Alan Davies: As Yet Untitled (2014–…): Season 4, Episode 4 - Hitler & Jingle - full transcript
Alan is joined by Dane Baptiste, Lolly Adefope and "Upstart Crow" stars David Mitchell and Liza Tarbuck. Dane and Lolly swap recipes as David opens up about his fear of crustaceans.
Are you wondering how healthy the food you are eating is? Check it - foodval.com
---
Alan Davies As Yet Untitled 04
CTO N224Y/82
BF000000
This is not actually me arriving.
This is just stock footage
of me arriving.
Can use for various things.
Wow. Feeling thrilled and honoured
to be the first and only
black person on As Yet Untitled.
HE HUFFS
Story of my life.
Good evening.
Is that enough?
Hello. I'm Alan Davies.
This is As Yet Untitled,
the show with no preparation,
planning, scheming or ideas.
I don't really know what'll happen,
we never have a clue,
but at the end,
we come up with a title.
To do that, I need some help,
so please welcome my guests.
AUDIENCE WHOOP
Here they are.
Hello. Welcome. Hello, hello.
Here are my guests. Welcome to them.
Lolly Adefope's here.
She's a picky eater
and has unique interview techniques.
David Mitchell. Welcome, David.
David Mitchell was traumatised
by a crustacean.
David Mitchell...
Liza Tarbuck. Welcome back,
Liza Tarbuck. A return.
Very happy to have you. Liza Tarbuck
had a hand in Basil's death.
And welcome to Dane Baptiste.
Dane Baptiste is an expert
in extracurricular activities.
Now, I'm a bit left-outy today
because you're all working
with one another on things.
You've been working on a thing
together. Yeah, we have.
A sitcom or something.
Yes, a sitcom about Shakespeare.
We play Shakespeare and his wife.
Do you?!
Mr and Mrs Shakespeare.
You're the Bard? I'm his wife and...
And I look really good in a beard.
And you two are doing
a comedy thing? Yes.
A topical, fast-paced,
quickfire, hilarious sketch show.
Yeah, other jargon.
There's a lot of adjectives.
Lolly used most of them.
Viral. Viral...
Meme...
Digital. Current.
Core. Content.
Lots of content.
And demographics. Targeting people.
Yeah. Youth.
It's open, feedback. Yeah.
Cyclical.
Cyclical sounds good. Yeah...
I like it already. Interesting
that "viral" is a buzzword
and "bacterial" isn't.
You know... Where did that start,
"viral", things going "viral"?
I... It must be off the back
of "bacteria", mustn't it?
Well, I think it spreads,
but apparently a virus spreading
is just great publicity.
Tell that to someone with AIDS.
Think you just did!
I always mention AIDS early on
and it's always a mistake.
I saw another film the other day
in which...
somebody contracted something
and then they go to an airport
and then they do a graphic of the
virus spreading around the world.
So it starts with someone
in a departure lounge sneezing
and then it goes to the graphic.
Yeah, and you see them
going through the gate -
"Welcome aboard" -
and you think "No!"
"He's just shaken hands!"
They do it in Grimsby.
Oh, haven't seen that yet.
Is it funny?
Can't really talk about it
because it'll ruin it for everyone.
It's got one of the most disgusting
things you'll ever see in your life
involving the biggest cock
that's ever been made
in a prosthetics... lounge!
They haven't used that as much in
the publicity as I'd expect them to.
"The most disgusting thing
you'll ever see
"and the biggest cock ever made" -
who's not going to give that a look?
I lent my mate my flat once
when I was travelling -
I left him a few presents
in the room,
he left me some for when I got back.
Sounds like you shat in the bed!
It was borderline that.
To get back to Grimsby,
he left me a massive, great, big,
realistic-looking penis
down the bottom of my bed.
He'd changed the bed and everything.
So when I touched it with my feet,
I'm like "Jesus! What's that?!" -
up and out of bed and over.
So this thing becomes a bit of a gag
and it's left places, blah-de-blah.
I finally got it
into my dad's golf bag
the day that he was leaving,
driving to Portugal
and just rammed it down the bottom,
knowing that, at some point,
he'd be like
"Oh, I can't get this..."
"Can't get this wood in!"
So, interestingly, they got stopped
and searched at the border
and they asked him "What do you
do?", "I'm an entertainer."
"Are you really? What's this?"
It ended up in Portugal and my mum
didn't know what to do with it.
"I'd throw it in a bin,
but someone'll see me."
Someone had a golf bag
made out of a penis.
Was it a Nazi?
No, I don't think so.
They did things with skin,
didn't they?
I don't picture the Nazis
playing a lot of golf.
No, I think it was...
I think it might've been...
I think I might have imagined it,
but I think it was the penis
of some sort of... Maybe a whale.
A whale sounds right. That'd be
about the right size for a golf bag.
How big's a whale's penis? Huge.
They're enormous.
Blue whales, you can swim
in their veins, so I imagine that,
because it serves the penis,
the bloodstream, then it's very big.
You could probably make a whole line
of golf bags out of one penis.
Yeah. The blue whale has got a heart
the size of a car.
They say... I know about it
because it's always on QI.
A small car.
What would that be?
I don't know. I'm thinking a Metro.
What would you say? You were born
in 2012 or something. A Smart car.
A Smart car!
What year were you born in?
Er, 1999.
Shut up.
Before the programme began,
Lolly said she was born in 1990.
People actually shat themselves.
Ten people walked out.
The bloke behind us went "Uhhh..."
Because it's too awful...
And David Mitchell said something
about Margaret Thatcher.
When did she finish? November?
I think it was just before Christmas
1990. Yeah, she left in tears.
Finally. We finally made her cry.
She was the hardest supply teacher
in history!
It took 11 years to make her cry!
It was the best bit,
the end, when she cried.
In many ways,
it makes it all worth it.
Such a big build-up.
And I did that.
You did that.
So you're welcome, guys.
Thanks, Lolly.
But you are a picky eater, correct?
Yes.
Well, picky, also just strange.
Erm, for ages, I didn't know
that you're not meant
to put milk in herbal tea...
AUDIENCE MURMURS
Guys, no-one told me.
Squeamish audience tonight. Very
serious about peppermint infusions.
"You've crossed the line now."
"Do not fuck them with lactose!"
A lost generation.
So young. So young and stupid!
I'd've thought tea equals
something you put milk in. Yeah.
I'd just make myself green tea and
peppermint tea and put milk in it
and I must've tasted it in
the beginning and thought "Weird",
but then just been like
"I'm sure it's an acquired taste,
"I'm just not mature enough
to handle it yet"
and then when I was at uni,
someone said "What are you doing?"
and I was like "What? No, I know,
"I was putting milk... Erm..."
"Because you don't put milk
in peppermint tea. Exactly. Cool."
"Cool."
And I also still really like
savoury and sweet things
that shouldn't go together
like, for example, vanilla ice cream
with green Pringles.
Wow. Yeah.
AUDIENCE MURMURS
That was more of an intrigued noise.
Yeah!
More of a "I'm going to try that!"
That's like a very, very low-rent
Heston Blumenthal.
That's Heston Blumenthal
from Iceland.
Do-it-yourself, you know...
They should make up
their own in-house chef,
give him a name like
Beston Humenthal or something...
"Why not dip a Kit Kat finger
in some chutney?"
Only the green Pringles though?
Only the green, yeah, and...
Is that the sour cream and chive?
Yeah.
Good knowledge.
He knows about Hitler and Pringles.
That's good...
That's a good title.
I can cook a massaman curry
because it's the only thing I like,
so I've learnt how to cook that,
but everything else...
How do you cook that? Step by step.
You get massaman-curry paste
from Tesco...
This is... This is a great recipe.
You buy a massaman curry
and then you eat it.
So you've got your paste...
You get your paste...
Maybe on a low heat, er...
Just the paste?
Er, cumin...
You get a spoon... Er, coriander...
Cumin seeds or ground cumin?
Exactly. And...
Erm, and some basil...
Fresh coriander or...
Fresh, fresh. And basil
and, erm, spices.
Dry basil?
Some lovely spices and herbs.
Ooh, I'm going to go home
and make that! Sounds nice!
Microwave that
for five to six mins,
erm, boil some rice
or naan if you'd prefer,
serve on a... plate
and enjoy.
What do you put in the paste?
Erm... Are you not lobbing
a bit of fish in there or...
Oh, right...
Potatoes or onions?
Yeah, you have to have potato,
chopped. Yeah, yeah.
Er, onion, chopped.
Erm...
And beef, chicken, lamb.
All of those!
Yeah...
Mix them around. Not chopped!
Put them in whole!
Skinned or just... the whole animal!
Well, that sounds absolutely,...
Try it yourselves.
..I think you'll agree, delicious.
Were you burgled or was it Jingle?
Messin' with your mind!
Now, Liza. Basil... Who's Basil?
Is Basil an animal? Basil.
Basil Brush we're talking.
Are we?! Do you remember
Basil Brush? Yes, I do.
I'm worried about this story though.
He's back, Basil Brush, isn't he?
Is he? Yeah.
Not THE Basil?
I don't know.
Well, it can't be
because I saw him maimed.
It can't be him. First of all,
there's two Basil references,
one of which, Dad was doing...
And it's the same panto,
so it was either Cinderella
or Jack And The Beanstalk...
Liza's dad is television legend
Jimmy Tarbuck.
I know him.
Thanks for that.
Even though I was born in 2003.
So anyway we've got Basil Brush
on a show with Dad -
or Dad's on a show with Basil
because Basil was massive then -
and I go to rehearsals with Dad
and I must've been about four.
So I'm wandering around this room
and I found Basil Brush
in a plastic bag!
So I, at that age,
think that Basil's real,
so I am not only like...
I mean, I'm speechless.
There he is, on a windowsill
in a plastic bag,
and I know, at four,...
Was it pulled tight?
..just to put a hole in it
so he can breathe
and just think
"God, these people are idiots!"
So carry on,
but that really traumatised me.
Cut to the curtain call.
All going on and it's like
"And Jimmy Tarbuck!"
"And Harry Secombe!"
And Basil, being a hand puppet,
he comes through the curtain.
And it's the London Palladium
and it's "Basil Brush!"
So it's like "Bye, kids!"
This particular day, this matinee,
my dad had taken our dog
Louis the Labrador to the matinee
and he'd promised the kids
he'd bring Louis on at the end -
and he was a lovely dog, Louis,
really... He was his own man.
So...
He strolled on and all the kids
are like "Oh, look, it's Louis"
and Louis's got his smiley face on
and it's like "Hi!"
And then Basil came round
the curtain to wave goodbye
and Louis's got his smiley face on
and that does that whole...
Exocet, no stopping,
no changing, just leapt at him.
Grabbed the guy's hand,
so grabbed Basil...
2,000 people watching. Absolutely.
Pandemonium because
"Oh, there's Louis!"
"Louis's killed Basil!"
And brought the curtains down...
Shut up. ..in the panic
because the fella holding Basil -
or up Basil -
didn't want anyone to see him,
so he's wrapped...
He doesn't know what's gone on!
He doesn't want...
Even though Basil's being maimed,
he doesn't think "It might be better
for them to know it's a puppet
"rather than genuinely
the world's only talking fox
"who's being killed by a Labrador
in front of their eyes"?
No blood - suspicion. Or there would
be, wouldn't there, with the hand?
And the crowd must've thought
it was all set up.
Oh, I don't think so. It was proper
chaos. The bloke was screaming.
Yeah.
"Fuck! Aghh! Aghh!"
"Fucking dog! Get the fucking dog
off me! I can't be seen!"
"I can't be seen!"
"Mr Roy! Mr Roy!"
"Boom, boom!"
He sounds like a real professional.
Was he the regular puppeteer guy?
I don't know.
Or was he a stagehand - "I'll just
stick Basil through the curtain..."
Anyone can do curtain Basil.
It's "Boom, boom" Basil
that takes the rehearsal.
It'd just be that, wouldn't it?
My dogs once got into a five-kilo
bag of dried dog biscuits -
I'm looking at you
because I know you like dog stories.
Imagine their delight -
the cupboard was ajar, right?
The cupboard was ajar
in which they had seen the five-kilo
bag coming in and out daily
their entire lives
and hearing that click
and "One day, my friend..."
Casing the joint.
Yeah, and it didn't click, right.
They looked at each other - "Don't
say anything till they've gone."
"Don't say anything..."
"Now is not the moment
"to let slip that we can talk."
"If we go for the bag
while they're in,
"they'll shut it away."
"Hold it, defer the pleasure,
wait till they've gone out."
It might've been four hours
before we went out.
"It's still ajar, it's still ajar."
And the moment - you just know it -
the moment you've gone out,
they're in there.
They ate five kilos
of dried biscuits between them -
there's a golden retriever
and an Alsatian -
probably in about,
I reckon, 40 seconds.
I mean, an Alsatian eats
unbelievably quickly.
And then it looks at you like
"That was a good appetizer."
"That's it!
For 24 hours, that is it."
My manager has Pugs
and she also has a cat
and the cat has a litter tray,
which, for some reason,
looks appetising to these Pugs.
No. Yeah, and probably
the best phrase I've heard this year
is "What's wrong with you?
Who the fuck eats shit?"
And if you can imagine the look
a Pug gives you -
it's like "I eat shit
"and I'll be eating this shit
and I'll probably do it again."
They've spent time counselling these
dogs and looking for a deeper issue,
but they just like
to eat shit, so...
Well, my two, when we got home,
we had to...
We gave them a bowl of water each.
They drank
about three litres of water each!
And then just lay there,
bloated, like this.
Every inch is used up!
"Ahh..." And the water wouldn't
have got to the middle bit.
Blb, blb, blb... Ohh...
God, that would've been vile.
They must've been almost turning
to powder from the dehydration.
No moisture in them at all!
Blinding headache, dry pores,
their tongue out, cracking tongue...
"I thought you'd never come home,
you fuck!"
"Give us water! We can go in the
cupboard, we can't turn the tap on!"
Ooh...
We used to have cats as well
and we had to feed the cats
on the worktop.
Then she'd wait, the Alsatian
would wait until the cats went
and then get up and, with his
front teeth, get their bowl of food
and get it down on the floor -
and that took ages, that bit -
and then eat it in half a second.
And then go back for the next one.
But we had one massive cat
that weighed a stone called Jingle
and the dogs were terrified of it.
I bet. It would sit on the table
and if one went past,
it would put its paw on their head
and then go like that.
And the dog would go "Oohhhh..."
and you'd have to try to release it,
but we were all scared of Jingle.
Jingle...
Jingle, one time, at Christmas,
the carcass of the turkey is going
in the fridge for the next day,
Jingle's seen it go in, not bothered
about whether there's a catch -
he would lie on his back,
get his paws under the fridge door
and pull it open.
Then, he's on his feet in a flash
and he's dragging it
and we had a dog flap at the time,
a massive flap -
until one day we were burgled and
then we went back to a cat flap -
and he got...
Were you burgled or was it Jingle?!
Messin' with your mind!
Jingle, she got hold of the door
and going "This way, lads."
"Help yourself." The dog's going
"Open the cupboard for us!"
"There's a five-kilo bag in there."
Jingle style!
He's got the carcass out
on the floor of the kitchen,
dragging it towards the dog flap...
It's like Alcatraz, he's this close.
And then we came in
and he just went into a frenzy.
Just went like claws and hair -
"Fuck you!"
"I found it, it's mine!"
"Bog off!"
That would've been a plan
he'd been working on
since the previous Christmas!
To be foiled at the last minute!
So close! Yeah.
He had a car with the motor running!
He knew where he was going with it!
A frightening animal!
He was a stone! He weighed a stone.
I love a fat cat. I stood on the
scales once and then picked him up
and went on them again
and went "Jesus!"
And then he looked at me like
"I'm going to have your eyes out."
Clang, clang, fight, fight - my
mother's crying outside the caravan.
Dane Baptiste.
Extracurricular activities.
Yes.
What are they in your world?
To me, extracurricular activities
are also known as enrichment
and they have staff at after-school
clubs to keep kids off the streets -
# Something, something, urban slogan
And my parents as immigrants
emphasise education.
If they wanted me to do something,
they'd say "It's very educational"
and I'd end up doing it,
so my friends would do stuff like
"We're going to play football
for various teams in South London,
"what are you doing, Dane?"
"Oh, I'm going to boys' choir."
So that was one fun thing I did.
My friends said "We're doing boxing
training. What you doing, Dane?"
"I'm going on a German exchange."
"That's going to be fun."
So I went to Aachen,
where I met my friend Anna.
We're not friends any more.
So I went to Germany
and I got to do fun things
like try Schwarzbrot,...
Black bread. ..which is black bread.
And tastes as good as it sounds.
How long were you there for?
A week and after about four days,
I started thinking in German,
but not enough to learn
how to act like I didn't
find Schwarzbrot disgusting,
must to the dismay of Anna's mother.
Had she made it?
No... Didn't really ask
any questions.
The only question I asked was
"Oh, my God, what the hell is this?"
Didn't make me the best guest.
After that, they just left me alone
on the floor in the attic.
Being on a German exchange
and being made to stay in the attic
is in very poor taste, but...
But there was like a PlayStation
there, so... it was fine.
But we didn't stay in touch.
Can you still speak German?
Ein bisschen, ja,
aber if du hat fragen zum stellen,
ich habe keine Ahnung.
What were you saying then? Don't ask
me any other questions because...
Can you speak German, David?
I imagine that you can.
Er, well, I did German GCSE.
Because you're obsessed with Hitler.
I can go...
Yes, I'm obsessed with Hitler,
but in all war films,
it's in English, so...
I can say "Gehen Sie hier gerade aus
"und nehmen Sie
die erste Strasse links."
Go straight and take the first left.
I did German A level.
You can speak German as well?
I did it a year early as well,
in 2009!
They didn't even have
their own currency by then!
That's not the Germany we mean.
This modern European country,
all unified and nice.
Yeah, so German was another
extracurricular activity.
And then, when everyone was like
"Boxing was fun,
"now let's go and meet girls
and go out to house parties."
"What are you going to do, Dane?"
"I'm going to join the Cub Scouts."
Come on. That's... Come on.
Yeah, so...
Do the promise.
Akela, we will do our best.
Did you get badges?
I got badges. I got one for knots,
for doing a reef knot and a
highwayman's hitch. That's was one.
And then some stuff for hiking,
sewing, communication for Morse
code... Cool. That was a good one.
That's impressive. Can't remember
it. Speaks German, does Morse...
Nobody will suspect at all!
"Let's send him deep undercover."
"Way, way undercover."
I don't even need to look at you, I
know you were a Cub. I just know...
I just know you were a Cub.
I was not a Cub.
Shut up!
You've got woggle
written all over you!
No, I never joined any of
those paramilitary organisations.
Which is exactly what they are.
Do you hate it still or do you get
a bit of a giggle out of it now?
Erm...
No, I still hate it, I think.
Ahh!
I mean, the tuck shop was good,
but, yeah, a bivouac... Bivouacs
are not, they're not practical.
All the stuff Bear Grylls does now,
I've tried it, guys,
it's not worth it.
I've just realised that "bivouac"
is a word I've heard many times
and I don't know what it means.
It's a shelter you make
from things you find.
Oh, if you don't even have a tent?!
Well, so...
This is sub-tent.
Yeah, if you don't have a tent, we'd
do what's called a Wayfarer's hike
and it's jumping over stiles and
walking through the country at night
and then you build a bivouac
and stay there for a couple of hours
and you find a tree,
put twigs up against it...
Like fucking Eeyore essentially.
You're reduced
to Eeyore levels of dwelling.
If you go camping
and you haven't got a tent,
that's a result
because you can go home.
That's the universal note
from your mother.
Camping requires a tent.
I'd have loved building a shelter.
I was always building dens.
Oh, it's fun to build one, but when
you know you have to stay in one,
it justs adds an extra peril
to the whole thing.
Even today, very few builders
live in the buildings they've built.
They're aware there are flaws,
things are going to go wrong,
they want to get away from it.
Don't want to have to live with
plumbling you've installed, do you?
When you were traumatised
by a crustacean?
I was four years old
and it was not in a tent,
but in a static caravan.
It was a big deal for my parents.
We were going on holiday to France
at a point when the exchange rate
between the pound and the franc
was extremely poor,
as were my parents anyway
at that point in their lives.
So we went to Brittany to stay
in a static caravan on a campsite
and to eat tinned food
we'd brought from Britain.
And you don't really get
the best out of France doing that.
But my parents,
as a special treat to themselves,
they decided to have a lobster,
to cook their own lobster
in the caravan.
A live one? That's the only way...
You can buy them tinned or alive.
That's the two ways.
So it was alive
and they didn't know what to do
because you can't eat them alive.
You could try, but that's not
recommended, even by the French.
Erm, so they asked the French couple
in the caravan next door what to do
and I don't know what was
actually said on either side,
but what my parents came away with
was that the way to cook a lobster
was to put it in a pan of cold water
and slowly bring it to the boil.
Anyway, it doesn't go
any better than you'd expect
because... I mean, I was just
a tiny four-year-old watching this
and the lobster was the most
terrifying object I'd ever seen.
I felt no sympathy for it, it wasn't
like boiling a rabbit alive.
This thing was clearly evil.
And you look at a lobster -
they're definitely evil.
If the lobsters were this size
and we were that size,
they'd be even nastier to us.
Boiling alive would be a relief
compared to what those monsters
would do to us with their claws.
But anyway, my parents put this
lobster in the pan of cold water
and the lobster,
having been distressed
by the way its life was going,
thinks "This is a slight improvement
- "I'm back in water."
So the lobster chills out slightly,
starts to enjoy life,
and then, as the effect of
the heat on the pan builds up,
it starts to sense
that something is wrong.
And then... Well, essentially,
after not very long,
it starts to massively freak out.
People say that what can happen
with cooking lobster like that
is it sort of gets lulled
into a trance state.
This did not occur.
And so the water
is getting hotter and hotter
and the lobster is going
"What the fuck is this?!"
and making an extremely enthusiastic
bid for freedom,
as well it might.
And so it's trying to...
Is there a lid on?
Well, sort of. Not initially.
My dad is trying to put a lid on,
my mum has run out of the caravan.
My dad is holding this lid
over the lobster
that's essentially drumming on it
from the underside.
I'm standing in the sort of
sitting-room bit of the caravan,
watching my dad
fight a monster in a pan.
Every so often,
I can see a boiling, steaming claw
emerge over the side. There's
a splatter of hot water everywhere.
I remember a little splat
of boiling water hitting my knee -
that's my moment of
"The lobster is coming for me."
And it rattles around - clang,
clang, clang, fight, fight, fight,
my mother's crying outside
and that's my last memory of it.
But, I mean, my dad did win.
You know, my dad is still alive,
the lobster isn't.
In fact, the lobster died very soon
thereafter, in time for dinner.
And they said that lobster tasted
very nice,
but I felt they had to follow
through on it having been worth it.
Your mum with tears running down
her face - "It tastes delicious!"
It was really... You know, it was
a really harrowing experience.
But what's odd is that I felt...
It's very unfair on animals, really,
that some of them look sympathetic
and some of them absolutely don't
and the mammals and the birds
you feel are broadly on your side,
even though many of them
really aren't,
and crustaceans, insects, that sort
of thing, are more like monsters...
It's the eyes, I think.
If the eyes are on stalks,
it's impossible to feel that...
Or the weird compound eyes
that insects have as well.
I think it's the context.
If you can look something in the eye
and it can plead for its life,
it's harder to kill it
as opposed to when it's a fly,
it's like "Ahh..."
The main reason that I felt it was
a bad idea to kill this lobster
was that it or its colleagues
might extract revenge.
They'd come for you.
Absolutely.
I was at a Japanese restaurant
where the chefs were on show
and they'd got some good knife work
and they're putting together sushi
and it's all great
and then you heard
some heavy cleaver action
and I looked round and they were
chopping lobsters in half,
put it on its back
and they go "Schum!", like that,
and I sat there, frozen in my seat,
because you could see it still...
The two halves were doing this,...
Like cutting a chicken's head off.
..saying "My brothers
will come for you!"
Some of you may not be convinced.
Look at the Pringles man,
then look at Hitler...
When I went to university,
when I was applying for university,
I really wanted to go to Cambridge
because I wanted to be in Footlights
and I'd heard these stories
that when you interview at Oxbridge,
they ask these weird questions and
you have to be all clever about it
and someone told me about
someone going to an interview
and them saying "Throw that chair
out of the window"
and if you did it without opening
the window, then you didn't get in,
but if you opened the window first,
then you did get in.
And all those weird stories
of like...
I think I might've thrown it
through the glass.
Yeah, because you think
"I'll throw it through the glass."
And that test question
where it says "What is bravery?"
and somebody just writes "This is"
and they don't write anything else
and they always get into Cambridge.
So I'd heard all these stories about
what you had to do in interviews
and I was applying to do English
and they asked me "Do you think that
all literature is subjective?"
and I didn't, but I thought "Got to
be controversial", so I said "Yes"
and they were completely unimpressed
and they were like
"So you think that Shakespeare
"is of the same level
as a really rubbish, trashy novel?"
and I was like "Yes, exactly
"because, if you've been through
the same issues as the character,
"you can relate
and then that's great literature"
and they were like
"No, you're wrong."
It was a bad interview. And then,
at the end, I went to leave
and I went to open the door,
but accidentally opened the cupboard
and then I was like...
You found several other candidates.
I did think, I was like "Maybe
just stick with your instincts
"and wait here for a moment"
and I thought "I'll just
wait here in this cupboard
"and then I'll get out" and then
I heard her go "It's the other door"
and I was like "Just make it clear,
then, if it's the other door
"and not put the word "Exit"
on the cupboard",
which she didn't do,
but it felt like she had...
The problem with
the "staying in the cupboard" plan
is it relies on
the person interviewing you
not knowing the way out of the room.
Well, if she'd gone out the right
way, I could've gone out after her.
Yes, but what I'm saying
is that when she sees you
get in the cupboard...
She couldn't see that because of
the way the room was. I just went...
It was round the corner? Oh, right.
And I was like "I've foiled her,
"I've gotten away with it
at the last second", but I hadn't.
So if she'd left before you, you
could've come out of the cupboard
and been like the professor...
"The tables have turned!"
You'd've been in possession...
"Who's to say I'm not the expert?"
"Here am I behind the desk
with all the books -
"maybe I'm interviewing YOU!"
"Now, throw that chair
out of the window."
So where did you end up going?
Loughborough University.
And what was the interview like?
No interview.
No interview!
Straight offer.
Nice.
There used to be a Saturday stand-up
gig at Loughborough University.
Really?
You know when I think I played it?
1990, Lolly.
OK, OK, OK.
20 years before I was born.
On a good night, how many gigs
would you do, on a weekend?
Because it's a hard job, comedying.
Well, if you're in London,
I would probably do
the Comedy Store at eight,
then go to Jongleurs in Battersea
or Camden, do two shows there,
then back for the late show
at the Store about two.
I was obsessed with doing gigs
and I wanted to do a gig every night
as many as you could.
I had no social life.
Yeah, but your social life is work.
Do you feel the same?
Are you working that hard too?
Yeah, if you're from London, you'll
be gigging in the sticks in the week
or doing new-material nights
and then, from Thursday to Sunday,
you're doing most gigs
and double up sometimes on Saturdays
so you'd be doing most of the week.
And that's why
my girlfriend dumped me.
But look at me now!
Drinking drinks I haven't stolen,
wherever you are, lady.
So I'm doing well for myself.
On the weekends, a lot of the time
you're doing chain clubs -
your Jongleurs, your Comedy Store
that have more than one location -
and for some reason, many people,
if they go on domestic stag dos,
they're like
"We've had a lot of Jagermeister
"and Red Bull and cocaine,
"so here's a good idea - let's all
sit still for three hours."
Yeah, bloody hell.
I know the Royal Opera House
has a real problem with that.
Absolutely mental, yeah!
Sopran-o! Sopran-o!
So I was doing a gig in Bristol,
which is a lovely city,
but I tend to not use the rest rooms
in the proximity of my other acts
out of respect.
Like a cat, I'll find a litter tray
- AKA the toilet the punters use -
and I'll go there and then you get
to eavesdrop on the conversations
that your guests are having
and normally it's stuff like
"I'm fucking funny, I'm at a comedy
club, let's go to a brothel!"
So this particular night...
They sound lovely, don't they?
I'm staying in this weekend!
About 14 of them, all had black
polos with the Scarface emblem on it
and they're like "I'm wired,
I've had how many fucking lines?"
"I'm going to terrorise them.
I'm the funny one, aren't I, Tel?"
So...
And I'm like "It's my target
audience, it's going to be amazing."
So the first act goes on
and they're not being very good,
so he starts lashing out at this guy
for being ginger
and he's nice and he's on a stag do
too, but a very reserved one
and so we lose them,
then he leaves and then the crowd
have lost trust in everyone
because this stag do - about 15 guys
- are holding the room hostage,
so I go on and this guy
starts taking drink orders and stuff
so I'm like "What's your problem?",
he's like "I'm going for a drink."
"Are you the best man?" "No."
"Wonder why?"
So... that's him.
And this other guy's like "Mate,
where are you from? The ghetto?"
and he starts giving
these slightly bigoted comments,
so I kind of ignore it at first
and I'm starting to get a rhythm
and he goes on,
so I'm like "Who are you?"
He's like "I'll show ya,
I'll show ya. Lads, lads, lads..."
and he's got a polo
which says "Sperm donor, ladies",
but he, in this era of autocorrect,
has spelt "sperm doner"...
..instead of "sperm donor".
So while he's...
Delicious! Exactly.
Yeah. So essentially
it's a cum kebab.
DAVID: Special sauce
is already on it.
So he's done a 180 now,
he's like "Yeah, look at this"
and I'm like "I feel bad for anyone
in your family that needs a kidney."
He's like "I'll take care of this."
And by the time he's turned around,
he is the object of ridicule
for the entire room
and there's nothing worse
than a stag hearing his friend go
"Fuck, he's got you there, mate."
Did you just jog to the next gig?
No, I stood, I was like...
Cue "Why don't you go back to..."
I was like "It's too late."
The security show up
and then he's leaving and his
friends are like "I'm really sorry."
"I feel sorry for you, don't worry."
It's going to be an awkward
conversation at that brothel.
So they leave and people are like
"Now we can enjoy the night again",
but, yeah, stag dos
are always a point...
They can make or break a night.
The thing is comedy
is a very specific art form.
It's quite a popular art form,
but going to see comedy
is a specific thing to do,
but people treat it as
"Well, we can have comedy in
that corner, art in that corner..."
And people aren't aware we do gigs.
They're just talking -
"Can I help you guys?" "Just taking
orders for dessert. Anyway..."
Any performance art is going to be
absolutely shat on by pudding.
We've got nothing - film,
comedy, theatre, ballet, opera -
none of them have a chance
against food.
I mean, I'm good. I'm good,
but I'm not trifle good.
It is time to draw this
to a close. Really?
Yes, because these people
have to go home!
Some are wishing they had gone
already. But we need a title,
so any suggestions
will be gratefully received.
I'd like to mention
the word "Jingle".
So we could have
We Were All Shit-Scared Of Jingle.
Hitler And Pringles
was a favourite of mine.
Applicable as well because
you should learn about history
and also Pringles are kind of
a homogenous snack,
so they would work with Hitler.
Because they were all
very similar in appearance.
What?!
Pringles...
All Pringles... look alike.
Like most potato snacks,
they're sliced and fried,
but the thing about Pringles,
they're almost genetically bred
to be completely identical. Aryan.
Ohh...
So of all the crisps,
Pringles are the ones Hitler would
most approve of because of their...
their uniformity.
I'm sure Pringles' marketing team
will be fine with that being on TV.
Now, some of you
may not be convinced -
look at the Pringles man,
then look at Hitler...
You think the Pringles man...
After the war, when Hitler escaped,
he just grew his moustache
a bit longer...
And started slicing potatoes
in a very uniform way.
His ideology survives in snacks
and he allegedly
has assumed a new identity
by extending his moustache.
The pieces all fit, people.
You heard it here. We can put Hitler
in the title and not cause offence,
but we'd get our arses sued
by the Pringle corporation.
Well, Hitler And Jingle, then,
because it's nearly Pringle!
Anyway, we are going to leave you,
so please will you thank my guests -
Lolly Adefope,...
..David Mitchell,
Liza Tarbuck...
..and Dane Baptiste.
And you have been watching
Hitler And Jingle.
Thank you very much.
Subtitles by Ericsson
---
Alan Davies As Yet Untitled 04
CTO N224Y/82
BF000000
This is not actually me arriving.
This is just stock footage
of me arriving.
Can use for various things.
Wow. Feeling thrilled and honoured
to be the first and only
black person on As Yet Untitled.
HE HUFFS
Story of my life.
Good evening.
Is that enough?
Hello. I'm Alan Davies.
This is As Yet Untitled,
the show with no preparation,
planning, scheming or ideas.
I don't really know what'll happen,
we never have a clue,
but at the end,
we come up with a title.
To do that, I need some help,
so please welcome my guests.
AUDIENCE WHOOP
Here they are.
Hello. Welcome. Hello, hello.
Here are my guests. Welcome to them.
Lolly Adefope's here.
She's a picky eater
and has unique interview techniques.
David Mitchell. Welcome, David.
David Mitchell was traumatised
by a crustacean.
David Mitchell...
Liza Tarbuck. Welcome back,
Liza Tarbuck. A return.
Very happy to have you. Liza Tarbuck
had a hand in Basil's death.
And welcome to Dane Baptiste.
Dane Baptiste is an expert
in extracurricular activities.
Now, I'm a bit left-outy today
because you're all working
with one another on things.
You've been working on a thing
together. Yeah, we have.
A sitcom or something.
Yes, a sitcom about Shakespeare.
We play Shakespeare and his wife.
Do you?!
Mr and Mrs Shakespeare.
You're the Bard? I'm his wife and...
And I look really good in a beard.
And you two are doing
a comedy thing? Yes.
A topical, fast-paced,
quickfire, hilarious sketch show.
Yeah, other jargon.
There's a lot of adjectives.
Lolly used most of them.
Viral. Viral...
Meme...
Digital. Current.
Core. Content.
Lots of content.
And demographics. Targeting people.
Yeah. Youth.
It's open, feedback. Yeah.
Cyclical.
Cyclical sounds good. Yeah...
I like it already. Interesting
that "viral" is a buzzword
and "bacterial" isn't.
You know... Where did that start,
"viral", things going "viral"?
I... It must be off the back
of "bacteria", mustn't it?
Well, I think it spreads,
but apparently a virus spreading
is just great publicity.
Tell that to someone with AIDS.
Think you just did!
I always mention AIDS early on
and it's always a mistake.
I saw another film the other day
in which...
somebody contracted something
and then they go to an airport
and then they do a graphic of the
virus spreading around the world.
So it starts with someone
in a departure lounge sneezing
and then it goes to the graphic.
Yeah, and you see them
going through the gate -
"Welcome aboard" -
and you think "No!"
"He's just shaken hands!"
They do it in Grimsby.
Oh, haven't seen that yet.
Is it funny?
Can't really talk about it
because it'll ruin it for everyone.
It's got one of the most disgusting
things you'll ever see in your life
involving the biggest cock
that's ever been made
in a prosthetics... lounge!
They haven't used that as much in
the publicity as I'd expect them to.
"The most disgusting thing
you'll ever see
"and the biggest cock ever made" -
who's not going to give that a look?
I lent my mate my flat once
when I was travelling -
I left him a few presents
in the room,
he left me some for when I got back.
Sounds like you shat in the bed!
It was borderline that.
To get back to Grimsby,
he left me a massive, great, big,
realistic-looking penis
down the bottom of my bed.
He'd changed the bed and everything.
So when I touched it with my feet,
I'm like "Jesus! What's that?!" -
up and out of bed and over.
So this thing becomes a bit of a gag
and it's left places, blah-de-blah.
I finally got it
into my dad's golf bag
the day that he was leaving,
driving to Portugal
and just rammed it down the bottom,
knowing that, at some point,
he'd be like
"Oh, I can't get this..."
"Can't get this wood in!"
So, interestingly, they got stopped
and searched at the border
and they asked him "What do you
do?", "I'm an entertainer."
"Are you really? What's this?"
It ended up in Portugal and my mum
didn't know what to do with it.
"I'd throw it in a bin,
but someone'll see me."
Someone had a golf bag
made out of a penis.
Was it a Nazi?
No, I don't think so.
They did things with skin,
didn't they?
I don't picture the Nazis
playing a lot of golf.
No, I think it was...
I think it might've been...
I think I might have imagined it,
but I think it was the penis
of some sort of... Maybe a whale.
A whale sounds right. That'd be
about the right size for a golf bag.
How big's a whale's penis? Huge.
They're enormous.
Blue whales, you can swim
in their veins, so I imagine that,
because it serves the penis,
the bloodstream, then it's very big.
You could probably make a whole line
of golf bags out of one penis.
Yeah. The blue whale has got a heart
the size of a car.
They say... I know about it
because it's always on QI.
A small car.
What would that be?
I don't know. I'm thinking a Metro.
What would you say? You were born
in 2012 or something. A Smart car.
A Smart car!
What year were you born in?
Er, 1999.
Shut up.
Before the programme began,
Lolly said she was born in 1990.
People actually shat themselves.
Ten people walked out.
The bloke behind us went "Uhhh..."
Because it's too awful...
And David Mitchell said something
about Margaret Thatcher.
When did she finish? November?
I think it was just before Christmas
1990. Yeah, she left in tears.
Finally. We finally made her cry.
She was the hardest supply teacher
in history!
It took 11 years to make her cry!
It was the best bit,
the end, when she cried.
In many ways,
it makes it all worth it.
Such a big build-up.
And I did that.
You did that.
So you're welcome, guys.
Thanks, Lolly.
But you are a picky eater, correct?
Yes.
Well, picky, also just strange.
Erm, for ages, I didn't know
that you're not meant
to put milk in herbal tea...
AUDIENCE MURMURS
Guys, no-one told me.
Squeamish audience tonight. Very
serious about peppermint infusions.
"You've crossed the line now."
"Do not fuck them with lactose!"
A lost generation.
So young. So young and stupid!
I'd've thought tea equals
something you put milk in. Yeah.
I'd just make myself green tea and
peppermint tea and put milk in it
and I must've tasted it in
the beginning and thought "Weird",
but then just been like
"I'm sure it's an acquired taste,
"I'm just not mature enough
to handle it yet"
and then when I was at uni,
someone said "What are you doing?"
and I was like "What? No, I know,
"I was putting milk... Erm..."
"Because you don't put milk
in peppermint tea. Exactly. Cool."
"Cool."
And I also still really like
savoury and sweet things
that shouldn't go together
like, for example, vanilla ice cream
with green Pringles.
Wow. Yeah.
AUDIENCE MURMURS
That was more of an intrigued noise.
Yeah!
More of a "I'm going to try that!"
That's like a very, very low-rent
Heston Blumenthal.
That's Heston Blumenthal
from Iceland.
Do-it-yourself, you know...
They should make up
their own in-house chef,
give him a name like
Beston Humenthal or something...
"Why not dip a Kit Kat finger
in some chutney?"
Only the green Pringles though?
Only the green, yeah, and...
Is that the sour cream and chive?
Yeah.
Good knowledge.
He knows about Hitler and Pringles.
That's good...
That's a good title.
I can cook a massaman curry
because it's the only thing I like,
so I've learnt how to cook that,
but everything else...
How do you cook that? Step by step.
You get massaman-curry paste
from Tesco...
This is... This is a great recipe.
You buy a massaman curry
and then you eat it.
So you've got your paste...
You get your paste...
Maybe on a low heat, er...
Just the paste?
Er, cumin...
You get a spoon... Er, coriander...
Cumin seeds or ground cumin?
Exactly. And...
Erm, and some basil...
Fresh coriander or...
Fresh, fresh. And basil
and, erm, spices.
Dry basil?
Some lovely spices and herbs.
Ooh, I'm going to go home
and make that! Sounds nice!
Microwave that
for five to six mins,
erm, boil some rice
or naan if you'd prefer,
serve on a... plate
and enjoy.
What do you put in the paste?
Erm... Are you not lobbing
a bit of fish in there or...
Oh, right...
Potatoes or onions?
Yeah, you have to have potato,
chopped. Yeah, yeah.
Er, onion, chopped.
Erm...
And beef, chicken, lamb.
All of those!
Yeah...
Mix them around. Not chopped!
Put them in whole!
Skinned or just... the whole animal!
Well, that sounds absolutely,...
Try it yourselves.
..I think you'll agree, delicious.
Were you burgled or was it Jingle?
Messin' with your mind!
Now, Liza. Basil... Who's Basil?
Is Basil an animal? Basil.
Basil Brush we're talking.
Are we?! Do you remember
Basil Brush? Yes, I do.
I'm worried about this story though.
He's back, Basil Brush, isn't he?
Is he? Yeah.
Not THE Basil?
I don't know.
Well, it can't be
because I saw him maimed.
It can't be him. First of all,
there's two Basil references,
one of which, Dad was doing...
And it's the same panto,
so it was either Cinderella
or Jack And The Beanstalk...
Liza's dad is television legend
Jimmy Tarbuck.
I know him.
Thanks for that.
Even though I was born in 2003.
So anyway we've got Basil Brush
on a show with Dad -
or Dad's on a show with Basil
because Basil was massive then -
and I go to rehearsals with Dad
and I must've been about four.
So I'm wandering around this room
and I found Basil Brush
in a plastic bag!
So I, at that age,
think that Basil's real,
so I am not only like...
I mean, I'm speechless.
There he is, on a windowsill
in a plastic bag,
and I know, at four,...
Was it pulled tight?
..just to put a hole in it
so he can breathe
and just think
"God, these people are idiots!"
So carry on,
but that really traumatised me.
Cut to the curtain call.
All going on and it's like
"And Jimmy Tarbuck!"
"And Harry Secombe!"
And Basil, being a hand puppet,
he comes through the curtain.
And it's the London Palladium
and it's "Basil Brush!"
So it's like "Bye, kids!"
This particular day, this matinee,
my dad had taken our dog
Louis the Labrador to the matinee
and he'd promised the kids
he'd bring Louis on at the end -
and he was a lovely dog, Louis,
really... He was his own man.
So...
He strolled on and all the kids
are like "Oh, look, it's Louis"
and Louis's got his smiley face on
and it's like "Hi!"
And then Basil came round
the curtain to wave goodbye
and Louis's got his smiley face on
and that does that whole...
Exocet, no stopping,
no changing, just leapt at him.
Grabbed the guy's hand,
so grabbed Basil...
2,000 people watching. Absolutely.
Pandemonium because
"Oh, there's Louis!"
"Louis's killed Basil!"
And brought the curtains down...
Shut up. ..in the panic
because the fella holding Basil -
or up Basil -
didn't want anyone to see him,
so he's wrapped...
He doesn't know what's gone on!
He doesn't want...
Even though Basil's being maimed,
he doesn't think "It might be better
for them to know it's a puppet
"rather than genuinely
the world's only talking fox
"who's being killed by a Labrador
in front of their eyes"?
No blood - suspicion. Or there would
be, wouldn't there, with the hand?
And the crowd must've thought
it was all set up.
Oh, I don't think so. It was proper
chaos. The bloke was screaming.
Yeah.
"Fuck! Aghh! Aghh!"
"Fucking dog! Get the fucking dog
off me! I can't be seen!"
"I can't be seen!"
"Mr Roy! Mr Roy!"
"Boom, boom!"
He sounds like a real professional.
Was he the regular puppeteer guy?
I don't know.
Or was he a stagehand - "I'll just
stick Basil through the curtain..."
Anyone can do curtain Basil.
It's "Boom, boom" Basil
that takes the rehearsal.
It'd just be that, wouldn't it?
My dogs once got into a five-kilo
bag of dried dog biscuits -
I'm looking at you
because I know you like dog stories.
Imagine their delight -
the cupboard was ajar, right?
The cupboard was ajar
in which they had seen the five-kilo
bag coming in and out daily
their entire lives
and hearing that click
and "One day, my friend..."
Casing the joint.
Yeah, and it didn't click, right.
They looked at each other - "Don't
say anything till they've gone."
"Don't say anything..."
"Now is not the moment
"to let slip that we can talk."
"If we go for the bag
while they're in,
"they'll shut it away."
"Hold it, defer the pleasure,
wait till they've gone out."
It might've been four hours
before we went out.
"It's still ajar, it's still ajar."
And the moment - you just know it -
the moment you've gone out,
they're in there.
They ate five kilos
of dried biscuits between them -
there's a golden retriever
and an Alsatian -
probably in about,
I reckon, 40 seconds.
I mean, an Alsatian eats
unbelievably quickly.
And then it looks at you like
"That was a good appetizer."
"That's it!
For 24 hours, that is it."
My manager has Pugs
and she also has a cat
and the cat has a litter tray,
which, for some reason,
looks appetising to these Pugs.
No. Yeah, and probably
the best phrase I've heard this year
is "What's wrong with you?
Who the fuck eats shit?"
And if you can imagine the look
a Pug gives you -
it's like "I eat shit
"and I'll be eating this shit
and I'll probably do it again."
They've spent time counselling these
dogs and looking for a deeper issue,
but they just like
to eat shit, so...
Well, my two, when we got home,
we had to...
We gave them a bowl of water each.
They drank
about three litres of water each!
And then just lay there,
bloated, like this.
Every inch is used up!
"Ahh..." And the water wouldn't
have got to the middle bit.
Blb, blb, blb... Ohh...
God, that would've been vile.
They must've been almost turning
to powder from the dehydration.
No moisture in them at all!
Blinding headache, dry pores,
their tongue out, cracking tongue...
"I thought you'd never come home,
you fuck!"
"Give us water! We can go in the
cupboard, we can't turn the tap on!"
Ooh...
We used to have cats as well
and we had to feed the cats
on the worktop.
Then she'd wait, the Alsatian
would wait until the cats went
and then get up and, with his
front teeth, get their bowl of food
and get it down on the floor -
and that took ages, that bit -
and then eat it in half a second.
And then go back for the next one.
But we had one massive cat
that weighed a stone called Jingle
and the dogs were terrified of it.
I bet. It would sit on the table
and if one went past,
it would put its paw on their head
and then go like that.
And the dog would go "Oohhhh..."
and you'd have to try to release it,
but we were all scared of Jingle.
Jingle...
Jingle, one time, at Christmas,
the carcass of the turkey is going
in the fridge for the next day,
Jingle's seen it go in, not bothered
about whether there's a catch -
he would lie on his back,
get his paws under the fridge door
and pull it open.
Then, he's on his feet in a flash
and he's dragging it
and we had a dog flap at the time,
a massive flap -
until one day we were burgled and
then we went back to a cat flap -
and he got...
Were you burgled or was it Jingle?!
Messin' with your mind!
Jingle, she got hold of the door
and going "This way, lads."
"Help yourself." The dog's going
"Open the cupboard for us!"
"There's a five-kilo bag in there."
Jingle style!
He's got the carcass out
on the floor of the kitchen,
dragging it towards the dog flap...
It's like Alcatraz, he's this close.
And then we came in
and he just went into a frenzy.
Just went like claws and hair -
"Fuck you!"
"I found it, it's mine!"
"Bog off!"
That would've been a plan
he'd been working on
since the previous Christmas!
To be foiled at the last minute!
So close! Yeah.
He had a car with the motor running!
He knew where he was going with it!
A frightening animal!
He was a stone! He weighed a stone.
I love a fat cat. I stood on the
scales once and then picked him up
and went on them again
and went "Jesus!"
And then he looked at me like
"I'm going to have your eyes out."
Clang, clang, fight, fight - my
mother's crying outside the caravan.
Dane Baptiste.
Extracurricular activities.
Yes.
What are they in your world?
To me, extracurricular activities
are also known as enrichment
and they have staff at after-school
clubs to keep kids off the streets -
# Something, something, urban slogan
And my parents as immigrants
emphasise education.
If they wanted me to do something,
they'd say "It's very educational"
and I'd end up doing it,
so my friends would do stuff like
"We're going to play football
for various teams in South London,
"what are you doing, Dane?"
"Oh, I'm going to boys' choir."
So that was one fun thing I did.
My friends said "We're doing boxing
training. What you doing, Dane?"
"I'm going on a German exchange."
"That's going to be fun."
So I went to Aachen,
where I met my friend Anna.
We're not friends any more.
So I went to Germany
and I got to do fun things
like try Schwarzbrot,...
Black bread. ..which is black bread.
And tastes as good as it sounds.
How long were you there for?
A week and after about four days,
I started thinking in German,
but not enough to learn
how to act like I didn't
find Schwarzbrot disgusting,
must to the dismay of Anna's mother.
Had she made it?
No... Didn't really ask
any questions.
The only question I asked was
"Oh, my God, what the hell is this?"
Didn't make me the best guest.
After that, they just left me alone
on the floor in the attic.
Being on a German exchange
and being made to stay in the attic
is in very poor taste, but...
But there was like a PlayStation
there, so... it was fine.
But we didn't stay in touch.
Can you still speak German?
Ein bisschen, ja,
aber if du hat fragen zum stellen,
ich habe keine Ahnung.
What were you saying then? Don't ask
me any other questions because...
Can you speak German, David?
I imagine that you can.
Er, well, I did German GCSE.
Because you're obsessed with Hitler.
I can go...
Yes, I'm obsessed with Hitler,
but in all war films,
it's in English, so...
I can say "Gehen Sie hier gerade aus
"und nehmen Sie
die erste Strasse links."
Go straight and take the first left.
I did German A level.
You can speak German as well?
I did it a year early as well,
in 2009!
They didn't even have
their own currency by then!
That's not the Germany we mean.
This modern European country,
all unified and nice.
Yeah, so German was another
extracurricular activity.
And then, when everyone was like
"Boxing was fun,
"now let's go and meet girls
and go out to house parties."
"What are you going to do, Dane?"
"I'm going to join the Cub Scouts."
Come on. That's... Come on.
Yeah, so...
Do the promise.
Akela, we will do our best.
Did you get badges?
I got badges. I got one for knots,
for doing a reef knot and a
highwayman's hitch. That's was one.
And then some stuff for hiking,
sewing, communication for Morse
code... Cool. That was a good one.
That's impressive. Can't remember
it. Speaks German, does Morse...
Nobody will suspect at all!
"Let's send him deep undercover."
"Way, way undercover."
I don't even need to look at you, I
know you were a Cub. I just know...
I just know you were a Cub.
I was not a Cub.
Shut up!
You've got woggle
written all over you!
No, I never joined any of
those paramilitary organisations.
Which is exactly what they are.
Do you hate it still or do you get
a bit of a giggle out of it now?
Erm...
No, I still hate it, I think.
Ahh!
I mean, the tuck shop was good,
but, yeah, a bivouac... Bivouacs
are not, they're not practical.
All the stuff Bear Grylls does now,
I've tried it, guys,
it's not worth it.
I've just realised that "bivouac"
is a word I've heard many times
and I don't know what it means.
It's a shelter you make
from things you find.
Oh, if you don't even have a tent?!
Well, so...
This is sub-tent.
Yeah, if you don't have a tent, we'd
do what's called a Wayfarer's hike
and it's jumping over stiles and
walking through the country at night
and then you build a bivouac
and stay there for a couple of hours
and you find a tree,
put twigs up against it...
Like fucking Eeyore essentially.
You're reduced
to Eeyore levels of dwelling.
If you go camping
and you haven't got a tent,
that's a result
because you can go home.
That's the universal note
from your mother.
Camping requires a tent.
I'd have loved building a shelter.
I was always building dens.
Oh, it's fun to build one, but when
you know you have to stay in one,
it justs adds an extra peril
to the whole thing.
Even today, very few builders
live in the buildings they've built.
They're aware there are flaws,
things are going to go wrong,
they want to get away from it.
Don't want to have to live with
plumbling you've installed, do you?
When you were traumatised
by a crustacean?
I was four years old
and it was not in a tent,
but in a static caravan.
It was a big deal for my parents.
We were going on holiday to France
at a point when the exchange rate
between the pound and the franc
was extremely poor,
as were my parents anyway
at that point in their lives.
So we went to Brittany to stay
in a static caravan on a campsite
and to eat tinned food
we'd brought from Britain.
And you don't really get
the best out of France doing that.
But my parents,
as a special treat to themselves,
they decided to have a lobster,
to cook their own lobster
in the caravan.
A live one? That's the only way...
You can buy them tinned or alive.
That's the two ways.
So it was alive
and they didn't know what to do
because you can't eat them alive.
You could try, but that's not
recommended, even by the French.
Erm, so they asked the French couple
in the caravan next door what to do
and I don't know what was
actually said on either side,
but what my parents came away with
was that the way to cook a lobster
was to put it in a pan of cold water
and slowly bring it to the boil.
Anyway, it doesn't go
any better than you'd expect
because... I mean, I was just
a tiny four-year-old watching this
and the lobster was the most
terrifying object I'd ever seen.
I felt no sympathy for it, it wasn't
like boiling a rabbit alive.
This thing was clearly evil.
And you look at a lobster -
they're definitely evil.
If the lobsters were this size
and we were that size,
they'd be even nastier to us.
Boiling alive would be a relief
compared to what those monsters
would do to us with their claws.
But anyway, my parents put this
lobster in the pan of cold water
and the lobster,
having been distressed
by the way its life was going,
thinks "This is a slight improvement
- "I'm back in water."
So the lobster chills out slightly,
starts to enjoy life,
and then, as the effect of
the heat on the pan builds up,
it starts to sense
that something is wrong.
And then... Well, essentially,
after not very long,
it starts to massively freak out.
People say that what can happen
with cooking lobster like that
is it sort of gets lulled
into a trance state.
This did not occur.
And so the water
is getting hotter and hotter
and the lobster is going
"What the fuck is this?!"
and making an extremely enthusiastic
bid for freedom,
as well it might.
And so it's trying to...
Is there a lid on?
Well, sort of. Not initially.
My dad is trying to put a lid on,
my mum has run out of the caravan.
My dad is holding this lid
over the lobster
that's essentially drumming on it
from the underside.
I'm standing in the sort of
sitting-room bit of the caravan,
watching my dad
fight a monster in a pan.
Every so often,
I can see a boiling, steaming claw
emerge over the side. There's
a splatter of hot water everywhere.
I remember a little splat
of boiling water hitting my knee -
that's my moment of
"The lobster is coming for me."
And it rattles around - clang,
clang, clang, fight, fight, fight,
my mother's crying outside
and that's my last memory of it.
But, I mean, my dad did win.
You know, my dad is still alive,
the lobster isn't.
In fact, the lobster died very soon
thereafter, in time for dinner.
And they said that lobster tasted
very nice,
but I felt they had to follow
through on it having been worth it.
Your mum with tears running down
her face - "It tastes delicious!"
It was really... You know, it was
a really harrowing experience.
But what's odd is that I felt...
It's very unfair on animals, really,
that some of them look sympathetic
and some of them absolutely don't
and the mammals and the birds
you feel are broadly on your side,
even though many of them
really aren't,
and crustaceans, insects, that sort
of thing, are more like monsters...
It's the eyes, I think.
If the eyes are on stalks,
it's impossible to feel that...
Or the weird compound eyes
that insects have as well.
I think it's the context.
If you can look something in the eye
and it can plead for its life,
it's harder to kill it
as opposed to when it's a fly,
it's like "Ahh..."
The main reason that I felt it was
a bad idea to kill this lobster
was that it or its colleagues
might extract revenge.
They'd come for you.
Absolutely.
I was at a Japanese restaurant
where the chefs were on show
and they'd got some good knife work
and they're putting together sushi
and it's all great
and then you heard
some heavy cleaver action
and I looked round and they were
chopping lobsters in half,
put it on its back
and they go "Schum!", like that,
and I sat there, frozen in my seat,
because you could see it still...
The two halves were doing this,...
Like cutting a chicken's head off.
..saying "My brothers
will come for you!"
Some of you may not be convinced.
Look at the Pringles man,
then look at Hitler...
When I went to university,
when I was applying for university,
I really wanted to go to Cambridge
because I wanted to be in Footlights
and I'd heard these stories
that when you interview at Oxbridge,
they ask these weird questions and
you have to be all clever about it
and someone told me about
someone going to an interview
and them saying "Throw that chair
out of the window"
and if you did it without opening
the window, then you didn't get in,
but if you opened the window first,
then you did get in.
And all those weird stories
of like...
I think I might've thrown it
through the glass.
Yeah, because you think
"I'll throw it through the glass."
And that test question
where it says "What is bravery?"
and somebody just writes "This is"
and they don't write anything else
and they always get into Cambridge.
So I'd heard all these stories about
what you had to do in interviews
and I was applying to do English
and they asked me "Do you think that
all literature is subjective?"
and I didn't, but I thought "Got to
be controversial", so I said "Yes"
and they were completely unimpressed
and they were like
"So you think that Shakespeare
"is of the same level
as a really rubbish, trashy novel?"
and I was like "Yes, exactly
"because, if you've been through
the same issues as the character,
"you can relate
and then that's great literature"
and they were like
"No, you're wrong."
It was a bad interview. And then,
at the end, I went to leave
and I went to open the door,
but accidentally opened the cupboard
and then I was like...
You found several other candidates.
I did think, I was like "Maybe
just stick with your instincts
"and wait here for a moment"
and I thought "I'll just
wait here in this cupboard
"and then I'll get out" and then
I heard her go "It's the other door"
and I was like "Just make it clear,
then, if it's the other door
"and not put the word "Exit"
on the cupboard",
which she didn't do,
but it felt like she had...
The problem with
the "staying in the cupboard" plan
is it relies on
the person interviewing you
not knowing the way out of the room.
Well, if she'd gone out the right
way, I could've gone out after her.
Yes, but what I'm saying
is that when she sees you
get in the cupboard...
She couldn't see that because of
the way the room was. I just went...
It was round the corner? Oh, right.
And I was like "I've foiled her,
"I've gotten away with it
at the last second", but I hadn't.
So if she'd left before you, you
could've come out of the cupboard
and been like the professor...
"The tables have turned!"
You'd've been in possession...
"Who's to say I'm not the expert?"
"Here am I behind the desk
with all the books -
"maybe I'm interviewing YOU!"
"Now, throw that chair
out of the window."
So where did you end up going?
Loughborough University.
And what was the interview like?
No interview.
No interview!
Straight offer.
Nice.
There used to be a Saturday stand-up
gig at Loughborough University.
Really?
You know when I think I played it?
1990, Lolly.
OK, OK, OK.
20 years before I was born.
On a good night, how many gigs
would you do, on a weekend?
Because it's a hard job, comedying.
Well, if you're in London,
I would probably do
the Comedy Store at eight,
then go to Jongleurs in Battersea
or Camden, do two shows there,
then back for the late show
at the Store about two.
I was obsessed with doing gigs
and I wanted to do a gig every night
as many as you could.
I had no social life.
Yeah, but your social life is work.
Do you feel the same?
Are you working that hard too?
Yeah, if you're from London, you'll
be gigging in the sticks in the week
or doing new-material nights
and then, from Thursday to Sunday,
you're doing most gigs
and double up sometimes on Saturdays
so you'd be doing most of the week.
And that's why
my girlfriend dumped me.
But look at me now!
Drinking drinks I haven't stolen,
wherever you are, lady.
So I'm doing well for myself.
On the weekends, a lot of the time
you're doing chain clubs -
your Jongleurs, your Comedy Store
that have more than one location -
and for some reason, many people,
if they go on domestic stag dos,
they're like
"We've had a lot of Jagermeister
"and Red Bull and cocaine,
"so here's a good idea - let's all
sit still for three hours."
Yeah, bloody hell.
I know the Royal Opera House
has a real problem with that.
Absolutely mental, yeah!
Sopran-o! Sopran-o!
So I was doing a gig in Bristol,
which is a lovely city,
but I tend to not use the rest rooms
in the proximity of my other acts
out of respect.
Like a cat, I'll find a litter tray
- AKA the toilet the punters use -
and I'll go there and then you get
to eavesdrop on the conversations
that your guests are having
and normally it's stuff like
"I'm fucking funny, I'm at a comedy
club, let's go to a brothel!"
So this particular night...
They sound lovely, don't they?
I'm staying in this weekend!
About 14 of them, all had black
polos with the Scarface emblem on it
and they're like "I'm wired,
I've had how many fucking lines?"
"I'm going to terrorise them.
I'm the funny one, aren't I, Tel?"
So...
And I'm like "It's my target
audience, it's going to be amazing."
So the first act goes on
and they're not being very good,
so he starts lashing out at this guy
for being ginger
and he's nice and he's on a stag do
too, but a very reserved one
and so we lose them,
then he leaves and then the crowd
have lost trust in everyone
because this stag do - about 15 guys
- are holding the room hostage,
so I go on and this guy
starts taking drink orders and stuff
so I'm like "What's your problem?",
he's like "I'm going for a drink."
"Are you the best man?" "No."
"Wonder why?"
So... that's him.
And this other guy's like "Mate,
where are you from? The ghetto?"
and he starts giving
these slightly bigoted comments,
so I kind of ignore it at first
and I'm starting to get a rhythm
and he goes on,
so I'm like "Who are you?"
He's like "I'll show ya,
I'll show ya. Lads, lads, lads..."
and he's got a polo
which says "Sperm donor, ladies",
but he, in this era of autocorrect,
has spelt "sperm doner"...
..instead of "sperm donor".
So while he's...
Delicious! Exactly.
Yeah. So essentially
it's a cum kebab.
DAVID: Special sauce
is already on it.
So he's done a 180 now,
he's like "Yeah, look at this"
and I'm like "I feel bad for anyone
in your family that needs a kidney."
He's like "I'll take care of this."
And by the time he's turned around,
he is the object of ridicule
for the entire room
and there's nothing worse
than a stag hearing his friend go
"Fuck, he's got you there, mate."
Did you just jog to the next gig?
No, I stood, I was like...
Cue "Why don't you go back to..."
I was like "It's too late."
The security show up
and then he's leaving and his
friends are like "I'm really sorry."
"I feel sorry for you, don't worry."
It's going to be an awkward
conversation at that brothel.
So they leave and people are like
"Now we can enjoy the night again",
but, yeah, stag dos
are always a point...
They can make or break a night.
The thing is comedy
is a very specific art form.
It's quite a popular art form,
but going to see comedy
is a specific thing to do,
but people treat it as
"Well, we can have comedy in
that corner, art in that corner..."
And people aren't aware we do gigs.
They're just talking -
"Can I help you guys?" "Just taking
orders for dessert. Anyway..."
Any performance art is going to be
absolutely shat on by pudding.
We've got nothing - film,
comedy, theatre, ballet, opera -
none of them have a chance
against food.
I mean, I'm good. I'm good,
but I'm not trifle good.
It is time to draw this
to a close. Really?
Yes, because these people
have to go home!
Some are wishing they had gone
already. But we need a title,
so any suggestions
will be gratefully received.
I'd like to mention
the word "Jingle".
So we could have
We Were All Shit-Scared Of Jingle.
Hitler And Pringles
was a favourite of mine.
Applicable as well because
you should learn about history
and also Pringles are kind of
a homogenous snack,
so they would work with Hitler.
Because they were all
very similar in appearance.
What?!
Pringles...
All Pringles... look alike.
Like most potato snacks,
they're sliced and fried,
but the thing about Pringles,
they're almost genetically bred
to be completely identical. Aryan.
Ohh...
So of all the crisps,
Pringles are the ones Hitler would
most approve of because of their...
their uniformity.
I'm sure Pringles' marketing team
will be fine with that being on TV.
Now, some of you
may not be convinced -
look at the Pringles man,
then look at Hitler...
You think the Pringles man...
After the war, when Hitler escaped,
he just grew his moustache
a bit longer...
And started slicing potatoes
in a very uniform way.
His ideology survives in snacks
and he allegedly
has assumed a new identity
by extending his moustache.
The pieces all fit, people.
You heard it here. We can put Hitler
in the title and not cause offence,
but we'd get our arses sued
by the Pringle corporation.
Well, Hitler And Jingle, then,
because it's nearly Pringle!
Anyway, we are going to leave you,
so please will you thank my guests -
Lolly Adefope,...
..David Mitchell,
Liza Tarbuck...
..and Dane Baptiste.
And you have been watching
Hitler And Jingle.
Thank you very much.
Subtitles by Ericsson