Alan Davies: As Yet Untitled (2014–…): Season 3, Episode 8 - Loose Men with Chris Martin - full transcript

All right?

Where we going?

Hello, I'm Stuart Maconie,
I've come up to London town

and the fist disappointment is,
well,

these aren't bloody gold,
are they?

My feet are really sweaty.

Hey, guys, I'm here.

Hopefully Alan doesn't find out
I'm a Tottenham fan

cos I know he's an Arsenal fan,

so he'll probably just give me
grief all night.

Ooh-ooh.



This is my dad's tuxedo.

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

This is the show with no real agenda
or topics or questions

or any sort of preparation
or...a name even.

We will try and come up with a name

during the course
of our conversation

but for that I need four very
talented and amusing people.

So, please will you welcome
our guests?

Welcome, welcome, all of you.

Hi. Hi. Nice to see you.

Hello. How are you?

I hope you're enjoying our intimate
furniture.

Nice. We have Pippa Evans here.

Pippa Evans
who is a brilliant baby-sitter.



Pippa Evans is here.

Phill Jupitus. Welcome, Phill.

Phill Jupitus who is great
at faking it.

Phill Jupitus is here.

Carl Donnelley,
welcome to Carl Donnelley.

Carl Donnelley who has puffy nipples
and gleeks.

And Stuart Maconie, Stuart Maconie.

Welcome to Stuart who has taken
journalism to a new level.

And it's lovely to have you here.

Stuart, I must say, before we start,

how much I enjoy your radio
programme with Mark Radcliffe.

With who...? Oh, yes, that guy.
You know the one.

Yeah, the other guy,
he's a nice guy.

It's a brilliant radio programme.
Thank you.

Have you abandoned him today?

No, he's fine, he's been doing this
man and boy,

he can look after himself.
He can.

I used to do radio
about 20 years ago

and we were live on Radio 1
and Mark used to follow us.

He did a brilliant show.

They used to have three playlists -
the A list, the B list

and the end list, right.

And the end list was...
Just, just the wrong foot. Yeah.

That was all Snoop Dogg records.
Yes.

No. It was the night list.

Oh. Ooh, when it get's dark
you play different records

that are inappropriate for people
in the day.

And, so, we didn't know
what to play,

we didn't know anything about music,
you know.

And we knew we'd got it right
one week when we started

to get a call from Mark's producer
saying, "What are you playing?"

Cos it was getting on their nerves
cos we were choosing some,

like, your Blur...

Yeah.
..or your Oasis.

Yeah. ..or your popular beat combos.
Yeah.

The first radio I ever did
when I was a writer for NME

and I got sent along to
Mark Goodier's evening session.

Wow.

And there was a guy
standing in for him

and it was just after Bob Dylan

had had his 30th anniversary
in-show-business concert

and the stand-in presenter
was there with me

and he said "So, so what's
in the news this week, Stuart?"

In an old school kind of way,
you know.

They said Smashie and Nicey is
the only satire that's ever worked.

Cos DJs now no longer go,

"Aye, I've gone to the farm at the
weekend with my young friend,"

cos they can't do that any more.

And I sat down and he said,
"So, what's the news?"

I said, "Bob Dylan's 30th
anniversary

"in-show-business concert,"

and the presenter said,
"Sounds great, sounds great that.

"What a pity himself, Bob,
didn't live to see it."

So...so, I sat...so, I thought,
"Radio's different.

"Maybe the world of radio's
different."

So, I sat there and I thought,
"Should I say something?"

I thought,
"I've got to say something."

And I said, "Bob Dylan's alive."

And the guy went,
"Oh, yeah, shit, sorry."

"Can we go...can we go again?"

And I thought, "I'm pretty sure
we're on the radio now."

And we were.

And I just thought,
"Oh, it's easier than I thought."

Just don't say anyone's dead
unless you're absolutely sure.

Pretty sure.
Unless you've seen the body. Yeah.

So, I did radio.

The thing I was always
worried about is

cos coming from stand-up
and then going into radio,

I was always terrified of swearing.
Yeah. Cos I use...

I'm from Essex,
I use the F-word like a comma.

It's just, it's just...
Like a fucking comma.

From one... Oh, we can.

Thank you. I've been green-lighted
by Davies now,

I can crack right
the fuck into it, so...

Don't go too hard, don't go mad.

All right, let's not go nuts.
You've got four more.

But there were... They quote it?
Make it count.

So, we had...we booked Kevin Smith,
the film director

who did Dogma and Clerks,
Silent Bob... Clerks.

Yeah. Brilliant film. He did that.

But he's a little bit with
the effin' and jeffin' as well.

So, we had to...we had to really
kind of go,

"Look, look, Kevin, I know...

"We've heard your podcasts

"and we've seen you live
and we know that you mustn't..."

"I mustn't curse?

"OK, dudes, I won't curse, OK."

And, so, but we were really nervous
that he was...

..cos he was getting relaxed
and having a laugh

and we thought it would fall out
and we were live.

And we just went through
this interview

and we had him in for an hour
and so... 6 Music?

This was at 6 Music
on the breakfast show.

It was a very tense hour and then...

and then we got to the end of it
and I go,

"I'd like to thank our guest,
Kevin Smith, for coming in today.

"Kevin, it's been really great
having you here, mate.

"Thank you so much."

And he went "No, dude, this has been
a really, really good show.

"You know, thank you
for having me on."

I went, "Mate, it's been
a fucking pleasure."

ALL LAUGH

Ughh. Ohh.

But the thing is about 6 Music is

I think there were about
eight people listening,

all of whom were just laughing.

It was before digital radio...

You were right at the beginning
of it, weren't you? Yeah.

No-one even really
had the DAB radios then.

Yeah, I'd play records sometimes
and then, like,

the computer would go ding and we'd
have like a text come from someone

and they'd go,
"This record's a bit strong, lads."

And then we'd put our headphones on

and I'd be playing some
old-school reggae record

that would be going,
"And then I fuck up on the floor."

And I'm like...

Do you swear a lot, Pippa?

When I've seen you do your wonderful
shows in Edinburgh

and there's not too blue
in there, is there? No, no.

I'm not a big swearer.

You're not shy with innuendo,
though, are you?

Oh, no, I don't mind
a cocking innuendo.

But my mum used to say,

"You can say that in the playground
but not in my house."

So we didn't swear...at all.

"Show us your knickers."

So, we didn't swear,
we didn't swear a lot.

But I do...and I've never been
a radio DJ

but I did used to make a lot of
tapes for my dad in the car,

which is pretty much the same thing.

And in our Polo, in our Polo,
VW Polo, a little car we have,

it's only got a cassette player.

So, I now have all the tapes

that I made for my dad
and I suffered a lot from the...

I've put a lot of songs on here
and then there's a lot of space,

which I then fill with me going,
"Hi, Dad...

"um...

"er, that Beatles song wasn't
as long as I thought it would be

"so, er, I suppose the, um...

"Well, just entertain yourself!"

Oh, I bet he loved them, though.
Oh, it was lovely.

Partly thinking, "Oh, God, I better
listen to this that she's made."

Yeah. Then also treasuring it.

Absolutely. And also
cos you listen...

I've got tapes that boyfriends made
me when I was, when I was like 15.

And I had this boyfriend
who was a singer song-writer

and I was like, "He's going to make
it, he's going to make it."

Surprisingly, he didn't.

But on one of the tapes he made me,

he put himself
singing love songs to me

and it's both romantic
and tragic at the same time.

Did he make you listen to them
while he was in attendance

or did he a least give you
the chance to do it alone?

I was the manager of his band.

Hello!

Hey, Yoko.

And, no, it was really funny
cos I went to do the Grey...

the Grey Horse in Kingston,
which is a pub that do comedy,

but they also do live music.

And the first time I went there,
I must've been like 28 or something

and I looked at the manager
and I was like,

"I really know you from somewhere."

And I realised that his was the only
gig that they ever got paid at.

And he'd come up to me
and went, "Who's the manager?"

And I went, "I'm the manager."

And he went, "Don't be stupid,
who's the real manager?"

I went, "I'm the manager!"

And he paid me £25 for the band.

It's not a funny story
but a true one.

It's not very much money, is it?

Well, in those days, in the
late '90s, it was a lot of money.

How much did you get
for your fist gig?

£5. You?

First paid gig?
First paid gig, yeah.

Er, £9. Wow. Stuart.

My first punk, my teenage punk band
in Wigan,

we got £9 between three of us.

So, it was three quid each.
And the manager...

We'd played a set of cover versions

of Lou Reed
and The Velvet Underground

We'd done our set of punk rock,
anarchic punk rock -

overthrow the government
incendiary anthems -

and the guy gave us three quid each
and said, "You need a manager,

"I'll manage you. I could make you
boys bigger than the Dooleys."

Who you won't remember, the Dooleys.
I remember the Dooleys.

They were not incendiary, were they?

They were like a less hardcore
version of The Nolans.

Yeah. And we were like, "Well..."
Cos when you watch The Nolans,

"You think they need to take the
edge off."

Exactly. The Dooleys were
like The Nolans

for people who couldn't handle the
raw, sexual energy of The Nolans.

How much did you get paid
for your first gig?

£12,000.

I was...
ALL TALK AT ONCE

Not your import-export business?

I was very confident
at that first gig.

Ultimately, they didn't
get money...their money's worth.

No, I think it would have been
£5 or £10, probably...

Yeah. ..at a push.

Now, Carl, tell me about
your puffy nipples. Yeah.

What is the puffy-nipple situation?

I'm glad you've brought that up

because it's actually
a medical condition I've got

which...it affects about 10%
of teenage boys,

but I'm 33,
so I don't know what happened.

It's called,
I got it when I was a teen,

it's called puberty-induced
gynaecomastia.

It's basically a hormone imbalance,

which means I had a bit too much
oestrogen when I was a teen,

which probably explains

why I'm now so emotionally...you
know...

PIPPA: Yeah.

..bad.

I almost hit the table.

I was trying to think of a word,

I was trying to give myself
a little compliment there,

but I realised, actually,
I'm a mess.

No, so I've got too much
oestrogen in my body

and it just means I've got really
fat nipples, like...

But they change shape, like,
for bordering on like, you know...

Seasonally?

Well, I mean,
my mood does affect it.

I was going to say, depending on
mood?

No, it's not mood,
it's actually temperature.

When it's cold,
they look like normal nipples.

Right now, this, under these lights,
you can see they're sort of...

They're on their way. You can see
they're sort of very... Right.

They look like
half a ping pong ball.

Ahh.

Yeah. And it just means,
it means from the age of about 13

when I got diagnosed,
I have had a cons...

I just hate being topless anywhere,
like, apart from in bed,

I don't mind that... Yeah.
In, like, public I hate it.

As pronounced as half
a ping pong ball?

Well, they can be
if it gets very hot.

But I...but I just...

Can I have a hairdryer? Yeah.

You were a very brave 13-year-old
lad to go to the doctor.

I mean, men hate going to the...
This is the thing, but I went...

Men loathe going to the doctor
at any age and for anything.

You were a very sorted
13-year-old lad.

I had to because
I was starting to get teased

in, like, the showers and stuff.

So, I thought I'd go and check it
out and the doctor was like,

"This will probably go away
when you hit the end of puberty."

And, as yet, apparently
I haven't finished puberty.

But I...
Actually, talking of doctors,

the worse one that ever happened,

cos I hate being topless so much
in public,

I once - and this is horrible -

I went on a lads holiday to Tenerife
when I was 18.

And on the last day,

I'd been there for two weeks,
hadn't been to a beach

cos I'd just been drunk
the whole time,

I thought, "I need a bit of colour."

I went to a water park
and spent four hours

with no sun cream on
in 40-degree heat.

The whole top half of my body
got like third degree burns.

And I was flying back the next day
and I put a T-shirt on to fly

and I was still hungover,
didn't really know how bad it was.

When I got back to London,
I took my top off

and literally peeled my...
OTHERS: Ahhhh!

..I peeled my torso off. No!

No, that's not the worst bit. No!

PIPPA: Do we want to hear
the end of it?

Sorry, that's the worst bit...
Waitress!

..that's the worst bit
for other people.

The worst bit for me was -
so now I've realised I'm topless

and I've got, basically,
I've peeled all the blisters off.

I had to go to my doctors
in Tooting Broadway.

I had to go to the doctors topless,
right?

And, honestly,
I've never been more embarrassed.

I was sitting
in the doctor's surgery

while there was just loads
of old people with sniffles

and I'm just topless sitting there.

They're like,
"What's wrong with you?"

"It's my leg, it's my leg."

Just, like, pus and blood
all over me.

PIPPA: Ahhh.

40-degree heat, they must have been
quite pronounced.

Oh, they were, they were...yeah.

It was the most embarrassing...it
was so embarrassing. Oh, man.

Did you have to put
camomile lotion on?

I got given steroid cream
and this was...

The doctor said to me,
"You're going to get sunstroke.

"This is one of the worst cases
of sunburn I've seen for a while."

And he said, "So, what I'd recommend
is holing up in a dark room,

"put the steroid cream on,
take some pain killers

"and just ride it out
for a few days."

And I had, like, four days that was
like the start of Apocalypse Now.

Wow. I was just... Was there...

With a fan, a fan going round
overhead. Yeah, yeah.

Just in a dark room just throwing
punches at, like, nothing.

And he said, "Yes, sometimes

"I tell people, like,

"for example, this morning

"I told you that I had muesli

"for breakfast, but I didn't."

My mate Garret who is Irish,

and he loves telling lies
more than anything.

I once told him, when I was 17,
I was reading...

Do you know
Interview With The Vampire,

the book? Yeah.

It's quite a famous vampire book
by Anne Rice

and I was reading it
and my bedside lamp broke.

So, I lit a candle and I read it,
like, with the candle for light.

And I told my friend, Garret,
the next day.

He then went off to university
when we were 18

and told all his friends,
just for a laugh, a lie

knowing that maybe
five years down the line,

if I ever meet any of them,
they will ask about it.

So, about five years later,
I meet a friend of his from uni

and they went "Oh, you're Carl,
it's great to meet you."

I was like, "Yeah." And he went,

"You're the one who reads
vampire books by candle light."

I was like, it was a one-off
and it was for necessity, not...

It wasn't like a hobby of mine.

It was horrible. Not strictly a lie
on Garret's part, though, was it?

No, it wasn't but he made it
sound like that was like a thing,

every night I go into my room
and light my candle.

"Goodnight, everyone."

I met someone who likes to tell
really little lies

for his own pleasure.

He said that...

He was a Norwegian improviser I met
and he said,

"Yeah, sometimes I tell people...
Like for example,

"this morning I told you that I had
muesli for breakfast...

"but I didn't."

What a great, what a great...
"It just cheers my day up."

I usually like telling lies
to see if they get back to...

Me and Lemar had a thing,

we used to tell lies
about each other in interviews

to see if it would get back to us.

And I remember with some joy
the day that Lemar phoned me up,

he went, "It's happened.

"I was in a regional radio interview
and the geezer went,

"Mark, I understand
you're a keen beekeeper?"

LAUGHTER

I did invent, I think, an urban myth

that maybe people in the audience
might know.

Cos when I was writing for the NME,

we used to have a bit in the NME
that we called Believe It Or Not,

which was a spoof of those...

..you know the things you get like,

"Oh, do you know that one blow of
a swan's wing can break your arm?"

and things like that.
So I used to do spoofs

where I made stuff up about
pop musicians.

That's not true, by the way.
No, I know.

Neither is, "And you can see...
You can't see the Great Wall..."

No, you can see
the Great Wall of China

from the moon, but you can see loads
of other things as well.

You can see like branches of Tesco
from the moon, as well,

if they're big enough.

But I said in that,

that Bob Holness played
the saxophone solo on Baker Street.

Oh, yeah!

Did you make that up?
Yeah, I made that up.

And I will go to people...

I've been in pubs
and people have gone,

"'Ere, you're keen on pop music,
aren't you?"

And I said, "Yeah, yeah."

"Guess who played
the saxophone solo...

"..on Baker Street?"

And I go "You're going to tell me
it's Bob Holness, aren't you?"

And he'll go, "I am, cos it's true."

And I say, "No. It was a guy called
Raphael Ravenscroft."

But that's great cos I made it up.

And they played Baker Street
at Bob Holness' funeral.

Wow!

Which I don't know, I don't know
whether to feel like,

that's brilliant
or that's really horrible.

I just think,
"Just make up more stuff, Stuart."

That's what I think.
In the same thing I made up...

None of the others
have ever got as much purchase.

I said that David Bowie
invented Connect 4.

LAUGHTER
And I've had people say that.

"Do you know who invented Connect
4?" I've had people say that.

But, no, the others
didn't take really...

Neil Tennant, of the Pet Shop Boys,

is a fully-qualified
rugby league referee.

That's not really...

No-one's repeated that.
No-one's going to get that.

That's a bridge too far. That is.
Yeah.

There's a little tiny,
there's a little notch in it.

Yeah. It's just slightly out.

I once told a girl at a party
that my dad was a bass player

in The Clash.

Which is only funny,
if you know my dad,

who's the least likely bass player
in a punk rock band imaginable.

And then I told her that he left,

that he fell out with them before
they actually got their first deal,

but he was in all the early gigs.

One of my best friends, Pete,
he's the best liar in the world.

He does this thing where
if there's two of you -

imagine you start chatting
to some people in a bar,

maybe if you were chatting up
some women or something -

he'll introduce himself as Pete,

but then he'll give you,
he'll say your name

but he'll just make up a name

and then so that
you've just got to commit to it.

He did it with my friend, Rich.

I was there, but I wasn't
part of the conversation.

I overheard it
and it was the best name, he went,

"Hi, guys,
I'm Pete and this is Doyle."

It was just my favourite name
I've ever heard.

He also... Actually, his nickname
is Pete Portugal.

This is the guy... Cos he once
was chatting up a girl

and he's half Portuguese
and his surname's Rusterio.

But he said to her
"I'm half Portuguese."

And she went "Oh, have you got
a Portuguese surname?"

And he went "Yeah, it's Portugal."

And she said, "What do you mean?"

He goes "Yeah, it's actually the
most common surname in Portugal."

And he just convinced her of it
and she believed it

and from now on...from then on,

that was maybe seven years ago,
his nickname's Pete Portugal.

Yeah, he's the king of liars.

I asked my dad,
when I was very little, I said,

"Who... Is it true
that in the old days

"poor people would cover themselves
with goose fat

"to keep themselves warm?"
And he said, "Yes.

"And then they'd cover themselves
with feathers

"and sow themselves into sacks
for the winter."

This is true. And I said, "OK."

And I was at university.

Cut forward, you know, 15 years

and my friend Dan said
something about,

about, you know, poor people
and I went,

"Well, they used to cover themselves
with goose fat

"and then cover themselves
with feathers

"and sow themselves into sacks."
And he went, "What?"

I went, "It's true,
it's a true thing, actually."

And he went, "Er, OK."

So, I rang my dad and went,

"Dad, do you remember you told me,
erm,

"that poor people used to cover
themselves with goose fat

"and feathers and then
sow themselves into sacks?"

He went, "Yes."

I said, "Is that true?"
He went... "No."

That was that. They're the best.

This is true that
you're a brilliant baby-sitter?

Or is it going to be
that somebody died?

No, I'm a...

That would be quite downbeat.

It's a very dark story.
I'm guessing it isn't, though.

So... Well, I was in Nashville
cos I love country music so much.

I was in Nashville
and we've got friends in Nashville,

which is great, cos it means you get
free accommodation.

But of course, with free
accommodation means,

if they have children,
you have to spend a lot of time

with their children,
sort of as payment for your rent.

And they've got, my friend David,
he has twin daughters,

who are just adorable, these
adorable little American princesses,

called Francis and Mary
and they're just lovely,

but they have quite a lot of energy.

What age where they?

They were five years old.
So, twin five-year-olds.

And they wanted to play with
the English girl all the time.

"Let's play with the English girl."

So, we concocted the game
No Smiling, No Laughing,

which, erm... That's a great game!

Have you ever played... Yeah.

..ever played
No Smiling, No Laughing?

My dad used to play it with me.

After he'd sown you into a sack!

Yeah, after he'd sown me
into a sack!

And what it involves is going,
"I'm going to tickle you

"but you're not allowed to smile
and you're not allowed to laugh."

And there is something really funny
about going,

"No smiling, no laughing,
no smiling." Yeah.

And so they're going,
"Arghh! Arghh! No! Ohh!"

And we played it...
No smiling, no laughing.

"Can we play
No Smiling, No Laughing."

It got quite exhausting,
but we had a great time.

And then about on day three of
No Smiling, No Laughing,

a neighbour popped round
and Dave was like,

"Oh, you must meet
our neighbour, Irene."

And Irene came in
and Mary ran up to Irene and said,

"Irene, Irene, do you want to come
play No Smiling, No laughing?"

And Irene said, "What's that?"

"It's where Pippa takes us
into the private tickle room...

"..and she touches us, but
we're not allowed to make a sound."

"Oh, I'm the wacky English girl."

That night, at the Holiday Inn.
Yeah!

The director said, "This is the bit
where you do what you want."

Never tell a stand-up,
"Do what you want in that bit."

I had sock puppets. It was...

Do you know millions of songs?

Do you think you know all songs?
I know a million songs.

I do know pretty much every song

and if I don't know it,
I'll make it up.

I just love singing constantly.

Your mum and dad
were always singing

and there's a lot of music in
your house? This is the thing,

when I was little my mum brought me
up on old time musicals.

So, when...

I remember being at school and
everyone was singing songs

from, like, The Little Mermaid
and I was singing

# She was a dear little dickie bird

# Tweet, tweet, tweet, she went. #

Everyone else was going, "What?!"

So, all the songs that I know,
are sort of pre-1950, you know.

And I just love,
I just think they're great songs.

Someone once said to me...
I love musicals.

Someone said to me that they
really...

When people say they hate musicals,
they often say it's because

people in real life don't burst into
song like that. Yeah.

And I go, "Well, you
obviously haven't spent..."

# A lot of time with meeee. #

People say they hate musicals

and then they go to one
and they love it. I know

and they love them. I was like that.
Musicals are great.

What was your crossover musical?
Jersey Boys.

Oh, great musical. Yeah?

Jersey Boys will blow
your socks off, it's brilliant.

And I only went to it cos
Stuart Milligan,

who plays Adam Klaus the magician
in the television series

Jonathan Creek, was in it.

Right. So, I wanted to see him cos
I love Stuart, he's great company.

Meet up afterwards,
be a nice evening.

Wasn't expecting it to be
fantastic... Yeah. So great, yeah.

..but it is fantastic.

The movie, the Clint Eastwood
movie's a bit flat and slow,

but the musical... My friend was...
..loved it.

..one of the keyboard deps
on Jersey Boys.

And it was great cos
he's a very talented keyboard player

but not a very talented dancer

and they make the keyboard players
dance at this one bit.

They sort of bring up back reels.

And so he had to...

All he had to do was side-step
twice, whilst playing the keys

but he said "If you side-stepped
a little bit too big,

"you'd end up with the keyboard
over here."

So, on a few occasions, he ended up
not being able to reach the notes

because he'd got so enthusiastic
about doing the side-step

and he was like
"I'd managed to do it in time,"

but his hands were no longer
on the keyboard.

It's tough. Poor little chicken.

It's a tough...
It's tough to dance and play.

People don't realise
it's a tough thing to do. It is.

Did you come and see me in...
Uh, oh! ..Hairspray, Alan?

Awkward!

Did anyone, Phill? Did anyone?

Mum did.

I have a question about Hairspray
cos I saw it with Michael Ball

and Ian Talbot and they did a giggle
where they had the duet... Yeah.

..and they had a giggle. Yeah.

Did you have a giggle with...
Right, so,

that is a faked corpsing moment.
Arghh.

Right, but I refused to do a fake
one... Oh, well done.

..and I would make Tony Timberlake,
who was my Wilbur,

laugh a different way every night...

Oh, like a real marriage.
..so, he was terrified.

Really?

I licked him,

I pulled the hair out of his arm
one night,

I had crossed eyes for the whole
song one night, looking at him.

And I got so bollocked
by the producers for doing that.

In fact, I got sacked
from the UK tour

cos I mucked about too much.

But in mitigation,
the director said,

"This is the bit
where you do what you want."

Never tell a stand-up,
"Do what you want in that bit."

I had sock puppets, it was...

..juggling.

I had mates who worked
at the Royal Shakespeare Company

in the kind of, you know -
it's a terrible -

but the second spear carrier
kind of roles

and they said they had
all kinds of games

that they would do, like,
The Egg Game.

So, in King Lear
or Romeo And Juliet,

while there's all this stuff
going on at the front,

there's all this, you know,
whatever it is,

"To be or not to be," going on.

But in the background,

they'd do a thing where one of you
came on with a egg and you lose,

if you leave the stage with the egg.

Right. So, while...
You've got to pass the egg on.

So, while Benedict Cumberbatch
is going,

"Tomorrow, and tomorrow and
tomorrow," you're going...

They're always doing rubbish
in the background, aren't they?

They're always doing a bit of,
"Oh, my noble..."

You give them the egg and then...

and then you piss off.

You piss off and you
can't leave the stage with the egg.

So, you have to find some
bit of business you can do

with the thane of Gloucester,
you know,

and go "Ah, my liege, my noble Lord,

"there's the fucking egg,"
and off you go...

And you can.

Yeah, a bit of larking about.

What's your faking it tale?

Well, it was when I did...

The first musical I did
was Hairspray.

So, I got cast as Edna in Hairspray.

I'd never been in a musical,

I'd done a bit of karaoke,
I'd sung with a couple of bands.

I remember this happening. Yeah.

I remember someone saying,

"Do you know Phill Jupitus
is dressed as a woman every night?"

In Soho, for money,
and it's the dream.

People were saying... It's
the dream. ..."What's he doing?"

Yeah, and so I was shooting
ping pong balls at sailors.

And you were in Hairspray.
Absolutely.

Yeah, yeah.
Downtime is very important to me.

And I got cast in it,
but I was having to dance

and we had this amazing,
really, really good choreographer,

who was the choreographer
of Jersey Boys, as well.

A lovely man called Danny Austin.

This very, very flamboyant
Canadian dude,

who's like a...and,
you know, he's 21st

and me lumping about
trying to do these dances.

And there's a very simple step,
you know chain step? Hm-hm.

I couldn't do chain step,

which is really simple
rhythmic little step you do

to cross the stage, der-der-der,
der-der-der, der-der-der, der-der...

Couldn't do it, couldn't do it.

And it had been ten days of me
trying this thing

and I can't get it.

And I took him to one
side and I went,

"Dan, mate, I can't,
I can't do this.

"I can't seem
to master this dancing."

And, and he went "Ah, Phill, honey,
fake it till you make it."

Which I really liked.

And his other thing
that he used to say to me was,

he went
"Do it wrong, but do it strong."

And the thing is...
What I've got to say is what...

I didn't get a chance to hang around
with a lot of gay men

and since being in theatre,
I've... I love a gay disco.

Oh, my God. Who doesn't?
Of course, you do.

Hanging out with the gays,
it's great fun.

They basically,
they get me off the telly

and they use me
like a big meat laminate

to get into any room they want
in a gay disco.

So, all the lads in the cast,
"Oh, we've got Phill with us,"

and they're like that.

"We're with him, we're with him."

Pushing me forward
behind the roped off area

and it's like...it's fucking
terrific fun.

They just, honestly, it's like...

You've done loads of musicals now,
haven't you?

All the attention I get,
it's brilliant.

I've done five now, it's brilliant.
You did Spamalot

and you did The Producers...

I'm thinking of going gay next year
for tax reasons. Are you?

You think you'd write off lube
against your tax, it's great.

What? You can.

Maybe I've got... I'd like to be

the first female Fagin,
that's my aim in life...

Right. ..to be
the first female Fagin. Wow.

Cos you just have to do this,
"Errrr."

That's what Fagin is, isn't it?

What's that?

That's playing with my beard,
"Errrr."

And I think
there's so many great male roles

and you know feminism's
really strong at the moment,

so I think the next thing
we need to do is make it,

like, every time a man is cast
in a male role,

we'll say it's sexist so that
I can play all the great roles.

Yeah. That's my new plan.
Technically, it is sexist. Right.

Then again... It is sexist.
..wouldn't you rather be Nancy?

No, who wants to be Nancy?

It's boring and she gets
beaten to death at the end.

I want to be the one
that beats her to death.

Oh, yeah.

That would be, I would love to...
Bull's-eye, Bull's-eye. Bull's-eye.

I'd love to see a lesbian Oliver,
that would be brilliant,

you could be Jill Sykes.
Why does it...?

Why does it have to be a lesbian?

Yeah, because...
Why can't it just be...

..you need to get the punters in,
sweetheart.

I'm not talking about real lesbians,
the big angry ones,

I mean sports casual,
like you see on the internet.

We went to see...

cos I was in The Producers
until last week

with Manford playing Leo Bloom
and Louie Spence was in it as well.

And Manford, as a kind of
starting the tour present,

got us tickets to go and see
Mel Brooks at the Queen's Theatre.

Mel Brooks did a gig in London...
Did he?

..a couple of months ago, yeah.

And so we went to see Mel Brooks

and then the producers
of the show said,

"I'd be great if you got
your photo taken with Mel

"cos then we could use it for press
and that."

And so they organised this really
lame, sort of, not real photocall

with Mel Brooks and I thought,

"I'm finally going to meet
Mel Brooks."

And I've got the 1957 album
2,000 Year Old Man.

I thought, "I could get it signed
by Mel Brooks." Cool.

And so we went, we got taken down
to this room in the theatre

and there's like 150 people in there

all of them wanting to meet
Mel Brooks.

And I'm thinking,
"This is not going to happen now."

But eventually,
Mel's assistant went,

"OK, people from The Producers,

"come and have your photo taken
with Mel."

And we went over and we had
some photos taken with him

and they're quite awkward.

This little, tiny little 88-year-old
Jewish New York fellow,

"Oh, hey, everybody.
Who are you? Who are you playing?"

All this, that and that
and I went to him and I went,

"Mr Brooks, you couldn't...could
you possibly sign this for me?"

And I handed him this album
and he went, "What's ya name?"

And I went, "It's Phill," and he put
"To Phill, Mel Brooks."

And I went, "Thank you so much."

"Best wishes," he even put
best wishes.

And he handed it back to me
and he went "Two quid."

I must've looked insane cos I...

I just, sort of, went like that

and just went...
HE HISSES

Carl Donnelly,
I understand that you gleek?

Everyone gleeks. Oh, do they?

Cos I don't know what gleeking is.
Oh, right. OK.

Well, it's only something
I learned about recently

when I did something on a train
that made me do some research.

Erm... Well, it started...

Basically, I... Does it come out
of your nipples?

No. No?

No, that's a very different thing.

I accidentally spat on a woman's
copy of 50 Shades Of Grey on a train

and it was because of gleeking.

Right, so I was sitting next to her

and it is basically,
do you know that thing...

Have you ever done it
when you do a yawn

and mid-yawn, loads of spit comes
out of your mouth like...

HE HISSES
Like a spray... Yeah.

..a fine spray.
That's what gleeking is.

Have you never done it?
Yeah, I've done it.

Most people have done it. No,
I don't think I've ever done that.

Oh, right. I think you're in the
minority. A fine spray comes out?

So, what happens is, it's a muscle
spasm... I'm a dry yawner.

I think most people are dry yawners
95% of the time,

but like one in every, I'm going
to guess, 30 yawns is a...

Yeah. ..is a gleek for most people.
Really?

There's this muscle spasm
where your...

There's a little
sort of spit...sack.

You yawn and... It's basically
it's a muscle spasm

that the large majority of people
have done.

Now, you've told me this...
Yeah, it's a real thing.

..the next time I do it I'm going
to go, "I gleeked!"

The best thing is, apparently,
and I've not done it yet,

you can train yourself to do it.

It's like this muscle,
you can train your muscle to do it,

but I didn't have... Yeah.

..I didn't do this
through any training.

I was just sitting next to a woman
and I...she was reading 50 Shades.

And I wanted to...you know, I only
know the phenomenon of it,

I don't know anything about it
other than that.

So, I just had a little look
over her shoulder

to have a little read of a passage

and I must've looked insane cos...
PIPPA LAUGHS

I just sort of went like that
and just went...

HE HISSES

And er...

Oh, it was just,
it was really horrible.

What kind of career benefits are you
seeing towards training yourself

to do it? That's what I'm interested
in. You can train yourself to do it.

Where do you see yourself
in five years' time, Carl,

with this gleeking? I imagine just
maybe Britain's Got Talent.

The Royal Variety. Yeah.

No, I don't think there's any life
benefits from it just...

Did she speak to you?
Did you have to then...

Do you know, this is scariest thing,
she didn't even look.

She sort of... You could tell she
saw it cos there was loads of it.

But she just, she just sort of went
like that and carried on reading,

as if trying to ignore it.

Maybe she was a gleeker and she had
sympathy for your gleeking.

No, because you must have
a secret gleeking wink or handshake

in that situation.

I also think that she...if she was
a gleeker,

she would've turned and said,
"I know your pain."

"Don't worry." I think...
Showed you the card of membership.

I think she thought
I was a sexual deviant.

Which I am but not in that sense.

Do you gleek when you're yawning
when you're extremely tired?

You're nearly asleep,

so you've slightly lost control
of your mouth fluids?

I don't think there's any rhyme
nor reason to it. I think it's a...

Every now and again
your body just thinks,

"I'm going to make you think
you're possessed by a demon."

Oh, no.

So Stuart Maconie, you've taken
journalism to a new level.

In the sense of the people
I've been stuck in lifts with.

Oh, I see, that sort of a level.

Oh, no. No. Oh, no. I've been stuck
in lifts with people...

Oh, I...

I've asked I think
the stupidest question ever asked

by a journalist to a celebrity.
That is saying something.

Not just a celebrity, THE celeb,
Paul McCartney,

who you could argue has invented...

He was a celebrity
before celebrities existed.

Well, exactly. And however many
times you meet Paul McCartney...

I think I've met him three times,

which makes me sound like I'm
hanging out with him BBQs and stuff,

but I'm not. But you were taken
to see the Beatles,

I know this about you... Yeah.
..by your mum

when you were three years old. Two.
Two years old, yeah.

What was the venue, do you know?
Wigan ABC Cinema.

Really? And my mum, when I ask her,

I've asked her, I interviewed
her about this and said,

"What did they play?" And she said,

"Like, you know,
those Beatles songs."

And I said, you know,
"What time was the gig?"

"I can't remember."

And "What were they wearing?"

"I think they were wearing suits."

It must have been deafening
screaming, wasn't that the thing?

I don't know,
I think I vaguely remember it

but then again, I don't know.
I think I vaguely remember it, yeah.

It'll be somewhere in your
subconscious. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, what did you ask Paul McCartney?

So, my second occasion
I met Paul McCartney,

he'd forgotten the first occasion,
rather like my mother.

So, on the second occasion
I met him,

it was going really well and
I thought, "I'm going to ask...

"I've got this brilliant question
up my sleeve," I thought.

Meaning, you could have been
a massive pop star

without all the hassle
that goes with being a Beatle

and I said, "Paul,
have you ever wished for a moment

"that you were in
Gerry and the Pacemakers instead?"

And as soon as the words
had left my lips, I thought,

"What the fuck
have I said that for?"

And he said,
"What did you say, Stuart?"

And I said, "No, no, no, it's fine.

"So, tell me more
about the new album.

"Where did you record it?"

And he went "No, no, no, no, no.
What did you say?"

And I said, "I asked whether you
would rather have been

"in Gerry And The Pacemakers?"

Meaning, no-one shoots you,
you know, all that kind of stuff.

Yeah, slightly lower level
of madness. Slightly lower level.

And he said, "Do you know..."

He said, "Just a thing,
I'm just checking,

"I was in The Beatles, you know."

And I was like, "Yeah,
I'm kind of fully aware of that."

And just thinking, "No!
such a terrible..."

I mean, I thought,

"It's great, it's clever, it's smart
it's..."

It's not, it's an idiotic thing
to ask, really.

Genuinely idiotic
to ask Paul McCartney of The Beatles

whether he'd rather have been
in Gerry and the Pacemakers.

It's all in the phrasing.

I met him...

He was at the BBC
doing Later With Jools Holland.

Sir Paul? Yeah.

And it was a massively closed set,

they weren't letting anyone in

and there were
lots of layers of bouncers.

Cos he's very violent, isn't he?
Very violent.

You can tell.

And I said,
"Could I go and see him?"

And they were like
"No, it's a closed set."

And then I was walking down
a corridor

and a techie who I knew went,

"Come on,
do you want to come see McCartney?"

IN HIGH-PITCHED VOICE: I went "Yes,
I do, please."

And they took me through and they
took me round all these doors

and he took me into the studio
and his band was -

Dave Gilmour, from Pink Floyd,
was his lead guitarist,

Mick Green,
from Johnny Kidd and the Pirates,

was his rhythm guitarist,

Ian Paice, from Deep Purple,
on drums,

he was playing bass and he...

And they all had individual nurses
with them?

It was like the '60s
had had a ring round and said,

"Shall we form a band?"

They were all there playing,
it was the most brilliant thing.

And I'm 20ft from McCartney
and he's singing and playing.

He's got the violin bass
and he's still doing...that.

He's still doing... "Wooo."
He's still got it.

He's still doing that,
his signature move,

and you're just so excited.

And I went to me mate
who'd got me in,

"Could you get me his autograph?"

And they went, "We're not allowed
to do that.

"I mean, you could ask him
for an autograph at the end,

"if you want."

And so I sort of hung around
in the studio and then everyone,

kind of...fucked off.

Technical term. And I had
a bit of paper and a pen

and I wandered up to Paul McCartney

and I got about 6ft from him.

He's there,
he's got a little moleskin notebook

and he's writing in it and he looks
up at me and he goes,

"Hey, I know you,
you're off the telly."

And I'm like, "Whaaaa!"

At which I say, "And I know you,
you were in the fucking Beatles."

CARL: But that being said,

that's all well and good,
but would you of rather watched

Gerry and the Pacemakers?

I love Ferry Across The Mersey,
it's so moving.

PIPPA: Great song, great song.

Do you have something about lifts
that you want to share with us?

No, only that I thought for a moment
you were...

I've been stuck in lifts with...

..I've been stuck in a lift with
Little Richard...

on a separate occasion with Iggy Pop

and on a third,
and my favourite occasion,

with former British tennis ace
Greg Rusedski and Nelly Furtado

at the same time.

And it really was that,
with me and Greg and Nelly,

it really was
"Well, what shall we talk about?"

You know, and it was...it was
ridiculous.

Between floors each time?

Iggy Pop in Paris,

Little Richard in Los Angeles

and Greg and Nelly at
The Lowry Hotel in Manchester.

Yeah, and it was just after
Nelly's hit single,

do you remember Nelly's
big hit single I'm Like A Bird?

# I'm... # Cos I wanted to say
to her...

cos, of course, the obvious thing is

# I'm like a bird,
I don't know where my home is. #

I wanted to say, "If there's one
thing a bird knows, Nelly,

"it's where it's home is."

They are quite legendary
in the natural world for it,

more than say the alpaca
or the tortoise.

That's the thing they're good at,
birds, isn't it?

So, I wanted to say that
but I thought, "No, don't."

Just say, "Oh, I hope the man comes
soon, do you?"

And each time,
does it eventually get prized open

by someone from the fire service?

Yeah. Well, not each... No.

Well, this is a level of detail I
wasn't expecting to have to recall.

I think it just started working
again after a while, yeah.

It obviously...
Former Home Secretary Jack Straw.

Yeah.

"I'm here. You may escape now."

Maybe... It's obviously me,
isn't it?

It's obviously me
that's making it happen.

It's you pressing the alarm button
"Let's stay here for a bit."

Oh, yeah.

Have you ever done...

Do you know that thing sometimes
when you've got your iPod,

or MP3 player on.

Have you ever got into a lift
and you don't realise

it's way too loud
and everyone can hear?

I got into the lift at,
I think it was Tufnell Park,

one of them London Tube stations
and Cher, I Found Someone, came on.

And I suddenly just became aware
that people were giggling

in the lift.

So, I took it off
and everyone was laughing

and I realised they could hear it,
put it back on, forgot about it.

I told my mate that story
about two days later.

The day after,
I got a call from him saying.

"Mate, have you read..." This
was like a few years ago,

when there was loads of free papers
that suddenly came out in London.

He said, "Have you read the
London Lite today?" I said, "No."

He said, "Check the 'I've
seen you on the Tube' type thing."

And there was like a sort of thing
where people would say,

"Oh, I fancied you."

Somebody said, "To the guy
who was at Tufnell Park in the lift,

"cheers for cheering us up
with your rubbish music taste."

It was horrible.

I once got on a carriage,
a Tube carriage and went,

"Why is this Tube carriage
entirely empty?"

And there was a man who was sat
and he had his penis hanging out...

..and he was drinking a can of cider
and he was peeing at the same time.

And my first reaction was, "Ugh!"

But my second reaction was,
"How's he managing that?

"Really quite incredible, really."

It's like some sort of
water feature, isn't it?

You do often see, being at football,
I've seen that many times

in a urinal at half-time.

Blokes drinking a pit of lager,
whilst pissing.

Thinking, "I could keep this up
forever, you know."

Just chuck it down the bog, it
tastes like crap anyway, just cut...

There's that Ben Elton routine, you
know, just cut out the middleman.

Anyway, listen, now we've entered
such a charming area,

maybe it's time to knock it
on the head and think of a title.

There's a lot of bodily functions
have been talked about.

I think that I still think maybe
my favourite is

No Smiling, No Laughing.

No Smiling, No Laughing.

It's a great title
for a comedy show. Yeah.

It's quite a threat, really.

If you see it in the TV Times,
would you tune in?

Alan Davies'
No Smiling, No Laughing.

Yeah. I Saw a Man
With His Penis Hanging Out.

But that thing is that,
that bloke bit in your head

and you think, you kind of...

the maths of a bad situation.

It's like, hanging, that's OK.

Yeah. It was hanging out,
it wasn't poking out.

Yeah!

Sticking out.
It wasn't sticking out, that's...

No, no, no. Elsewhere.

It hadn't fallen out.

It was out on purpose. It was out
cos, yeah, it was working.

He needed a wee. Yeah, needed a wee,
on which line?

It was the Northern Line.
Classic Northern Line.

Stuck in the Lift With
Nelly Furtado is a great title.

Stuck in the Lift
With Nelly Furtado.

Oh, dear.

OK, ladies and gentlemen,
please will you thank my guests,

Pippa Evans,

Phill Jupitus,

Carl Donnelly,

Stuart Maconie.

I'm Alan Davies and you have been
watching No Smiling, No Laughing.

Subtitles by Ericsson