it,
particularly after the drink.
So someone's told you that you
carry a lot of tension...
"You're carrying a lot of tension
in your arse!" ..in your bottom.
"Let me take care of that, love."
"Thank you!"
Tell me about your mum
not loving it. What's that about?
Oh, when I was at university,
to put myself through university,
I did an advert for McDonald's
the restaurant.
Yeah, the restaurant.
The fast restaurant, McDonald's,
and I did this advert where
I kiss the face off a guy,
then find a pound or a Euro
in his back pocket and went, "Mmm!"
And, "She's loving it!"
It was a bit mixed messages,
cos you were trying to work out
what exactly does she love?
That or stealing or what exactly?
But apparently, my character would
then go on to buy a burger
for a Euro from the Euro saver menu
or whatever it was.
I was like, "Ah, well,
no-one will ever see it."
Of course, the thing was rolled out
all across Ireland
and there's only one bus stop
in my town
and I was on that bus stop
going, "Mmm!" Like this.
And of course, it didn't take long
before someone having a laugh...
It was my first year in university,
so I'd only moved out a year.
Someone who I knew wrote,
you know, "Aisling's a slapper"
in marker on the...
Which is fair enough,
but it's no reason
to deface public property.
And so my mother went in
in the middle of the night
with Jif and a J-cloth
and washed it off.
Your mother cleaned the bus stop?
Yes, she cleaned the bus stop.
Good woman, Aisling!
She washed it all off.
Hang on a minute - there can't have
been one bus stop in your town?
Yeah. That means you could leave
the town, but you couldn't...
You could never come back.
There must be at least
two bus stops.
One day, I'll get back. When they
build one, I'll definitely go back
and see my mother finally
after all these years.
Where do you live now? England.
This is as far as I've come.
I was like,
"I'll go somewhere that's a bit
like Ireland but posher."
I've never had a lust to go
wandering, for some reason.
What's the furthest you've been -
Guildford?
No, I've gone to America
and I remember one year
there was a cheap holiday deal
when I was a kid to go to Cuba,
randomly, and...
And bring something back?
And so myself my mother
and my sister went off to Cuba
over the Christmas holidays.
And I remember when I came back,
people were like,
"What did you do over Christmas,
Aisling?
"We went to my granny's
in Bunratty." And I was like,
"Oh, we went to Cuba"
and no-one believed me.
So I went to school after having
said I'd been to Cuba,
came home to my mother and said,
"Mammy, no one's believed me
that we went away to this place."
She said, "Don't worry."
And she got out her Indian earth
compact,
which is like pre-fake-tan bronzer
and she's like, "Don't worry."
And she just put brown on my face
and sent me in the next day
to school. I was like,
"Well, lads! Queue up, naysayers.
As you can see, I've been away."
And people still say to me,
"Do you remember that time?
"We always thought you were
a bit weird,
"because you came in with all
that glitter on your face."
I did the same thing
in reverse once.
I went on holiday to Greece and it
was the cheapest holiday ever,
but I went and I came back.
I was signing on at the time
and I came back with a massive tan.
So I thought, "I can't go sign on
with a huge tan,"
so I put talcum powder
all over my face, so it was like....
Did it work?
Well, I don't know.
I mean, I got some looks
as I walked in looking like a zombie
and powder's dripping off me face
as I signed on.
Making a sort of paste on your face
as you sweated through it.
Can you tell me about your awareness
of the aggression of pigs?
When I was 14 I went to work
on a pig farm,
cos it was just a job.
I lived in the country
and that's what you did -
you went to work on a farm.
So this was a pig farm.
It was the scruffiest,
most Dickensian pig farm ever
and there are so many stories
I could tell you about this.
For instance, on my first day,
they said would I like to
something to eat,
so I went into the farmhouse
and there was a massive freezer
that they had a carcass in
that they ate their dinner off.
And I got offered this bowl of soup
and two of the biggest bollocks
were floating in it and the farmer's
wife... I just looked at it
and she says, "Do you not want it?"
And I said... I tried a bit
and said, "It's a bit salty."
So she said, "We'll give it to
the dog. Have a sandwich instead."
So the farmer gave me this
bacon sandwich, which looked great,
but he hadn't washed his hands. Ugh!
And there was pig shit
all over the bread... Ohhh!
..as he gave me it,
so I had to decline that as well.
Anyway, and then he said, "Right,
we're going to go and feed the..."
First job was cutting
the balls off the pigs.
Then after that,
we had to go and feed them.
While they were alive? Yeah,
the little ones. Oh, just... Hmm.
Do they stay in the sack,
like with sheep?
You cut them, squeeze them,
cut them again, pull them out,
cut them off and put them in a dish
and then let them run off.
Do you put them on a tray
like Ferrero Rocher?
They can be displayed like that
and I have seen them like that.
The ambassador.
But the ferocity of pigs as to
which you're alluding... Yes.
He used to make me go...
There was one pig
which was really vicious.
And some pigs get really vicious
and this pig's brother
had taken a bloke's leg off.
Had taken a blokes leg off?!
Yeah, his brother. And this one
was really vicious as well.
He said, "Right, we're going to..."
Seriously, the bloke lost his leg?
Yes. Well, the brother of the pig
I had to go in and feed.
So he would say, "You go and feed it
and I'll stand by
"on the other side of the wall
with a pitchfork,
"and if it comes near you
I'll try and keep it away."
So you was 14. There was
a one-legged man, saying,
"That pig's brother's a nasty one.
I don't trust that one."
And all you've got
to look forward to
was a shit-covered bacon sandwich
and bollock soup for your lunch?
Young boys then. And you're 14.
Yeah.
And kids complain these days
if they've not got an X-box
or something.
That's what you call
a Saturday job, isn't it?
It was great. I loved it.
It was quite fun.
And there was another time when
I was at the top of the field
and you have a bag of pig nuts
and you go and feed the pigs.
What? You've taken off
the other pigs?
You feed the balls
back to the other pigs?
No. The nuts are cobs.
Oh, real nuts! OK.
They're called pig nuts, but they're
cobs. They're like...
Oh, I think that's awful! Otherwise,
this story was sounding horrific!
So I'm up the field feeding all
the pigs these nuts, cobs -
golf-ball sized balls
of condensed corn.
Like that, you know.
Then I start walking back down,
but I've got a couple left
in the bottom of the bag
and that's what they respond to -
the sound of the shakes.
So I'm walking down, I turn round
after hearing this thundering
and 40 pigs
are running down the hill.
Oh, my God! Then I run
and it's like in slow motion.
I run and I throw myself
over this gate
and they all go boof, boof, boof,
boof, smacking into the gate.
Horrible, isn't it? I'm a vegetarian
and have been for a long time.
I don't eat meat.
Every time I say that,
there's silence in the audience.
They're, "How much cheese
has he eaten?"
How many falafels? Yeah.
And I'm a proper...
This is a joke, but this is true.
I'm a proper vegetarian. Some people
eat fish. What are they called?
I'm a pescatarian. Hypocrites.
Ah, OK.
I'm going to choose which animal
to kill. Yeah, all right, God.
But my mum used to work at a
well-known sausage factory. Walls.
And when you first start working
in these places,
they say that when the pig goes in,
the only thing that comes out is
the squeak. They use everything.
Yeah, yeah. My best friend
became a vegetarian.
She was the first vegetarian
I'd ever met.
And she became a vegetarian
when she was about 12
and we didn't know any vegetarians,
but because she was listening
to The Smiths
and she was very influenced
by Morrissey,
she decided to stop eating meat.
And we were in an Irish family
and nobody did that. Yeah.
So her mum would have...
Everybody else would have meat
and her mum would just leave a gap
where the meat was.
There was no replacement.
There was no...
It was like mashed potato, you know,
vegetables and a gap.
It's like leaving an empty chair
for Grandad at the Christmas table -
that's where the meat
would have gone.
Sunday lunches,
where you go to a friend's house
and they'd word it,
you know, "He's a vegetarian."
So I went to this house once
and she went,
"I've been very careful. I've done
the roasts in just sunflower oil.
"And the potatoes and the mash
and the carrots..."
I was like...
Cos when you're a veggie,
you don't often get a nice meal.
You know, it's like...
She goes, "That's great, that."
She went, "I've got you this."
She'd got me a little nut
roast from Marks's. Aw!
She cut it up for me.
I was just savouring it
and she got the gravy
and went all over it like that.
Rinsing it under the tap.
Don't worry - that's just shit.
You know you're hungry when you
find yourself rinsing carrot.
I was in Paris once.
I was in this restaurant
and it was a pork-based restaurant
and it said you could have
"la tentation de St Augustin."
Have you heard of that?
Yep. Pig on toast.
It's basically a pig's face
upside down
and you scrape out what meat
and fat you can find out of it.
It's the most disgusting... But,
you know, that's the right thing.
I'm a vegetarian, but I think
people should eat that.
Yeah, but there's not much in there.
It's just a pig's head.
What I think is awful about pigs
is they look like us
if we were cooked,
cos they're so close to us -
their skin and everything.
I'm kind of, like, hammy.
Aim higher. They are, though. If you
think we look like pigs, aim higher.
I don't think any of us
look like pigs.
But my hands go really cold,
but they can also go really
clammy and pink.
Trotters. Yeah, they look really...
Some people are made of chicken.
I'm ham. I'm ham.
And sometimes it's awful.
They've gone a little bit clammy
now, so if I shake your hand,
I feel like I'm passing you
a slice of ham.
Well, I'm quite clammy as well.
Yeah, between the two of us,
like two hams mating. Oh!
Like a pastrami sandwich.
I didn't eat this
la tentation de St Augustin.
I put it in me carrier bag
and then put that in me backpack
thing that I had.
And then I thought,
"I'm going to dump this.
"Cos I'm not going to eat it
"and I don't want them to think
that I haven't enjoyed it."
So the first thing that happens
is he came out and says,
"Did you enjoy your temptation?"
What's it called again?
The temptation of St Augustin.
Say it in French again, though.
La tentation de St Augustin.
So he said, "Did you enjoy it?"
I said, "It was delicious."
He said, "You like so much
you eat everything?"
"Yeah, I did, actually. Thank you.
Here's your money."
So I walked off and then I started
walking around.
It was a very hot day and you can
imagine... I forgot it was in there.
I know. I bought a pair of shoes,
put them in me backpack.
Why does it stink everywhere
around here today?
Smells of rotten pig's head.
Then I remembered.
People were swarming round him.
One woman said to me,
"What are you? Are you his minder?"
Yeah, look at me.
"No, I'm his wife!"
You know about pirates, don't you?
Yeah, I do.
You're really quite expert
on pirates.
Well, it was a thing...
I got very...
I was one-directional. I just wanted
to know about pirates, a lot.
At what age? Quite late.
About 15 years ago. So you did
quite a lot of reading?
I did a lot of reading
and I got a lot of books.
In fact I've got William Dampier's
two first edition volumes
of his voyages around the world.
You know, I spent
a lot of money on piracy.
What's a pirate? Is all this piracy
in the Caribbean?
It's all over the place -
wherever they could rob a ship.
I could take you through it,
but it's very long
and probably not right
for this programme.
I quite like it, though.
I'm quite interested it.
But this isn't the piracy
that you're wary of? No.
In Hyde, there weren't a lot pirates.
This story is... I used to work at
a local radio station in Manchester
and I was the DJ, you know.
And the station was did really well.
And we had the latest figures in
and the boss said,
"We're going to have a party!"
Because we're a radio station
and because we were on a canal,
the theme of the party
was pirate radio. Oh, I see.
So he went for it.
He dressed up as Jack Sparrow -
the full gear on and everything
and most people...
One or two had a stuffed parrot.
Most people had a cutlass
and an eye patch.
And everyone started having a
couple of drinks about two o'clock.
By about four o'clock,
everyone was a bit giddy.
They've all got eye patches on
and they're walking around going,
"Arrrr! Arrrr!"
Everyone's going for it.
So imagine -
150 people all with eye patches on
going, "Arrrr! Arrrr!"
At four o'clock, in walks,
for a pre-arranged interview,
the pop star Gabrielle.
Oh, no! Oh, my God!
To see 150 people
seemingly taking part
in the most brazen organised
piss-take
of a disabled person
you've ever seen in your life.
As she walked in, people are going,
"Arrrr! Arrrr!"
She just looked around like this,
went to the reception,
where the receptionist looked at
her, didn't recognise her and went,
"Ooh you've gone fancy
with diamantes!" Oh, God.
And then Heather McCartney
walked in.
Yeah! And do you know what?
That happened about 10 years ago
and every now and then,
my friend will text me and go,
"Did that actually happen?"
Cos every time I remember that,
that's too good to be true.
And I go, "Yeah, it was."
It was just really kind of weird
and...
But she must have seen that and
gone, "What are these people doing?"
Yeah, yeah.
Do you still get freaked-out when
you meet extremely famous people?
Well, I don't think I've ever done.
I rarely go out.
I had my tea with Matt LeBlanc.
Did you?
Yeah, I had my tea with him, yeah.
What consisted of your tea?
We went to a restaurant.
What, like sandwiches?
It was an evening meal. We went out
for dinner, you call it here.
In England.
Can I just...? No.
You were on a date.
Whilst we're on television, can I
just put this one to bed, right?
People in the south of England
have their dinner in the evening
and you have lunch
at lunchtime, right?
Do you remember at school, yeah?
Dinner time.
Your tea is like a sandwich.
What were the people
who worked at...? Dinner ladies.
Dinner ladies, yeah.
Can I just interject here, Justin?
What happens is you have your
dinner at school
and you have your tea
when you get in from school
and then you enter adult life...
..and you start to have a lunch hour
and you go out for dinner.
APPLAUSE
They're only applauding because
you're in the south. It's not fair.
A round of applause for the hard
fact that you have to grow up.
Peter Pan wouldn't have a chance
with this lot, would he?
But I went out, went to this thing.
It was an organised thing and it was
Joey from Friends, Matt LeBlanc,
and I smoked at the time
and he smoked as well
and we kept having to go out of
the restaurant to have a cigarette.
It was just like stepping
into a Hollywood...
Every time you went for a cigarette,
people were swarming round him
and one woman said to me,
"What are you? Are you his minder?"
Yeah, look at me!
"No, I'm his wife."
He's really...
Do you know really good-looking,
like when you see someone,
you're like, "Oh, you're so...
"You smell good!"
I did a charity thing.
How you doing?
That's what I was thinking.
A big charity thing. There was
loads of people on the bill,
and it was in Manchester.
And Jennifer Aniston was there
and I met her
and she's ridiculously good-looking.
And you think, "This is not right."
Are there other people like you
in America?
Is this normal where you come from?
The people look like you?
The money that they have there.
I was out in Hollywood recently
and they'll change everything.
They'll take children, you know, and
squeeze them to make baby juice
for your face, like, no matter what.
There's so much money there,
they'll just do anything.
My friend who is an Irish actor,
he was out in America as well.
He was like, "Aisling, will you go
for a drink in the Chateau Marmont?
I didn't think you could just
walk in there.
You know the Chateau Marmont?
It's this really famous place
in Hollywood
where people go for cocktails.
All the celebs go there.
And I didn't think
you could just arrive.
I thought they'd card you
or something like that.
So I met him there and I was like,
"Oh, you can just walk in!"
All you need is enough money
for one drink, really,
and we sat down and he started
coughing at me and I was like,
"Would you like a Polo mint?"
"No, look behind you!"
And I turned round
and it was Denzel Washington
having a pint.
I was like, It's Denzel! Ohhhhh!"
That would freak me out.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So he went to the loo
and my face was already kind of
fairly much into my neck,
cos I was trying to lean back
as much as I could to see if I could
see anything interesting.
But then I saw another man pass by
and when Roland came back from
the loo, he's like,
"What's wrong with your face?"
I was like, "Lenny Kravitz just sat
down beside Denzel for a pint!"
I had the same thing.
I was ordering a drink at the bar
and I could hear a kerfuffle.
I could hear...
HE BARKS
It was like some rabid dog
or something and I turned round,
"Do you mind?" and it was
Little Richard going, Ow! Ow!"
My God! Nuts!
Anyway, 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.
You might say "I'm going
home for me tea", for example.
I feel like there was a lot of
pork discussion.
I feel like pork and ham
came up a lot.
There was, "I'm in here with
a ham and I'm not coming out."
That's quite a good one.
That's quite a good option.
Can we call this show
"I ham what I ham"?
I quite like...
APPLAUSE
I quite like, "You get quite a lot of
tension in your arse."
What was it you said?
Oh, stress in my...hole.
No, butt stress.
Arse therapy. Arse therapy, yeah.
I don't think there was
anything there, really.
I don't think we can help you there.
You might have to do
another programme.
Well, we did a couple of hours
with them four.
We couldn't think of with anything.
We'll have to get another four in.
Thank you all for coming.
Please will you thanks my guests,
Jo Enright...
Jim Moir...
Aisling Bea...
and Justin Moorhouse.
And I'm Alan Davies
and you have been watching
I'm Locked In With A Ham
And I'm Not Coming Out.
Subtitles by Ericsson
CTO M745D/82
BF000000
Always look right and left
when you're crossing the road.
It's a very clever thing to do.
This is the Hospital Club. Haven't
been here since 1873 when I had TB.
Oh, we're here. This is gonna be fun,
because I'm wearing a yellow dress.
Won't be long. Just doing my prep.
Oh, I love them! I love them all.
APPLAUSE
Hello. I'm Alan Davies
and this is As Yet Untitled,
the show that is completely
unprepared, unrehearsed, unscripted.
Our sole aim for the evening
is to come up with
a title for the show and to that end,
I need some talented
and brilliant guests.
Fortunately, I have four of them.
Please will you welcome my guests.
APPLAUSE
Welcome. We have Jo Enright here,
for whom opportunity nearly knocked
and she's NOT a master criminal.
Jo Enright.
APPLAUSE
Jim Moir. Jim Moir is very much
aware of the aggression of pigs.
Yeah.
APPLAUSE
Aisling Bea,
who likes taking in old men
and whose mum was not loving it.
APPLAUSE
And Justin Moorhouse. Justin
Moorhouse is very wary of piracy.
APPLAUSE
Very welcome. It's nice to see you,
Jo. I saw Jo in the corridor
and I don't think I've seen you
for about 20 years. Thanks, yeah.
She's been in that corridor,
waiting around going,
"Ooh, when will Alan come back?"
I'm very much enjoying
this lemon approach.
Thank you very much. Charity shop.
Well, you know, I kind of guessed,
but it's great
when you find something like that
in a charity shop.
We were saying before the show,
me and Aisling,
somebody very happy died.
Someone might have been
married in that.
It's got that kind of look about it.
I would say 1972? Really?
Well, you can tell
by the rounded collars, can't you?
I thought that was '60s. Am I wrong?
I think those collars, '72.
Can't remember what you call them.
I'm impressed. It's a
Peter Pan collar, I think, is it?
Is that what that's called?
Yeah, I think so.
Someone in the audience went "Yep."
What a strange heckle -
"Yeah, that's what you call them!"
They're very confidently
nodding at me.
Oh, somebody else.
Give me another, give me another.
Give me a different type of collar.
I've recently started
wearing the tank top
because I'm 45
and I've decided to improve my life.
I want to dress as a toddler.
So I started wearing the tank top.
Now, if you try and find a tank top
on the internet, you won't get one.
Really? They're now called
slipovers. They've been re-branded.
Do you remember the bodywarmer?
Yeah.
That's now the gilet. Yeah.
The tank top is now a slipover.
Is that right?
She's like the sage of
all things fashion!
She's just like that..."Hmm."
What's the difference
between a slipover and a pullover?
One just slips up
because it's so big.
The other one, you have to pull.
You have to pull over, yeah.
A slipover's a thing
that you do, though - you slip over.
You pull over as well
if the police ask you,
"What you wearing that jumper for?"
It's true. You pull over.
"Pull over! Where did you get it?"
I remember the bodywarmer.
So bad! First thing I said.
Everyone used to wear bodywarmers...
Not everyone.
In your world. In my world.
I've never worn one. Have you worn
one? Have you worn one?
I've worn a bodywarmer.
I come from a long line of people
with very cold bodies and hot arms.
It's a strange affliction!
No, you have hot bodies and cold arms
with the bodywarmer.
No, your body's cold
so you can warm it up.
What you're doing is getting your
body up to the level of your arms.
Exactly, yes. But you can never buy
sleeves on their own, can you?
That would be good, wouldn't it?
Where are all the sleeves?
There's a warehouse full of sleeves.
Is that right?
Is that what they do?
Cut the sleeves off?
Or long gloves, that would do it,
wouldn't it?
I grew up in a house.
I don't know if anybody... Did you?
Yes, it was amazing, Alan.
Four walls and a roof.
I grew up in a house without
central heating. Did anybody else?
Yeah, it wasn't invented. Yeah.
And it means that kind of
psychologically...
When you spend the first 18 years
without central heating,
you always feel kind of cold.
You're scared you'll lose it again.
You're scared to go outside
in case you lose the heat again.
Did you have a fire?
We had a gas fire in the living room
and a gas fire in the front room
and you couldn't read in bed,
because your hands were freezing
and your nose would go freezing.
No, I do remember that - hot water
bottles and pulling the...
I used to put my school clothes
on in bed.
Just have them there, drag them in,
try and put your trousers on.
Putting me tie on was the hardest
thing, under the covers.
And then just slip out to school
under the duvet.
When I was renting flats in London,
you'd always lift it up and
use the hairdryer to warm the bed.
My friend set her bed
on fire doing that.
She had no heating in her house
and put the hairdryer on,
then just looked away and it went...
They had to put it out.
It was very dangerous.
Warm, though. Yeah, very warm,
in fairness.
When I was a student, we had ice
on the inside of the windows.
Yeah, I did too. There's a lot
of murmuring. Yeah, yeah.
A lot of murmuring about that, when
the condensation froze overnight.
There are people alive today
who don't know the sound
of the windows rattling... I know.
..in the wind.
Do you remember the storm of '87?
It's like being
round your grandad's house.
It's just like a day... "There are
people that don't know..."
The storm in '87,
I was at university in Kent.
I was in Whitstable in Kent.
In Sevenoaks,
there used to be seven oaks,
and in the morning, there were six.
And that's true.
That is true. One of them
I've got in my kitchen now.
Have you? Well, it's what I was told
when I bought the house in Kent.
There's a really nice part
of the kitchen
made out of this really nice oak.
And it's one of the oaks?
That was one of the trees
that came down at Sevenoaks.
You know what they did?
They planted seven oaks
and now they've got eight,
so now it's confusing.
I was right in the thick of that
storm. I was doing a warm-up
for Doctor and the Medics
at the Astoria
and we all went back to this hotel
afterwards and someone said,
"Have you seen
what's going on outside?"
There was bins and trees
flying through the air.
So I got in the taxi
with the only taxi driver
who was driving around that night
and he was insane.
He said, "This is fantastic fun,
isn't it?"
I thought, "I've made a mistake
getting in the car with you."
And he went right across
Regent's Park,
right across the grass
and everything,
because there was no-one out to stop
him doing whatever he wanted.
Oh, my God!
And I got back to my house in
Deptford and I couldn't find it,
because all the trees had fallen
down in front of the flats.
Eventually worked out where
I might be and crawled through...
It was like going through a jungle.
And I had to smash a window
to get in.
It was amazing, wasn't it?
I remember the chimneystack
fell down next door.
But we lay there all night
with the window...
You felt like the window was going to
come out of its... What is it?
Frame. Frame. Frame.
That's why I'm here -
any architrave-based enquiries.
I instinctively went to you!
I don't know why I did it.
Because of the bins.
I used to involved
in plastic building supplies.
Did you really?
Yes. I could talk to you
about opal four-quad polycarbonate.
I wish you would.
Well, if anyone watching this has
got a problem with their, er...
You know your traditional...
Not your traditional,
the cheap conservatries that people
have on the back of their houses
next to their wheelie bins...
They have that lining on the roof.
What happens is when it's cut,
the plastic gets inside them and
if it's not cleared out properly,
it has a spider effect it will blow
the whole roof and it's a nightmare.
Why does mine leak?
That woman over there is...
Trying to tell us.
I'll have to come and have a look.
Would you? Yeah, yeah.
It's only now and then, which is the
strange thing. It doesn't leak...
Is it when rains?
..when it's not raining!
When it rains, in various places
now and then. Yeah, yeah.
It's got a mind of its own.
Do you think it's someone playing
tricks on you? Do you think it is?
"Oh, this will drive you nuts now!"
There's a ghost in the conservatory?
Yeah, that's where
they normally hang out.
I did a wedding. I'm a stand-up
comedian. I've never done a wedding.
Been asked loads of times to do
weddings and I've always said no.
Like a stranger's wedding?
Yeah, but then this guy
eventually said to me,
"Look, I think you'll be all right.
I've seen you a few times.
"It's at my house." And he lived in
Something Something Hall.
I thought, "Well, even if it's not
all right, he's got enough money."
You know?
And I did a bit of stand-up
and the band for the night
were The Hothouse Flowers.
Oh, I love them. What?! Oh, my God!
I said, "I'd love to meet
The Hothouse Flowers!
"Where are they?" And they went,
"They just went into
the conservatory."
They waiting in the conservatory
and I went,
"Really? Is that the Hothouse
Flowers in the conservatory?"
And they went, "Yeah." I was
going... Do you get it? Yeah!
It'll be a tough gig.
I went, "Was it a hothouse...?"
They went, "Dunno."
And The Hothouse Flowers
were lovely.
Did you do stand-up at a wedding?
Yeah.
I've never heard of that
before in my life.
That sounds like the most awful,
awful experience.
I've done, I would say,
ten stand-up gigs in me life.
And they've all been diabolical,
but one of them was at a big posh
mansion place. Yeah.
And it was the last one
I ever did and I thought,
"This is gonna go bad." And I've
been a vegetarian for then years
and it was a very big house
and I locked myself in a room
with a York ham...
..and got rid of the ten years of
vegetarianism.
And I didn't do the gig. I said,
I'm in here with a ham
and I'm not coming out."
But sometimes things get
sucked up the back,
like socks and jogging bottoms.
Can you tell me why
you're not a master criminal?
Well, the reason...
OK, I'm actually quite rubbish.
I'm quite embarrassed by this story,
really,
because I'm not that person
any more.
But when I was 17, I used to run
a launderette in Birmingham
on my own, as a part-time job.
And people would come in, obviously,
and bring their service washes,
and it was my job to
sort of wash them and dry them.
And sometimes I'd kind of
give them back damp
and just put a few 20 pence pieces.
I thought you just
tumble-dried and folded them.
Oh, no, it's quite complicated.
Very complicated.
And one day
I was doing this lady's wash.
She bought it in in the morning
and I washed it and I was drying it
and as I was drying it,
I saw a pair of jogging bottoms
that I quite liked.
And the flesh is weak.
And so I took them, basically,
thinking, they're not a name -
they're not Adidas. Not even
Primark - hadn't been invented.
I just took them and thought
she'd never notice.
So anyway, she came and I smiled
her off. She left.
And this is why I'm not very
good at this sort of thing.
I actually wore them the next day.
To the launderette?
Working in the launderette.
The day she's most likely
to come back and say... Yes.
"There wasn't a pair of jogging
bottoms in there, was there?"
I know, I know!
Were they really distinctive?
Did they have Madonna
down one side or something?
They were really plain,
but because I'm only 4'10",
it's difficult to get things
that are the right length.
Oh, no. Was she 4'10" as well?
She must have been.
I didn't measure her. I just...
just stole them very quickly.
Anyway, I thought I'll never see her
again and she can't prove anything.
You know?
Did you have a look in the back
and there's a name there?
Two mistakes there. I WILL see her
again and she WILL prove this.
So anyway, the counter
came up to my waist.
And the jogging bottoms did.
And she came in when I was behind...
The next day, I was wearing them,
she came in
and I was behind the counter
pressing myself up and she was like,
"I don't know what happened.
I bought my jogging bottoms in."
And I lied, basically, and went,
"It's the machines."
Some things never come out.
"Sometimes things get
sucked up the back,
"like socks and jogging bottoms."
And I kept them, and that was it.
She fell for that?
She fell for that. She went away
and believed me, because...
Because it was the machines. Yes.
So I wore them all the way through
my drama degree for three years.
You got a lot of use out of them.
They served me well, Alan. Yeah.
I'm still embarrassed. I still go
red when I tell that story.
I don't know what made me do it.
It was just one of those mad things.
You were young and desperate
and working in a launderette.
I understand.
I was young and desperate.
I think I wanted to see what it
felt like to just take...
Just to steal something -
to be that kind of person.
Like Winona Ryder.
Remember when she just took...?
Yes, it was a Winona Ryder moment.
It was. A moment of madness.
She did it on Rodeo Drive, didn't
she? Which is high-end fashion.
I remember stealing
Boots peppermint...
Because loads of the girls
were stealing and I was like,
"Oh, God, got to get in on this
stealing vibe. Everyone's doing it."
And I went into Boots,
which had opened up an Ireland
and was like, "If I'm going
to steal from anyone,
"I'll steal from The Man." I
took peppermint foot massage cream.
Oh! And still even when I have
peppermint tea or anything,
I'm still like, "Oh, God,
I was a criminal once!"
The smell of it...
Did you put it on your feet
and then stride back into the shop,
taking a walk?
"Wait a minute! You'll never
catch me, boys!" Yeah.
Most people in their teenage years
do a little bit of shoplifting,
don't they? Yeah. They've tried it.
The worst bit is five years after
that, whenever you're in the shop
and you're not stealing, you think
people are looking at you.
Yeah. How do you not look like
you'd look like you don't look like
you look, like you think you look?
You wish you'd stolen more stuff
in the '80s. There was no cameras.
That's right. There was no CCTV
on the streets.
We should all have nicked more stuff.
I heard once, I don't think
you can do it now,
but you used to be able to go into
a supermarket and eat things in it.
Yeah, as long as you'd eaten it.
If you'd eaten it...
Oh, my mother was a big old,
little grape here, a little bit...
We used to take a little Calor gas
camping stove in with us,
set it up with a frying pan.
Bacon and eggs.
My friend, she gets, like, a steak
and puts in that it's potatoes,
so it weighs like potatoes.
Then buys herself a steak!
I don't have the balls to do that.
That appears to be flawless. Yes.
Tell me why you like to take in
old men.
I think that's a reference
to when...
I've been in England about
eight and a half years now
and when I went to drama school
over here and I was quite...
I didn't have loads of cash
at the start
and in my second year
of drama school,
I got my heart broken by a guy...
Aww! Yeah, no, it's fine.
Don't worry about me. Heartless
people here. Don't even care.
But I got my heart broken by a guy
and I decided to go out
with my friends in Stoke Newington
and get absolutely hammertoothed
with the drink.
And I spent all of my cash
on all of the drink
and my ex-boyfriend turned
up at this bar and I was like,
"Oh, no, he's here! I have to hide."
And I remember trying literally
trying to do this,
"Don't tell him I'm here.
I'll just hide!"
Thinking, "He'll never know
it's me!"
We only spent two years together.
As if he wouldn't know.
"Oh, God!" So I collected up
my things and like,
"I've got to sneak out!"
And so I snuck out of the pub,
like this.
And just as I came out,
my bus flew by and I'm like,
"Oh, no, I have no money!"
And I kind of thought
maybe I'll go into this taxi office
and see if I can charm
a taxi out of them.
You know when you're like, "Mm-hm!
I'll just charm a taxi out of them.
"They won't be able to resist this."
And I went in and of course,
that didn't work.
And I turned around and there was
a man in his early seventies,
who was going,
IRISH ACCENT: "Listen. Right,
I, I, I'm not going to pay 50 quid
"to get down to Clapham.
"I have to be back in Angel in Upper
Street tomorrow morning at 6am.
"That's only three hours away.
"I'm not going to pay it,
so just give me half-price,
"cos I need to come back
quite soon."
And the taxi man
was having none of this.
They were sick of Irish people
trying to charm deals out of cabs.
But I was like...light bulb!
I was like, "Excuse me,
are you from Ireland?"
He was like, "I am."
"Listen, I live in Angel,
"so if you pay for the taxi back to
Angel, you can stay at my house."
"Ahhhh!"
So I was living with my sister
and basically
woke up in bed the next morning.
This doesn't get saucy at all,
don't worry. Oh, Geoffrey!
But woke up the next morning
and my sister said to me,
"Aisling, have you been in a play
with an old man?"
I was like, "What?!"
"There's an old man on the couch."
And I was just like,
"He said he'd be gone by six o'clock
in the morning."
And I went downstairs, like,
"Excuse me!"
And he's like, "Oh, I'm sorry.
I must have fallen asleep."
But Sinead was so annoyed at me.
"Aisling, he could have raped us!"
I was like, "Ah, listen, no!"
I said, "Would you tell her
you were never going to rape us?"
And he was like,
"I was never going to rape you."
And he left. Sinead was like, "You
can't, just because someone's Irish,
"you can't just bring them
and leave them on the couch.
"It's really bad." I was like,
"Yeah, in hindsight, when you put it
that way, it's really bad."
I really learnt my lesson
from bringing old men home.
I did it once as well. Did you?
Yes. You took an old man in?
Well, I befriended an old tramp
and he had...
You know those things
in your throat?
Yeah. A dickie bow?
He had a thing on.
"I talk like a robot."
I thought he was fascinating,
because he said he was a poet.
I met him in the pub.
He was about 80 and he told poems
in kind of an electronic way
through his neck.
So all me mates went off somewhere
and I said,
"Well, come back to our house.
"They've all gone off. Come and have
a drink at my house in Brixton."
So they all came back. I'd gone to
the toilet or something,
but they all came in
and all I saw was this bloke
doing electronic poetry
through his neck on the sofa.
And then I came in and they said,
"What's happening here?"
"I thought he was interesting
so I brought him home."
But from then on, he kept
turning up on the doorstep.
He kept coming back? Yeah.
That's what they'll do, homeless
people, if you give them a home.
I can't sign on with a huge tan,
so I put talcum powder
all over my face.
Can you tell me about your
"thinner voice"?
My thinner voice.
Right, I tell people this...
This is a story that I tell
people and they go, "Hmm."
I swear on my child's life
this happened.
This was about 12 years ago and
we were doing some gigs in Shanghai.
And it was all right.
Not a lot to do in the day,
cos we didn't really...
There's not a lot to do.
This was in Shanghai? In Shanghai.
Not the strip club? No, in Shanghai
in China. Actual Chinese town.
So she said,
"Let's go for a massage."
And in China, they often train
blind people to do massage,
when they're kids.
So they get blind kids
and teach them how to do massage.
And we went for this massage and
this blind man, he was about 20...
He was great. He was brilliant and
it was like 5 pence or whatever.
It was so cheap and they did massage
and it was great afterwards.
And as I got off the bed,
he said to me,
"I'm very sorry, I'm going to have
to charge you more." I said, "Why?"
And he said, "Because you're a lot
fatter than you sound."
It sounds like a joke.
APPLAUSE
I did one. It was a big posh
American production,
so I had the biggest Winnebago ever
and after finishing filming
for the day, she said,
"Would you like a massage, sir?"
And I usually say no. "Oh, go on,
then, yeah, I will."
So this woman comes in and she says,
"Sit down on this chair"
in the middle of my Winnebago.
So there's a window
and there's people wandering by.
So she does me back and all that
and she goes,
"I'm going to do your feet now."
So I'm sitting in this chair
and she goes right down,
she's going like that on me feet.
And the next thing, all the crew
are looking through the window.
"That's lovely! That's just great."
I'll say no more.
Whenever you go away, it's like,
you're in a hotel or something,
and there's a menu of massage.
You go, "I'll have a massage.
"It'll be all right."
What's it like getting
a massage as a man?
I've only ever had massages from
women. There is something oddly...
It's very odd when a stranger,
they just like get you
to take off all your clothes
and they really get...
Cos now there's a big thing.
Because no-one
ever really touches your arse.
You hold a lot of tension, cos
you're sitting on it all day,
so a big thing
when you get a massage -
it's like knead it like bread.
But it's so weird to have a
stranger... Who told you that?
..sticking their thumb...
This old man, he was staying
at my house,
he was from Northern Ireland
and I have to say
I felt very relaxed after it,
particularly after the drink.
So someone's told you that you
carry a lot of tension...
"You're carrying a lot of tension
in your arse!" ..in your bottom.
"Let me take care of that, love."
"Thank you!"
Tell me about your mum
not loving it. What's that about?
Oh, when I was at university,
to put myself through university,
I did an advert for McDonald's
the restaurant.
Yeah, the restaurant.
The fast restaurant, McDonald's,
and I did this advert where
I kiss the face off a guy,
then find a pound or a Euro
in his back pocket and went, "Mmm!"
And, "She's loving it!"
It was a bit mixed messages,
cos you were trying to work out
what exactly does she love?
That or stealing or what exactly?
But apparently, my character would
then go on to buy a burger
for a Euro from the Euro saver menu
or whatever it was.
I was like, "Ah, well,
no-one will ever see it."
Of course, the thing was rolled out
all across Ireland
and there's only one bus stop
in my town
and I was on that bus stop
going, "Mmm!" Like this.
And of course, it didn't take long
before someone having a laugh...
It was my first year in university,
so I'd only moved out a year.
Someone who I knew wrote,
you know, "Aisling's a slapper"
in marker on the...
Which is fair enough,
but it's no reason
to deface public property.
And so my mother went in
in the middle of the night
with Jif and a J-cloth
and washed it off.
Your mother cleaned the bus stop?
Yes, she cleaned the bus stop.
Good woman, Aisling!
She washed it all off.
Hang on a minute - there can't have
been one bus stop in your town?
Yeah. That means you could leave
the town, but you couldn't...
You could never come back.
There must be at least
two bus stops.
One day, I'll get back. When they
build one, I'll definitely go back
and see my mother finally
after all these years.
Where do you live now? England.
This is as far as I've come.
I was like,
"I'll go somewhere that's a bit
like Ireland but posher."
I've never had a lust to go
wandering, for some reason.
What's the furthest you've been -
Guildford?
No, I've gone to America
and I remember one year
there was a cheap holiday deal
when I was a kid to go to Cuba,
randomly, and...
And bring something back?
And so myself my mother
and my sister went off to Cuba
over the Christmas holidays.
And I remember when I came back,
people were like,
"What did you do over Christmas,
Aisling?
"We went to my granny's
in Bunratty." And I was like,
"Oh, we went to Cuba"
and no-one believed me.
So I went to school after having
said I'd been to Cuba,
came home to my mother and said,
"Mammy, no one's believed me
that we went away to this place."
She said, "Don't worry."
And she got out her Indian earth
compact,
which is like pre-fake-tan bronzer
and she's like, "Don't worry."
And she just put brown on my face
and sent me in the next day
to school. I was like,
"Well, lads! Queue up, naysayers.
As you can see, I've been away."
And people still say to me,
"Do you remember that time?
"We always thought you were
a bit weird,
"because you came in with all
that glitter on your face."
I did the same thing
in reverse once.
I went on holiday to Greece and it
was the cheapest holiday ever,
but I went and I came back.
I was signing on at the time
and I came back with a massive tan.
So I thought, "I can't go sign on
with a huge tan,"
so I put talcum powder
all over my face, so it was like....
Did it work?
Well, I don't know.
I mean, I got some looks
as I walked in looking like a zombie
and powder's dripping off me face
as I signed on.
Making a sort of paste on your face
as you sweated through it.
Can you tell me about your awareness
of the aggression of pigs?
When I was 14 I went to work
on a pig farm,
cos it was just a job.
I lived in the country
and that's what you did -
you went to work on a farm.
So this was a pig farm.
It was the scruffiest,
most Dickensian pig farm ever
and there are so many stories
I could tell you about this.
For instance, on my first day,
they said would I like to
something to eat,
so I went into the farmhouse
and there was a massive freezer
that they had a carcass in
that they ate their dinner off.
And I got offered this bowl of soup
and two of the biggest bollocks
were floating in it and the farmer's
wife... I just looked at it
and she says, "Do you not want it?"
And I said... I tried a bit
and said, "It's a bit salty."
So she said, "We'll give it to
the dog. Have a sandwich instead."
So the farmer gave me this
bacon sandwich, which looked great,
but he hadn't washed his hands. Ugh!
And there was pig shit
all over the bread... Ohhh!
..as he gave me it,
so I had to decline that as well.
Anyway, and then he said, "Right,
we're going to go and feed the..."
First job was cutting
the balls off the pigs.
Then after that,
we had to go and feed them.
While they were alive? Yeah,
the little ones. Oh, just... Hmm.
Do they stay in the sack,
like with sheep?
You cut them, squeeze them,
cut them again, pull them out,
cut them off and put them in a dish
and then let them run off.
Do you put them on a tray
like Ferrero Rocher?
They can be displayed like that
and I have seen them like that.
The ambassador.
But the ferocity of pigs as to
which you're alluding... Yes.
He used to make me go...
There was one pig
which was really vicious.
And some pigs get really vicious
and this pig's brother
had taken a bloke's leg off.
Had taken a blokes leg off?!
Yeah, his brother. And this one
was really vicious as well.
He said, "Right, we're going to..."
Seriously, the bloke lost his leg?
Yes. Well, the brother of the pig
I had to go in and feed.
So he would say, "You go and feed it
and I'll stand by
"on the other side of the wall
with a pitchfork,
"and if it comes near you
I'll try and keep it away."
So you was 14. There was
a one-legged man, saying,
"That pig's brother's a nasty one.
I don't trust that one."
And all you've got
to look forward to
was a shit-covered bacon sandwich
and bollock soup for your lunch?
Young boys then. And you're 14.
Yeah.
And kids complain these days
if they've not got an X-box
or something.
That's what you call
a Saturday job, isn't it?
It was great. I loved it.
It was quite fun.
And there was another time when
I was at the top of the field
and you have a bag of pig nuts
and you go and feed the pigs.
What? You've taken off
the other pigs?
You feed the balls
back to the other pigs?
No. The nuts are cobs.
Oh, real nuts! OK.
They're called pig nuts, but they're
cobs. They're like...
Oh, I think that's awful! Otherwise,
this story was sounding horrific!
So I'm up the field feeding all
the pigs these nuts, cobs -
golf-ball sized balls
of condensed corn.
Like that, you know.
Then I start walking back down,
but I've got a couple left
in the bottom of the bag
and that's what they respond to -
the sound of the shakes.
So I'm walking down, I turn round
after hearing this thundering
and 40 pigs
are running down the hill.
Oh, my God! Then I run
and it's like in slow motion.
I run and I throw myself
over this gate
and they all go boof, boof, boof,
boof, smacking into the gate.
Horrible, isn't it? I'm a vegetarian
and have been for a long time.
I don't eat meat.
Every time I say that,
there's silence in the audience.
They're, "How much cheese
has he eaten?"
How many falafels? Yeah.
And I'm a proper...
This is a joke, but this is true.
I'm a proper vegetarian. Some people
eat fish. What are they called?
I'm a pescatarian. Hypocrites.
Ah, OK.
I'm going to choose which animal
to kill. Yeah, all right, God.
But my mum used to work at a
well-known sausage factory. Walls.
And when you first start working
in these places,
they say that when the pig goes in,
the only thing that comes out is
the squeak. They use everything.
Yeah, yeah. My best friend
became a vegetarian.
She was the first vegetarian
I'd ever met.
And she became a vegetarian
when she was about 12
and we didn't know any vegetarians,
but because she was listening
to The Smiths
and she was very influenced
by Morrissey,
she decided to stop eating meat.
And we were in an Irish family
and nobody did that. Yeah.
So her mum would have...
Everybody else would have meat
and her mum would just leave a gap
where the meat was.
There was no replacement.
There was no...
It was like mashed potato, you know,
vegetables and a gap.
It's like leaving an empty chair
for Grandad at the Christmas table -
that's where the meat
would have gone.
Sunday lunches,
where you go to a friend's house
and they'd word it,
you know, "He's a vegetarian."
So I went to this house once
and she went,
"I've been very careful. I've done
the roasts in just sunflower oil.
"And the potatoes and the mash
and the carrots..."
I was like...
Cos when you're a veggie,
you don't often get a nice meal.
You know, it's like...
She goes, "That's great, that."
She went, "I've got you this."
She'd got me a little nut
roast from Marks's. Aw!
She cut it up for me.
I was just savouring it
and she got the gravy
and went all over it like that.
Rinsing it under the tap.
Don't worry - that's just shit.
You know you're hungry when you
find yourself rinsing carrot.
I was in Paris once.
I was in this restaurant
and it was a pork-based restaurant
and it said you could have
"la tentation de St Augustin."
Have you heard of that?
Yep. Pig on toast.
It's basically a pig's face
upside down
and you scrape out what meat
and fat you can find out of it.
It's the most disgusting... But,
you know, that's the right thing.
I'm a vegetarian, but I think
people should eat that.
Yeah, but there's not much in there.
It's just a pig's head.
What I think is awful about pigs
is they look like us
if we were cooked,
cos they're so close to us -
their skin and everything.
I'm kind of, like, hammy.
Aim higher. They are, though. If you
think we look like pigs, aim higher.
I don't think any of us
look like pigs.
But my hands go really cold,
but they can also go really
clammy and pink.
Trotters. Yeah, they look really...
Some people are made of chicken.
I'm ham. I'm ham.
And sometimes it's awful.
They've gone a little bit clammy
now, so if I shake your hand,
I feel like I'm passing you
a slice of ham.
Well, I'm quite clammy as well.
Yeah, between the two of us,
like two hams mating. Oh!
Like a pastrami sandwich.
I didn't eat this
la tentation de St Augustin.
I put it in me carrier bag
and then put that in me backpack
thing that I had.
And then I thought,
"I'm going to dump this.
"Cos I'm not going to eat it
"and I don't want them to think
that I haven't enjoyed it."
So the first thing that happens
is he came out and says,
"Did you enjoy your temptation?"
What's it called again?
The temptation of St Augustin.
Say it in French again, though.
La tentation de St Augustin.
So he said, "Did you enjoy it?"
I said, "It was delicious."
He said, "You like so much
you eat everything?"
"Yeah, I did, actually. Thank you.
Here's your money."
So I walked off and then I started
walking around.
It was a very hot day and you can
imagine... I forgot it was in there.
I know. I bought a pair of shoes,
put them in me backpack.
Why does it stink everywhere
around here today?
Smells of rotten pig's head.
Then I remembered.
People were swarming round him.
One woman said to me,
"What are you? Are you his minder?"
Yeah, look at me.
"No, I'm his wife!"
You know about pirates, don't you?
Yeah, I do.
You're really quite expert
on pirates.
Well, it was a thing...
I got very...
I was one-directional. I just wanted
to know about pirates, a lot.
At what age? Quite late.
About 15 years ago. So you did
quite a lot of reading?
I did a lot of reading
and I got a lot of books.
In fact I've got William Dampier's
two first edition volumes
of his voyages around the world.
You know, I spent
a lot of money on piracy.
What's a pirate? Is all this piracy
in the Caribbean?
It's all over the place -
wherever they could rob a ship.
I could take you through it,
but it's very long
and probably not right
for this programme.
I quite like it, though.
I'm quite interested it.
But this isn't the piracy
that you're wary of? No.
In Hyde, there weren't a lot pirates.
This story is... I used to work at
a local radio station in Manchester
and I was the DJ, you know.
And the station was did really well.
And we had the latest figures in
and the boss said,
"We're going to have a party!"
Because we're a radio station
and because we were on a canal,
the theme of the party
was pirate radio. Oh, I see.
So he went for it.
He dressed up as Jack Sparrow -
the full gear on and everything
and most people...
One or two had a stuffed parrot.
Most people had a cutlass
and an eye patch.
And everyone started having a
couple of drinks about two o'clock.
By about four o'clock,
everyone was a bit giddy.
They've all got eye patches on
and they're walking around going,
"Arrrr! Arrrr!"
Everyone's going for it.
So imagine -
150 people all with eye patches on
going, "Arrrr! Arrrr!"
At four o'clock, in walks,
for a pre-arranged interview,
the pop star Gabrielle.
Oh, no! Oh, my God!
To see 150 people
seemingly taking part
in the most brazen organised
piss-take
of a disabled person
you've ever seen in your life.
As she walked in, people are going,
"Arrrr! Arrrr!"
She just looked around like this,
went to the reception,
where the receptionist looked at
her, didn't recognise her and went,
"Ooh you've gone fancy
with diamantes!" Oh, God.
And then Heather McCartney
walked in.
Yeah! And do you know what?
That happened about 10 years ago
and every now and then,
my friend will text me and go,
"Did that actually happen?"
Cos every time I remember that,
that's too good to be true.
And I go, "Yeah, it was."
It was just really kind of weird
and...
But she must have seen that and
gone, "What are these people doing?"
Yeah, yeah.
Do you still get freaked-out when
you meet extremely famous people?
Well, I don't think I've ever done.
I rarely go out.
I had my tea with Matt LeBlanc.
Did you?
Yeah, I had my tea with him, yeah.
What consisted of your tea?
We went to a restaurant.
What, like sandwiches?
It was an evening meal. We went out
for dinner, you call it here.
In England.
Can I just...? No.
You were on a date.
Whilst we're on television, can I
just put this one to bed, right?
People in the south of England
have their dinner in the evening
and you have lunch
at lunchtime, right?
Do you remember at school, yeah?
Dinner time.
Your tea is like a sandwich.
What were the people
who worked at...? Dinner ladies.
Dinner ladies, yeah.
Can I just interject here, Justin?
What happens is you have your
dinner at school
and you have your tea
when you get in from school
and then you enter adult life...
..and you start to have a lunch hour
and you go out for dinner.
APPLAUSE
They're only applauding because
you're in the south. It's not fair.
A round of applause for the hard
fact that you have to grow up.
Peter Pan wouldn't have a chance
with this lot, would he?
But I went out, went to this thing.
It was an organised thing and it was
Joey from Friends, Matt LeBlanc,
and I smoked at the time
and he smoked as well
and we kept having to go out of
the restaurant to have a cigarette.
It was just like stepping
into a Hollywood...
Every time you went for a cigarette,
people were swarming round him
and one woman said to me,
"What are you? Are you his minder?"
Yeah, look at me!
"No, I'm his wife."
He's really...
Do you know really good-looking,
like when you see someone,
you're like, "Oh, you're so...
"You smell good!"
I did a charity thing.
How you doing?
That's what I was thinking.
A big charity thing. There was
loads of people on the bill,
and it was in Manchester.
And Jennifer Aniston was there
and I met her
and she's ridiculously good-looking.
And you think, "This is not right."
Are there other people like you
in America?
Is this normal where you come from?
The people look like you?
The money that they have there.
I was out in Hollywood recently
and they'll change everything.
They'll take children, you know, and
squeeze them to make baby juice
for your face, like, no matter what.
There's so much money there,
they'll just do anything.
My friend who is an Irish actor,
he was out in America as well.
He was like, "Aisling, will you go
for a drink in the Chateau Marmont?
I didn't think you could just
walk in there.
You know the Chateau Marmont?
It's this really famous place
in Hollywood
where people go for cocktails.
All the celebs go there.
And I didn't think
you could just arrive.
I thought they'd card you
or something like that.
So I met him there and I was like,
"Oh, you can just walk in!"
All you need is enough money
for one drink, really,
and we sat down and he started
coughing at me and I was like,
"Would you like a Polo mint?"
"No, look behind you!"
And I turned round
and it was Denzel Washington
having a pint.
I was like, It's Denzel! Ohhhhh!"
That would freak me out.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So he went to the loo
and my face was already kind of
fairly much into my neck,
cos I was trying to lean back
as much as I could to see if I could
see anything interesting.
But then I saw another man pass by
and when Roland came back from
the loo, he's like,
"What's wrong with your face?"
I was like, "Lenny Kravitz just sat
down beside Denzel for a pint!"
I had the same thing.
I was ordering a drink at the bar
and I could hear a kerfuffle.
I could hear...
HE BARKS
It was like some rabid dog
or something and I turned round,
"Do you mind?" and it was
Little Richard going, Ow! Ow!"
My God! Nuts!
Anyway, 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.
You might say "I'm going
home for me tea", for example.
I feel like there was a lot of
pork discussion.
I feel like pork and ham
came up a lot.
There was, "I'm in here with
a ham and I'm not coming out."
That's quite a good one.
That's quite a good option.
Can we call this show
"I ham what I ham"?
I quite like...
APPLAUSE
I quite like, "You get quite a lot of
tension in your arse."
What was it you said?
Oh, stress in my...hole.
No, butt stress.
Arse therapy. Arse therapy, yeah.
I don't think there was
anything there, really.
I don't think we can help you there.
You might have to do
another programme.
Well, we did a couple of hours
with them four.
We couldn't think of with anything.
We'll have to get another four in.
Thank you all for coming.
Please will you thanks my guests,
Jo Enright...
Jim Moir...
Aisling Bea...
and Justin Moorhouse.
And I'm Alan Davies
and you have been watching
I'm Locked In With A Ham
And I'm Not Coming Out.
Subtitles by Ericsson