Alan Davies: As Yet Untitled (2014–…): Season 5, Episode 5 - The Poxed Puppies of Leprous Bitches - full transcript
I'm here in the heart
of London's West End.
That's what commentators say when
something very exciting's about to
happen on television.
I'm in it to win it.
I hope you like hot chat.
Oh, my God, how cold is it outside?
Is there any drinks?
This is a game show, right?
Yeah.
APPLAUSE
Hello. Welcome to As Yet Untitled.
I'm Alan Davies, this is the show
which has no title, no topics,
no agenda, no plans, no prepared
introduction, no autocue,
which is something I must
talk to them about.
We will come up with a title during
the course of our conversation,
but I will need help.
So please welcome my guests.
Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello, welcome.
Welcome all of you.
Here they are.
Beattie Edmondson.
Beattie Edmondson here has a
very embarrassing mother and was
cast adrift by her parents.
Beattie Edmondson.
David Baddiel. Delighted
to have David back.
David Baddiel has had
an edgy girlfriend.
Elis James. Nice to see you, Elis.
Elis James can recommend a very nice
B&B in Swansea and despite what the
papers say, he's good mates
with Jim Rosenthal.
And Sindhu Vee.
Sindhu Vee has some spare
Bibles if you want some.
What is that? It's a margarita.
Oh, right. So has it
got a salty rim?
You love that.
Yeah, that's all right.
Yeah, I love a salty rim. OK.
Well, they're's the title.
Just going to make a note of that.
Salty...rim.
Excellent. An excellent choice.
You're not having any sugar
other than in cocktails.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's just alcohol
because that doesn't count.
That doesn't count, that's good.
I have been on no sugar,
no wheat, no alcohol,
in my mind, in November.
But I have actually managed to not
do it even one single day.
Which I think is kind of a weird
achievement in itself.
I did Sober for October...
Does it have to be a rhyme?
Yeah, it has to be a rhyme,
otherwise you can't do it.
You forget in the morning.
Yeah. And I say...
I've got an Australian...
I've got Australian cousins and I
thought it was an Australian thing.
And I said, "Did you... Is this
right that this came from Australia,
this Sober for October?" He goes,
"Erm, we've got Dry July."
Which I thought was great.
If there is a rhyme, it's fine.
Yeah, if there's a rhyme, it's
very inspirational. So how did it
go, Sober for October?
Well, I... It was fine.
I didn't have anything to drink.
That's perfect. Well done.
And you get sponsored by people...
Oh, I thought it was by Fosters,
you were going to say.
By a soft drinks company.
Yeah. No, you get sponsored from...
To raise money for Macmillan.
And I went on... I don't go on
Twitter any more because I had
enough of it.
Yeah, rubbish. So I didn't
go on it for ages.
But I put a tweet up.
I put three tweets up during the
month which go straight from the
Sober for October website and you
click on it and it says,
"Sponsor Alan, he's going sober for
October to raise money for
Macmillan."
And I've got 800,000
Twitter followers
and I had 28 people donated money.
That's the thing about Twitter...
Is that true? And I really am
absolutely staggered.
The thing about Twitter, I have to
say, is I've got...
Not as many as you,
I've got about 500,000.
I feel like a smaller person,
as a result, but that's OK.
And you probably noticed as well,
I don't know,
you put out something on Twitter
and you say,
"I'm doing a gig somewhere."
And you think, "Well, I've got
500,000 Twitter followers, or
whatever,
"it's a venue with 300 people,
someone will turn up."
And none of them turn up.
Yeah, yeah. I think if anything, if
you put it on Twitter, people think,
"Not touching that.
It'll be a hoax."
Yeah, if he's having
to beg, let's not go.
But 28!
Out of 800,000 people.
Very obviously don't actually...
Says a lot about your fans.
Doesn't it? And also possibly about
their confidence in your ability
to keep sober.
So you didn't drink.
How did you feel, not drinking
for that length of time?
I mean I don't know how
much you drink normally.
No, in 2014, I didn't drink
for the whole year.
It was called the dry year.
Long year? You didn't drink
the whole year?
I just wanted to see if I could do
it. And you could. And I could.
I wanted to see if I could do
November, it's going really well.
Now, David Baddiel,
you had an edgy girlfriend.
Well, not really. Well, she was a
bit edgy, but she was also...
I had a girlfriend called Sarah,
this was a while back when I was
still,
you know, had young... I had
girlfriends in the old days
instead of a proper partner
like I have now.
Is Sarah her real name?
Sarah is her real name.
Do you want to take this
opportunity to change her name?
No, she'll be fine
I think with that. OK.
Also I'm not good
with changing names.
But anyway, Sarah was not
particularly edgy,
but she was not particularly up with
pop culture and I was in Dublin with
her once at a party and it was a bit
of a showbiz party because...
Well, I don't know. U2 turned up.
Maybe they turn up to every party
in Dublin, I don't know,
but U2 turned up...
They're certainly invited.
And it was exciting,
I was a big fan of U2's and I was
standing around talking to some
people
and the guitarist from U2...
The Edge. .. comes over to introduce
himself to us, to me and Sarah,
and these other people,
and he goes, "Hi, I'm The Edge."
Right. And Sarah goes,
"Pardon? What?"
And he goes, "I'm The Edge."
And Sarah goes, "Sorry,
what was your name again?"
It's fascinating that, because of
course if you don't know who he is,
it's not a name, it's an abstract
geometrical concept, isn't it?
Not a name. So he goes
really, really red.
All right, I'm The Side.
Yeah. He goes really, really red
and he starts going,
"Well, my real name is David Evans,
but people call me The Edge."
It's incredibly embarrassing.
So I sort of led her away just to
get away from the situation and I
said to her, "Sorry, did you really
not know who that was?"
And she said, "Well, I could tell it
was a rock and roll kind of guy
"which is why I thought it was odd
he was saying his name was Reg."
So, yeah. Reg!
We left the party soon afterwards.
It was very, very awkward.
It's weird going out with someone
who doesn't know the stuff you know.
Yes. You're right.
I don't know what Isy, my
girlfriend, was doing in the '90s,
but she doesn't... She doesn't seem
to remember any of it.
And we watched...
How old is your girlfriend?
Cos you are a comedian,
I don't know how old you are.
No, no, no, she's two years
older than I am,
so she's the perfect age for that to
be the decade she reminisces about.
And we watched Supersonic, the Oasis
film, the other day and she was
like,
"So, which one's Liam
and which one's Noel?
"Does Noel write all the songs?"
"Yes!" How does she not know?
Yeah, exactly. Well, she
just wasn't interested.
And she doesn't know anything
about sport and we watched
When We Were Kings
and Muhammad Ali was giving
some amazing press conference
and he was being really funny.
She was like, "This guy's...
"Does he have writers?
This guy's hilarious."
Surely there's a whole other '90s
she experienced that she reminisces
about that you know nothing about.
Yeah. I was just sort of...
I don't know what she was doing.
She was just like...
Took a lot of acid.
Yeah. In the wrong decade.
She didn't watch any telly and so a
lot of her cultural references
are very Derbyshire-based.
What is something in common you have
with your girlfriend from the '90s
as a memory?
Erm... Anything?
She worked in a pub during Euro '96
and is aware there was
a football tournament going on.
But I don't think she'd recognise...
I don't think she'd be able to tell
the difference between football and
rugby. So when I...
Is there something wrong
with your girlfriend?
I was going to say.
But I'm really into...
I'm really into football and
when Wales qualified for
the European Championships,
they qualified on the Saturday,
but they were still playing on...
They were playing Andorra
on the Tuesday and she said,
"So now they've qualified,
is that game still going to go on?"
I was like, "Yes, it just..."
And she was like, "Why, if it's
qualified? If it's all done and
dusted,
"why don't they just
have the night off?"
It's a good point.
I can't explain it!
So then you're like,
"Well, cos they've sold tickets.
"People have made arrangements."
Which is not a good enough...
And then trying to explain to her,
"I will definitely be out
for the first three games,
"but there might be a fourth
depending on how the first three go.
"And I'll probably be able to tell
after the second game if there'll be
"a fourth, but not for definite
until after the third.
"And there might be a fifth,
but that's depending on..."
The vagaries of the group system
are very difficult to explain.
I was working with your...
girlfriend at the time and I could
tell that she didn't have
a fucking clue what was going on.
And all that was concerned...
Every day, I'd say, "Is Elis at home
or not at home?"
She'd say, "Well, I don't know
what's happening.
"He says he might be home,
he might not.
"He's trying to get a ticket.
"He keeps ringing..." This is the
thing that made me laugh.
You were working with her
at the time? Yes, on Damned.
Oh, who is she? Isy Suttie.
Oh, it's Isy Suttie! Oh, right,
well, it's all become clear now.
She said, "Elis has just called me
from France and demanded I book him
a Eurostar ticket."
That is what you kept doing.
She... After Wales beat Russia 3-0
in the greatest performance in Welsh
history, she texted me about a
minute after it had finished with,
"Wow, well done, congratulations!"
And about 40 champagne-cork-popping
emojis and I thought,
"The dam's broken. She likes...
"She likes football." And I called
her up and I said, "Wow, did you
watch it?" And she said,
"No, Dan told me."
Like she... It just didn't mean
anything to her at all.
How did you... What's your...?
What's your...? Sorry, Sindhu.
What's your Jim Rosenthal
connection?
Oh, yeah. Well, right...
ITV legend.
My dad's a very aspirational man.
And he always said,
"You need to aim for the stars."
So we were on holiday in Bristol
and Dad...
Good start. Yeah.
Didn't get far out of Wales,
did you?
Over the bridge, "This'll do"!
And Dad said... We were all very
little, Dad said, "Right, we'll go
"to the best hotel for breakfast
because there's bound to be
"someone from Hollywood in and then
we can meet and mingle cos you're
"never going to get these
opportunities in Wales.
"This only happens in Bristol."
So we went to a nice...
Had he heard of London?
So we went to a nice hotel
for breakfast and sure enough,
Jim Rosenthal was there. Hollywood.
And I was a huge sports fan
and I was seven or eight,
so I was massively starstruck.
And my dad was like, "This is it!
"This is the opportunity
I was telling you about!
"You go right up to him, introduce
yourself, ask him for work
experience.
"When you're 18, you could
be doing the FA Cup,
"you could be
commentating alongside him."
And I was like,
"I can't do it, Dad."
And my mum was like,
"Oh, don't push him, he's nervous."
Dad was like, "He's not going to get
this opportunity in Carmarthen,
come on!"
So I sort of split the difference.
I just went up to him and watched
him eat his breakfast like that.
Practically crying.
So my dad was just like, "Go on!
"Tell him how much... Tell him you
get good marks at school."
And I was like... So I watched him
eat his breakfast.
He ate his breakfast.
Didn't seem to mind that there was a
seven-year-old boy there, in his...
Well, not in his
peripheral vision - there.
So I watched him like that and then
he finished his breakfast and left.
And then about 20 years later
I was in Las Vegas
watching Joe Calzaghe box.
And we managed to sneak into the
aftershow thing and there were all
these Hollywood stars there.
My friends had their photos
taken with Robert De Niro
and Bruce Willis,
but Jim Rosenthal was there and I
was drunk and I went up to him
and I said, "Jim, in 1998
in a Crest Hotel in Bristol,
"you allowed me to watch you
eat a fry up."
And he said,
"Sounds about right to me."
Great, great. Great response.
I'm not sure he could have
stopped you, really.
So then a couple years later,
I was doing Edinburgh and...
The Edinburgh Festival and I had
material about how much I liked
Jim Rosenthal and unbeknownst to me,
his son Tom Rosenthal is a comedian,
he's in things like
Friday Night Dinner and Plebs.
And Tom came to see my show
and obviously the last 20 minutes
was about his dad,
which came as a surprise.
So we met after the gig
and then he told his father, Jim,
and I didn't realise.
The last light of Edinburgh,
I walk into the venue and the
bouncer calls me up and he's like,
SCOTTISH ACCENT: "You need to
rewrite your show, mate, cos Jim
Rosenthal's just bought a ticket.
"He's sat right in the back row."
So I initially considered not doing
the stuff cos I thought it would
be too awkward. And I talked to a
few of my friends and they said,
"You've got to do it,
just to see what happens."
So I told the routine and right at
the end, he stood up and went,
"What I don't like being
is misrepresented."
But he's been on telly for 40 years,
so everyone recognised him,
everyone recognised his voice
from the darkness apart from
a South African stag do who like...
SOUTH AFRICAN ACCENT:
"Some old guy's gone mental,
I don't understand.
"Somebody call security,
I don't like it."
I said, "Is that Jim Rosenthal?
"Can I have the
house lights up, please?"
And he was so playful
and he was such fun.
So he heckled me a bit
and we had a bit of, you know,
repartee, and it was really...
And his wife was like,
"Oh, my God, Jim!
Why did you have to do this?"
But it was really good fun
and it was really good-natured.
We had a drink after and it was
an absolute joy to meet him
for a third time.
If you can count the first one.
You know, you're sort of mates
by now really.
Yeah. But what I didn't realise
and neither did Jim is that it was
press night, so the Daily Mail
and The Independent reviewed it
and completely got the wrong end of
the stick and the Daily Mail
the next day was,
"Red-faced Jim Rosenthal
was humiliated..."
And it wasn't that at all,
it was a really fun thing
that the Daily Mail misinterpreted.
David Baddiel!
I used to be a waitress, believe it
or not, cos I'm an actress
and that's what we do. Of course.
And I used to work for a company
that sort of sends you out to
different events.
And I got sent to this event
for a charity because that's when
rich people need an excuse
to get drunk,
they have charity events.
And I really recognised the name
of the charity, I was like,
"Oh, this is really ringing
some bad bells for me."
And then I realised that my mum was
a patron of this charity thing that
I was waitressing at and I
hadn't told anyone I worked with
that my mum was Jennifer Saunders.
My mum's Jennifer Saunders, guys.
So I texted her, I was like, "Are
you coming to this thing?" And she
was like, "Yeah, I'm coming."
And I was like, "OK, well, when you
see me just pretend not to know
"who I am, please.
"Cos all my cool waitressing
friends don't know who you are."
And she was like, "OK, will do."
And then got there
and sort of stared at me.
Just sort of sat there
in the corner going...
And I was like, "OK, OK."
Just trying to go about my job
and then she came over and went,
"Can I at least give you a hug?"
And I was like, "Fine,
just do it like in a corner."
But then like everyone saw and then
afterwards someone came up to me
and was like, "So your mum's
Jennifer Saunders?"
I was like, "Yeah." And they were
like, "Is that why
you got this job?"
I was like, "No. If I was going
to ask my mum for my job,
"I wouldn't ask for a
waitressing job, probably."
I mean, I would have asked for a
part in one of her famous sitcoms,
maybe.
Which I did almost get a part in.
Basically I used to be in a
sketch group and we all got parts
in these AbFab specials.
Like, speaking roles.
And all the girls had done their
parts and it was time for my scene
and I showed up and I looked
at the script, I was like,
"Oh. I mean, they're's nothing for
me on it yet, but when I get there,
"I bet she'll write some cool lines
for her daughter."
And then I got there and she was
like, "Oh, I was thinking you could
be a waitress..."
Cos I know you can do that.
Yeah, I've seen you do that.
You're good at it.
And she was like, "Do some funny
waitress stuff in the background."
I was like, "Cool, cool."
And then it sort of... The day went
on and sort of time ran out
and Stella McCartney at one point
came over to me and said,
"Oh, are you the head extra?"
And I was like, "Yeah.
"Yeah, I am." And then when it came
to sort of viewing the episodes,
I saw my friends sort of get these
really cool speaking parts and you
saw the back of my head just for a
second in one scene and that was it.
But were you doing funny
waitress stuff at the time?
I was trying,
but I wasn't on camera.
You know, the funny waitress thing
you're supposed to do is come out
the door
and as you get to the table,
spill the soup all over the floor.
Oh, shit. That always works. Oh, my
God, I should have done that. Why
didn't I think about it at the time?
I think your mum did the right thing
because you are like...
In the first part, you are like, "I
don't want my friends to know that
you're my mum,
"so keep your distance." And then
in the sitcom, she was like,
"Here's your distance. You're a
nobody." That's the distance.
I think your mum did the right...
She gave you what you wanted.
Yeah. I mean, she can't be
accused of nepotism. For sure.
Or even not listening to you.
She listened and then
she did the thing.
Was your...? Your dad of
course is Adrian Edmondson.
Yes. So is he any better
in this kind of situation?
Are you able to say to your
waitress...
"My dad is Adrian Edmondson?"
Even though you can't...
Don't want to talk about the fact
your mum's Jennifer Saunders?
Well, I wouldn't mention
either of them,
but I bet he would be better at
accepting that and sort of taking
a...
Cos he's always like, "Oh, I
don't want to tread on your shoes,
"I don't want to..." "I don't
want to tread on your shoes?"
Toes.
That drink is a good drink.
Yeah, it's a really good drink.
Really solid drink. She probably
just hadn't written it.
Yeah, no, she hadn't.
She probably...
Cos I remember...
Oh, shit, I was supposed to write
something really cool... My kid!
It's the last thing on my mind.
But she used to leave things so to
the last minute that when we were
kids,
she used to dictate scenes
to us in the car from AbFab.
Isn't that the famous thing
about your mum? Is basically she
writes stuff on the day?
So she would go into meetings
with something that I'd written.
In crayon. Yeah.
And then Joanna says, "Fuck off."
That's perfect. So she's saying the
lines while she is driving?
While she's driving. She saying
write this down, write this down.
And you're writing in crayon? Cos
you can't be trusted with sharp...
Or you're a small person.
I think I was about ten.
You were about ten but
still only with crayons...
You know what, I think that's
fabulous... Absolutely fabulous.
Look at that.
Here's the thing. I drive my kids to
school and my daughter, when she was
ten, she's little older now,
used to sit in the front and the
little one would sit in the back
cos you can't have them together
cos they just kill each other.
Oh, sure. You know you get text
messages in the morning about school
stuff,
like some mum will say, "Does
your kid have my kid's sweater,"
or whatever.
So this one would text.
I would drive and I'd be like go
into my contacts, find so and so,
and then once I had an argument
with my husband, I was so furious,
"I'm going to text your father."
I was like, what can I say
that can kind of be coded,
like not upset her too much but
enough to get it out of my system,
so I wrote to him, "I will call a,"
then I said, "Put a capital L
and a full stop."
Lawyer, obviously.
And she was like, "What's an L?"
And I'm like, "Oh, it's this thing
that on your wedding anniversary
"you get an L," and then I felt very
guilty, what if she figured out it
was a lawyer?
I'm not divorced.
No-one could figure that out!
Could! Could!
"I will call a L."
You just said,
"L - a lawyer, obviously."
I don't know, I had no idea.
That was my guilty conscience.
What you've written there is,
"I will call Al."
I thought you were doing
a Paul Simon song.
But that's so good,
it makes me feel much better.
No need for... You can call Al,
I will call Al.
Yes, exactly. Are you
married to Paul Simon?
No, but I think your mum was
totally right to do that,
to have your kids collaborate
with you in all possible ways.
It's about the fact that kids take a
while to sort of understand adult
things. My daughter is 15 now but I
remember when she was about three,
she used to call me daddy but then
every so often she would hear people
calling me David and that would
confuse her and she would call me
David
and then once this very embarrassing
thing happened which was,
I was taking her for a walk
on Hampstead Heath
and it was a very hot day
and there were lots of people on the
Heath and she had to go for a wee.
So I have to take her into the men's
toilet even though she was a girl,
I took her to the men's toilet,
I had to barge through all of these
men in the toilet, get her into the
cubicle, I pull her pants down and
that's the moment she chooses to go,
"David Baddiel!"
Honestly, I could feel
all the men outside thinking,
"That's not her father.
Call the police."
I could see your back skin!
Oh, my God, what a business idea.
So, Sindhu, tell me about
your spare... Actually no,
it's only a joke for me that makes
me laugh because the producer's
always saying to me,
"Stop saying 'tell me about'
"before every single
person's story that you go to.
"You always say,
'Tell me about your thing.'"
And when they come to do the edit,
it's just me saying, "Tell me,"
about 85 times in a row.
So find another way...
It's hard to know what else to say
though if you want someone
tell you a story.
Would you like to
extrapolate on something...
Watch this...
Why've you got spare Bibles?
Brilliant.
Brilliant, what a segue.
What a glimpse behind
the magician's cloth.
Well, so, I...
This was a while back, I was at
university in Canada and my mother
came from India over the summer and
I used to teach undergrad classes.
She came so that she
could get me married off,
as an Indian mother it's like her
lifelong aim and I was already in my
mid 20s
so I was really over the hill
in her opinion.
Well on the shelf.
What happened, every day she would
come to the park in the middle of
campus with my lunch.
One day I came for this lunch
and she was opening the lunch
and there were these
six little books,
like very beautiful, blue,
and they were embossed with gold
and there was a little stack of
them. And I said, "What's that?"
And my mother said,
"Oh, it's books."
Which immediately put me on edge
because I know it's books.
I immediately know she doesn't
want to tell me, I say,
"Well, whose books are these?"
She says, "It's Bibles, you know."
"What do you mean, it's Bibles?"
She said, "One lady came and
gave me," which is a total lie.
I immediately know
my mother is lying.
I'm like, "OK, I'm not going to eat
this lunch until you tell me what
happened." And here's what happened.
She said, "I was sitting
in the park."
This is exactly how my mother
speaks. I can't talk about my mother
without speaking like her,
cos she's in my head. I like it.
So she said,
"I was sitting there and one lady
came behind and said to one man,
"'Do you know Jesus died
for our sins, can I discuss?'
"He said, 'No, please go away.'
"Then she went to another couple
and said, 'Do you know Jesus?'
"So obviously a Jehovah's Witness.
"'Do you know Jesus died for our
sins?'" And she said, "I felt really
bad for the lady,
"no-one wants to talk to her
and the story is so sad also."
So I said...
It is a sad story.
Although there's a twist,
which is quite happy afterwards.
But not if, as my mother says, "It's
OK, he came back for everybody,
"but his mother, poor mother,
Mary had to look."
She's very... This story really has
always bothered my mother a lot,
just like the literal version.
Yeah. So anyway, finally, she said,
"The lady came towards me
but then she saw my face."
My mother... We are Hindus, she's
got the full-on...
This thing, this thing, you know.
"She looked at me, but she was
very courageous, she came to me
"and she said, 'Excuse me,
can I talk to you?'
"And I said to her, 'Yes, but only
if I can tell you one thing.'
"She said, 'What?' And I said,
'Do you know Jesus died for our
sins?'
"And the lady started crying."
No shit, she started crying because
this was like the best thing
that had happened to her
her whole life.
Yeah. So they got into this big
conversation and this and that,
and then my mum said, "Then she gave
me and said, 'Please take this,'
"and I said, 'No, I have no money.'
She said, 'No, it's free.'"
It is impossible for me to overstate
what the sentence, "This is free,"
will do to my mother.
Free shit. So she was like,
"It's a free Bible."
And she said, "I immediately thought
of all the poor people in India
"who don't have Bibles, so I
said to her, 'Can I have more?'
"I have to go to India
and make people Christians.'"
Can you imagine?
So this lady was like,
"I have five more, here."
Then she said, but, you know,
"Can I help you more?"
And then my mother said,
"I told her, 'Yes, please,
I would like 50.'"
50. Because it's free!
And there are 50 poor
Christians in India for sure.
Yeah. Well, yeah. And my mum
intended to give these out.
There's a place in Delhi
called the Free Church.
So I said, "Well, OK,"
and I was uncomfortable.
She said, "But, so, you know,
tomorrow morning..."
I'm like, "What do you mean?
Is she coming to our house?
"Or my apartment?"
She said, "I know you'll have this
kind of unfriendly reaction."
And I'm like, "I don't want you to
give my address to a
Jehovah's Witness
"as like a major Christian person."
I'm not any kind of Christian,
first of all.
She said, "No, no. I have told her
that she must give me the delivery
"of the Bibles secretly."
I said, "Well, how did you
convince her?" She said,
"I told her, you see,
"I'm living in the house of a very
intolerant, fascist Hindu lady."
What?
I was like, "What are you
talking...?" She said, "By the way,
"it's you." I'm like, "I know that.
There's only two of us in that
flat."
But she said, "In order to
get the Bibles secretly,
"so she doesn't come to the house,
when she rings the door bell,
"you must loudly start
chanting in the next room."
I was like, sorry, I was like,
"Mum, are you stealing?"
She said, "No, I'm giving to the
poor. It's already free. You can't
steal free things."
So I really didn't know how to get
out of it. I thought, it's a good
cause,
and this lady showed up at eight in
the morning and rang the door bell.
My mother said, "Go and chant,
go and chant."
So I went in the next room and she
said, "Do a loud Ganesha chant."
So I did. I literally
sat in the room going...
SHE CHANTS
And she opened the door and quickly
took these Bibles and then finally
she said, "OK, she's gone. Come out.
Shall we go for breakfast?"
After stealing Bibles off this
poor lady - which, by the way,
she did give away to
50 people in the future.
That's good. That's not
really stealing, is it?
Has she ever come to a gig of yours?
Yes, she has. And I told her when...
Laugh!
Go on! No, I said to her... Does she
get furious if it doesn't go well?
No, no. Well, I had one
terrible gig.
It was the only gig my father's come
to. My father is a very erudite,
scholarly, south Indian man,
very few words,
very wise man. And I said to him one
day, "I'm going to do a gig."
And he doesn't understand why I gig,
but he's fine with it.
Anyway, I was in Delhi and we went.
It was a lot of people and literally
people were not just not laughing,
they were talking to each other,
they were on their phone.
They didn't like my material
because it was like, not brazen,
but I wasn't sort of
pandering to some... Whatever.
And my mother had been to other gigs
of mine. My father sat through this
and, when we were leaving,
he looked at me and he said,
"Child, I don't think
they quite understood
"your elevated sense of humour."
Aww. That's beautiful.
And as we were stepping out of the
restaurant, my mother said...
And how do I translate this?
Well, you don't have to put it in.
But she said,
"These, erm...
"These poxed puppies
of leprous bitches...
"..they have no sense of humour,
I spit on them."
And she spat in the restaurant
and said, "Ha!"
And I was like... I felt very good,
actually, because that's how I felt.
And we left. That is typical of my
life, my father and my mother,
but she was so furious
that they haven't laughed,
she called them the poxed
puppies of leprous bitches.
I'm just impressed you
translated that. That's amazing.
Because we think in two languages.
That's the title in a nutshell.
No, but she was furious.
Whereas my father was like,
"It's OK, and have understanding."
..leprous bitches...
I did five minutes
at the Comedy Store.
I did five minutes at the
Comedy Store for the first time.
My dad was in London, so he came,
and he was really, really nervous.
He hadn't, on my behalf,
but he hadn't been out properly
for years and years, I don't think.
So he arrived before I did.
Can I just clarify? Out properly?
As in he hadn't been on
the sort of... On the piss.
He hadn't been out, he hadn't
been drinking for years.
As in, he drinks in the house.
Oh, he drinks in the house.
Yeah, but not in pubs and stuff.
He doesn't go out very much.
And so...
He was on it. He was giddy.
And obviously the Comedy Store
is big and busy.
I turned up and he went,
"Are you on this?"
And I said, "Yeah."
He went, "Oh, this Comedy Store!
"I think it's really
going to catch on.
"There must be 400 people here.
"They're all drinking,
they've all paid £20 a ticket.
"There's a licence to print
money in this comedy."
I said, "Well, it's
been going for 30 years."
"30 years?!" And then a girl walked
past in a backless dress
and he went,
"I can see her back skin!"
What the hell is a girl's back skin?
And it was like
too much for him to take.
He was like, "I mean, they must be
making a fortune on the bar.
"Are the comedians being paid?"
"Yeah, yeah." "Oh, my God.
What a business idea!
"This comedy's really
going to catch on!"
I can see her back skin?
He'd never heard of comedy or backs.
That's amazing.
You are in room number one,
ground floor.
He opened the door and it was like,
Oh, fucking hell, Prince!
Prince was there as well?
Basically, my dad loves sailing and
he loves sailing so much that even
though his whole family
hates sailing,
he made us go on a sailing holiday
around the Greek islands.
It doesn't sound so bad.
No. Apart from...
Why do...? This is your mum and
there are three daughters...
Yeah, three daughters.
So none of you like...
No. What is it, you don't like the
boat or you don't like all the
stuff?
Does he make you do stuff?
Yeah, basically, he gets very angry.
He's basically...
I have memories... This is brilliant
comedian Adrian Edmondson we're
talking about.
I'm seeing him as Vyvyan,
except on a boat.
Yeah. I mean, he's very much
mellowed with age but, when we were
kids,
he was basically Basil Fawlty.
Like, he was just annoyed.
I mean, to be fair to him... Kids
are annoying when you are a dad
though. Kids are really annoying.
We were always arguing.
I got really badly seasick and my
older sister basically hates boats
and has panic attacks.
So, like, every time the boat moved,
she was like, "What's that?
"What does that mean?
What's going on?"
Did he take you on boats when you
were young to try and...?
Yeah, yeah. And it just
backfired completely.
He tried, he really tried.
And my mum sort of sits there with a
glass of champagne, thinking she is,
you know... Sunglasses.
Yeah, yeah, shawl.
But, erm...
Sailing in Greece, and there was
this one time it was particularly
bad,
we were trying to park the ship.
Is that what you do?
Yeah, it's called something else.
Something else.
Was there a meter?
Yeah! But it's basically parking.
It is parking.
Trying to parallel park a ship.
CAH. Yeah.
But, we are having great difficulty
in this little Greek town.
You are in a town?
Parking, aren't they?
It's a car park.
Yeah, but you want to be
in a harbour.
Yeah, that's it,
that's the word, harbour.
And it was becoming
increasingly difficult.
It was taking quite a while, and Dad
was sort of trying to keep the...
Are you trying to get
between two boats?
Yeah, yeah. Backing in?
Trying to back in.
It's just car words, isn't it?
All we know is car words -
backing in, parking.
We're trying to reverse
the boat into a parking space.
Sort of, as it went on
and as more shouting happened,
more and more townspeople
sort of migrated to the harbour.
You know, there's all the
restaurants on the seafront
and everyone's just turning around,
going, "Oh, what's going on?"
And, erm...
So he sort of gave up and drove back
into the bay and somehow released...
Drove back!
Yeah, drove. Took the handbrake off.
What he needed was a boat
and not a car.
That would have made it
all much easier.
Wait, he's in charge.
He's doing the steering,
the reversing.
I mean, the rest of you,
what is he expecting you to do?
Er, I mean, I don't know.
To this day. One of you has
got to leap ashore with a rope.
Yeah, and go and wind some sails in.
Sails, sails. Take the sails down.
But then we went back into the
harbour and somehow he released the
anchor,
but then reversed back
over the anchor,
which then went round the propeller
of the engine, so the boat stopped,
and my mum was like, "I'll sort it
out," put a knife between her teeth,
sort of dove in. Really?
If you can imagine.
Jennifer Saunders had a knife
between her teeth...
Erm, yeah.
Are you not making it up? She
actually put a knife between her
teeth and dived into the harbour?
Is this a dream? I can imagine!
I think it's a cartoon, isn't it?
Great mind. I think
I can visualise it.
I was quite young, but I have an
image of her with goggles on and a
knife.
At least you have it
with a knife in her hand.
Yeah, yeah. And she goes down and
was cutting the rope off the
propeller.
Oh, my God. And the
propeller was... The engine...
Still going? Still going.
What could possibly go wrong?
It went off, but she wasn't hurt,
amazingly, but the boat
zoomed forward into another boat,
and this sort of Greek man
came out, was really very angry.
Yeah.
But this whole time, I for some
reason had been in a dinghy,
holding on to the back of the boat,
and at this point I had let go
and then was sort of cast adrift,
sort of sailing into the sea.
Which was... It doesn't sound to me
like your father should be in charge
of any vehicle whatsoever.
This sounds like a
health and safety video,
of things that could go wrong.
It's amazing, that bit about your
mum diving down to get the...
I know! I mean... The engine's
still going as well!
He knows about boats.
He knows about boats, Adrian.
He's a lot better now... Did he know
how to turn off the boat at that
point?
Cos that's the thing to do.
Yeah. I mean, I think he was just...
It was the whole stress
of everyone's watching.
I think. Yeah, cos he's not used to
everyone watching, Adrian Edmondson.
It's just his first
bad gig for years.
Also, I think, if you're on a boat
no-one wants to be there with your
family and the panic
gets very quick very fast.
Had he been drinking?
No! No. No.
Was he trying to kill his wife?
Mum's down by the propeller...
HE IMITATES PROPELLER
No. I mean, it got to point
where, maybe...
What age were you when you
were adrift in the harbour?
I think I was about 11.
How long were you adrift for?
I wasn't adrift... I didn't have
a paddle or an engine,
so I was literally just...
But someone came out to try
and get me in their dinghy
and then there engine
ran out of petrol.
So, there was two dinghies just
adrift in this harbour.
But I think I did get
rescued eventually.
I think you did, yes.
I'm guessing...
Yeah. Yeah, I did.
Wow. And your mum didn't
freak out during all this?
No, I don't think so.
She's quite chilled.
She's quite chilled!
Well, that's very cool. Bye!
Yeah. Oh, wow, so no more
boating trips then?
Was she shouting out scripts,
meanwhile, while she was in the sea?
Write them down, in crayon,
in between the propeller...
As I'm drifting away!
Charlie says, "Fuck off!"
Was this a boat
that you'd chartered?
Yeah. That's the word.
That is the correct word, isn't it?
The first correct word we've used.
It wasn't hired.
Yeah. So, did you get into trouble
for losing the anchor?
Smashing the front up? Probably,
yes. My dad really doesn't like
to talk about it and he's
probably really going to hate
that I'm telling it
on this show but...
I bet he lost his deposit. Yeah.
Yeah.
What I like about it is it's one of
my favourite things that your father
did was The Dangerous Brothers.
Oh, yeah. Do you remember?
They used to ride around
on a bicycle...
Yeah, it was brilliant. "Sir Adrian
Dangerous will now do a stunt."
He'd ride around on a push-bike
going, "I have no brakes!"
"I have no brakes!"
If he'd just done it as
the Dangerous Brothers,
he could have pulled it all off
as a comedy routine.
Now, Elis, this B&B in Swansea,
of which you speak.
Oh, yeah. I was doing a gig in
Swansea and they provided a hotel,
but it wasn't the nicest.
It was quite a cheap B&B.
I think I was the only resident.
So, when I turned up, the guy
in like, tracksuit bottoms.
He was... "Right then...
"you're in room number one!
"Ground floor." And he opened the
door and there was a dog in my bed.
So I opened the door and
I thought...
And he comes in, he's like,
"Yeah, we do a breakfast..."
And he saw it and was, like,
"Oh, fucking hell, Prince!"
Prince was there as well?
Oh, no!
"Oh, bloody hell!"
But the dog was tucked in.
Dogs can't tuck themselves in.
No. That is one of the things
about them.
So this dog's...
And he's, like, "God! The state
of this! Bloody hell, Prince!"
So he's trying to shoo the dog out.
The dog gets out of bed but the
dog is faster than the man,
so he's running rings round him.
So he's trying to chase him.
"Fuck off out of the room, then,
"I've got someone staying!"
So, he's chasing the dog and the dog
is literally running rings round
this guy.
So, eventually, he gets rid
of the dog and he says,
"You're not allergic, are you?"
I said, "Not really."
"Thank fuck for that, then."
So, that's it. So, I go and do the
show and I come back and I realise
I've forgotten my toothpaste.
So, I ring the bell at reception
and he comes down, like,
in his dressing gown.
And I said, "Have you
got any toothpaste?"
And he went, "What?"
I said "I've forgotten
my toothpaste.
"Do you sell those little
tubes of toothpaste?"
He went, "You've forgotten
your toothpaste?"
I said, "Yeah." And he went...
HE SIGHS
"Give me your brush!"
Really? So I went back to my room
and I produced my brush.
He said, "Right then."
Then he comes back with it in
his pocket with a little pea-sized
lump of toothpaste
on the toothbrush.
And he went, "Same arrangement
in the morning?"
Thank you. Thank you.
And did you have to sleep in that
bed the dog had been in?
I did sleep in the bed, yeah.
Did it smell? It did, yes.
But I wasn't paying for the hotel
and I didn't feel able to complain.
Couldn't you...
Why? I'd have said,
"Can I have a look at room two?"
Yeah! No, I just thought that was...
Once you get to a certain
level of being a comedian,
they put you up in nicer hotels.
Whereas, with the B&Bs, you don't
know what you're going to get.
I stayed in a B&B in Preston.
I got told off for not clearing my
plate over breakfast.
"You don't like beans, do you?"
I said, "Well, I do a bit."
"That's a lot of beans gone to
waste, thank you very much."
You just think, "It's a bit
full-on, this, isn't it?"
I remember once being at a B&B...
Customer service! ..on tour.
I was there for two nights.
And the first breakfast,
the coffee was so weak,
it was basically just water.
And, so, I said, the next day,
"Would you mind,
"can I have a slightly
stronger cup of coffee?"
And it came back with what I would
say was one more grain in it.
And the bloke put it down and said,
"You could stand your spoon
up in that."
But you're right. B&Bs, they're
not... You do graduate from them.
I once stayed in a B&B and we
requested a room for four people
and they, basically, pushed
two double beds together.
Like they were expecting us
to have some sort of...
orgy in this, sort of,
four-person...
Cos you're a four-person
sketch group?
Well, we were a sketch group,
plus our techie.
So, you will slept
in the same big double...
Yeah! Was Prince there,
by any chance?
Did you see Prince
at all, after that?
Or did you not call him,
or anything?
You know, he was hanging around.
I felt we'd bonded a bit
but he wasn't interested.
But he was under the duvet.
That's the great thing.
Just his head poking out.
I love that. I love that.
Well, we should wrap this up.
I have to come up with a title.
I've been given some suggestions.
Intolerant Fascist Hindu Lady,
I quite liked.
Hi, I'm The Edge,
is another good option.
I Love A Salty Room.
I Love A Salty Room.
I Love
A Salty Room.
Yeah, I do.
I also quite like Prince In
The Duvet as a possible one.
Ooh! Prince In The Duvet.
Same Arrangement In The Morning?
Very good. Same arrangement
in the morning.
Oh, yeah. Back Skin is one, as well.
I can see her back skin.
I think I know what I'm going to do.
Anyway, please, everyone,
thank by guests.
Beatty Edmondson.
David Baddiel. David.
Elis Jones. Sindhu Vee.
I'm Alan Davies and
you've been watching
The Poxed Puppies
Of Leprous Bitches.
Subtitles by Ericsson
of London's West End.
That's what commentators say when
something very exciting's about to
happen on television.
I'm in it to win it.
I hope you like hot chat.
Oh, my God, how cold is it outside?
Is there any drinks?
This is a game show, right?
Yeah.
APPLAUSE
Hello. Welcome to As Yet Untitled.
I'm Alan Davies, this is the show
which has no title, no topics,
no agenda, no plans, no prepared
introduction, no autocue,
which is something I must
talk to them about.
We will come up with a title during
the course of our conversation,
but I will need help.
So please welcome my guests.
Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello, welcome.
Welcome all of you.
Here they are.
Beattie Edmondson.
Beattie Edmondson here has a
very embarrassing mother and was
cast adrift by her parents.
Beattie Edmondson.
David Baddiel. Delighted
to have David back.
David Baddiel has had
an edgy girlfriend.
Elis James. Nice to see you, Elis.
Elis James can recommend a very nice
B&B in Swansea and despite what the
papers say, he's good mates
with Jim Rosenthal.
And Sindhu Vee.
Sindhu Vee has some spare
Bibles if you want some.
What is that? It's a margarita.
Oh, right. So has it
got a salty rim?
You love that.
Yeah, that's all right.
Yeah, I love a salty rim. OK.
Well, they're's the title.
Just going to make a note of that.
Salty...rim.
Excellent. An excellent choice.
You're not having any sugar
other than in cocktails.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's just alcohol
because that doesn't count.
That doesn't count, that's good.
I have been on no sugar,
no wheat, no alcohol,
in my mind, in November.
But I have actually managed to not
do it even one single day.
Which I think is kind of a weird
achievement in itself.
I did Sober for October...
Does it have to be a rhyme?
Yeah, it has to be a rhyme,
otherwise you can't do it.
You forget in the morning.
Yeah. And I say...
I've got an Australian...
I've got Australian cousins and I
thought it was an Australian thing.
And I said, "Did you... Is this
right that this came from Australia,
this Sober for October?" He goes,
"Erm, we've got Dry July."
Which I thought was great.
If there is a rhyme, it's fine.
Yeah, if there's a rhyme, it's
very inspirational. So how did it
go, Sober for October?
Well, I... It was fine.
I didn't have anything to drink.
That's perfect. Well done.
And you get sponsored by people...
Oh, I thought it was by Fosters,
you were going to say.
By a soft drinks company.
Yeah. No, you get sponsored from...
To raise money for Macmillan.
And I went on... I don't go on
Twitter any more because I had
enough of it.
Yeah, rubbish. So I didn't
go on it for ages.
But I put a tweet up.
I put three tweets up during the
month which go straight from the
Sober for October website and you
click on it and it says,
"Sponsor Alan, he's going sober for
October to raise money for
Macmillan."
And I've got 800,000
Twitter followers
and I had 28 people donated money.
That's the thing about Twitter...
Is that true? And I really am
absolutely staggered.
The thing about Twitter, I have to
say, is I've got...
Not as many as you,
I've got about 500,000.
I feel like a smaller person,
as a result, but that's OK.
And you probably noticed as well,
I don't know,
you put out something on Twitter
and you say,
"I'm doing a gig somewhere."
And you think, "Well, I've got
500,000 Twitter followers, or
whatever,
"it's a venue with 300 people,
someone will turn up."
And none of them turn up.
Yeah, yeah. I think if anything, if
you put it on Twitter, people think,
"Not touching that.
It'll be a hoax."
Yeah, if he's having
to beg, let's not go.
But 28!
Out of 800,000 people.
Very obviously don't actually...
Says a lot about your fans.
Doesn't it? And also possibly about
their confidence in your ability
to keep sober.
So you didn't drink.
How did you feel, not drinking
for that length of time?
I mean I don't know how
much you drink normally.
No, in 2014, I didn't drink
for the whole year.
It was called the dry year.
Long year? You didn't drink
the whole year?
I just wanted to see if I could do
it. And you could. And I could.
I wanted to see if I could do
November, it's going really well.
Now, David Baddiel,
you had an edgy girlfriend.
Well, not really. Well, she was a
bit edgy, but she was also...
I had a girlfriend called Sarah,
this was a while back when I was
still,
you know, had young... I had
girlfriends in the old days
instead of a proper partner
like I have now.
Is Sarah her real name?
Sarah is her real name.
Do you want to take this
opportunity to change her name?
No, she'll be fine
I think with that. OK.
Also I'm not good
with changing names.
But anyway, Sarah was not
particularly edgy,
but she was not particularly up with
pop culture and I was in Dublin with
her once at a party and it was a bit
of a showbiz party because...
Well, I don't know. U2 turned up.
Maybe they turn up to every party
in Dublin, I don't know,
but U2 turned up...
They're certainly invited.
And it was exciting,
I was a big fan of U2's and I was
standing around talking to some
people
and the guitarist from U2...
The Edge. .. comes over to introduce
himself to us, to me and Sarah,
and these other people,
and he goes, "Hi, I'm The Edge."
Right. And Sarah goes,
"Pardon? What?"
And he goes, "I'm The Edge."
And Sarah goes, "Sorry,
what was your name again?"
It's fascinating that, because of
course if you don't know who he is,
it's not a name, it's an abstract
geometrical concept, isn't it?
Not a name. So he goes
really, really red.
All right, I'm The Side.
Yeah. He goes really, really red
and he starts going,
"Well, my real name is David Evans,
but people call me The Edge."
It's incredibly embarrassing.
So I sort of led her away just to
get away from the situation and I
said to her, "Sorry, did you really
not know who that was?"
And she said, "Well, I could tell it
was a rock and roll kind of guy
"which is why I thought it was odd
he was saying his name was Reg."
So, yeah. Reg!
We left the party soon afterwards.
It was very, very awkward.
It's weird going out with someone
who doesn't know the stuff you know.
Yes. You're right.
I don't know what Isy, my
girlfriend, was doing in the '90s,
but she doesn't... She doesn't seem
to remember any of it.
And we watched...
How old is your girlfriend?
Cos you are a comedian,
I don't know how old you are.
No, no, no, she's two years
older than I am,
so she's the perfect age for that to
be the decade she reminisces about.
And we watched Supersonic, the Oasis
film, the other day and she was
like,
"So, which one's Liam
and which one's Noel?
"Does Noel write all the songs?"
"Yes!" How does she not know?
Yeah, exactly. Well, she
just wasn't interested.
And she doesn't know anything
about sport and we watched
When We Were Kings
and Muhammad Ali was giving
some amazing press conference
and he was being really funny.
She was like, "This guy's...
"Does he have writers?
This guy's hilarious."
Surely there's a whole other '90s
she experienced that she reminisces
about that you know nothing about.
Yeah. I was just sort of...
I don't know what she was doing.
She was just like...
Took a lot of acid.
Yeah. In the wrong decade.
She didn't watch any telly and so a
lot of her cultural references
are very Derbyshire-based.
What is something in common you have
with your girlfriend from the '90s
as a memory?
Erm... Anything?
She worked in a pub during Euro '96
and is aware there was
a football tournament going on.
But I don't think she'd recognise...
I don't think she'd be able to tell
the difference between football and
rugby. So when I...
Is there something wrong
with your girlfriend?
I was going to say.
But I'm really into...
I'm really into football and
when Wales qualified for
the European Championships,
they qualified on the Saturday,
but they were still playing on...
They were playing Andorra
on the Tuesday and she said,
"So now they've qualified,
is that game still going to go on?"
I was like, "Yes, it just..."
And she was like, "Why, if it's
qualified? If it's all done and
dusted,
"why don't they just
have the night off?"
It's a good point.
I can't explain it!
So then you're like,
"Well, cos they've sold tickets.
"People have made arrangements."
Which is not a good enough...
And then trying to explain to her,
"I will definitely be out
for the first three games,
"but there might be a fourth
depending on how the first three go.
"And I'll probably be able to tell
after the second game if there'll be
"a fourth, but not for definite
until after the third.
"And there might be a fifth,
but that's depending on..."
The vagaries of the group system
are very difficult to explain.
I was working with your...
girlfriend at the time and I could
tell that she didn't have
a fucking clue what was going on.
And all that was concerned...
Every day, I'd say, "Is Elis at home
or not at home?"
She'd say, "Well, I don't know
what's happening.
"He says he might be home,
he might not.
"He's trying to get a ticket.
"He keeps ringing..." This is the
thing that made me laugh.
You were working with her
at the time? Yes, on Damned.
Oh, who is she? Isy Suttie.
Oh, it's Isy Suttie! Oh, right,
well, it's all become clear now.
She said, "Elis has just called me
from France and demanded I book him
a Eurostar ticket."
That is what you kept doing.
She... After Wales beat Russia 3-0
in the greatest performance in Welsh
history, she texted me about a
minute after it had finished with,
"Wow, well done, congratulations!"
And about 40 champagne-cork-popping
emojis and I thought,
"The dam's broken. She likes...
"She likes football." And I called
her up and I said, "Wow, did you
watch it?" And she said,
"No, Dan told me."
Like she... It just didn't mean
anything to her at all.
How did you... What's your...?
What's your...? Sorry, Sindhu.
What's your Jim Rosenthal
connection?
Oh, yeah. Well, right...
ITV legend.
My dad's a very aspirational man.
And he always said,
"You need to aim for the stars."
So we were on holiday in Bristol
and Dad...
Good start. Yeah.
Didn't get far out of Wales,
did you?
Over the bridge, "This'll do"!
And Dad said... We were all very
little, Dad said, "Right, we'll go
"to the best hotel for breakfast
because there's bound to be
"someone from Hollywood in and then
we can meet and mingle cos you're
"never going to get these
opportunities in Wales.
"This only happens in Bristol."
So we went to a nice...
Had he heard of London?
So we went to a nice hotel
for breakfast and sure enough,
Jim Rosenthal was there. Hollywood.
And I was a huge sports fan
and I was seven or eight,
so I was massively starstruck.
And my dad was like, "This is it!
"This is the opportunity
I was telling you about!
"You go right up to him, introduce
yourself, ask him for work
experience.
"When you're 18, you could
be doing the FA Cup,
"you could be
commentating alongside him."
And I was like,
"I can't do it, Dad."
And my mum was like,
"Oh, don't push him, he's nervous."
Dad was like, "He's not going to get
this opportunity in Carmarthen,
come on!"
So I sort of split the difference.
I just went up to him and watched
him eat his breakfast like that.
Practically crying.
So my dad was just like, "Go on!
"Tell him how much... Tell him you
get good marks at school."
And I was like... So I watched him
eat his breakfast.
He ate his breakfast.
Didn't seem to mind that there was a
seven-year-old boy there, in his...
Well, not in his
peripheral vision - there.
So I watched him like that and then
he finished his breakfast and left.
And then about 20 years later
I was in Las Vegas
watching Joe Calzaghe box.
And we managed to sneak into the
aftershow thing and there were all
these Hollywood stars there.
My friends had their photos
taken with Robert De Niro
and Bruce Willis,
but Jim Rosenthal was there and I
was drunk and I went up to him
and I said, "Jim, in 1998
in a Crest Hotel in Bristol,
"you allowed me to watch you
eat a fry up."
And he said,
"Sounds about right to me."
Great, great. Great response.
I'm not sure he could have
stopped you, really.
So then a couple years later,
I was doing Edinburgh and...
The Edinburgh Festival and I had
material about how much I liked
Jim Rosenthal and unbeknownst to me,
his son Tom Rosenthal is a comedian,
he's in things like
Friday Night Dinner and Plebs.
And Tom came to see my show
and obviously the last 20 minutes
was about his dad,
which came as a surprise.
So we met after the gig
and then he told his father, Jim,
and I didn't realise.
The last light of Edinburgh,
I walk into the venue and the
bouncer calls me up and he's like,
SCOTTISH ACCENT: "You need to
rewrite your show, mate, cos Jim
Rosenthal's just bought a ticket.
"He's sat right in the back row."
So I initially considered not doing
the stuff cos I thought it would
be too awkward. And I talked to a
few of my friends and they said,
"You've got to do it,
just to see what happens."
So I told the routine and right at
the end, he stood up and went,
"What I don't like being
is misrepresented."
But he's been on telly for 40 years,
so everyone recognised him,
everyone recognised his voice
from the darkness apart from
a South African stag do who like...
SOUTH AFRICAN ACCENT:
"Some old guy's gone mental,
I don't understand.
"Somebody call security,
I don't like it."
I said, "Is that Jim Rosenthal?
"Can I have the
house lights up, please?"
And he was so playful
and he was such fun.
So he heckled me a bit
and we had a bit of, you know,
repartee, and it was really...
And his wife was like,
"Oh, my God, Jim!
Why did you have to do this?"
But it was really good fun
and it was really good-natured.
We had a drink after and it was
an absolute joy to meet him
for a third time.
If you can count the first one.
You know, you're sort of mates
by now really.
Yeah. But what I didn't realise
and neither did Jim is that it was
press night, so the Daily Mail
and The Independent reviewed it
and completely got the wrong end of
the stick and the Daily Mail
the next day was,
"Red-faced Jim Rosenthal
was humiliated..."
And it wasn't that at all,
it was a really fun thing
that the Daily Mail misinterpreted.
David Baddiel!
I used to be a waitress, believe it
or not, cos I'm an actress
and that's what we do. Of course.
And I used to work for a company
that sort of sends you out to
different events.
And I got sent to this event
for a charity because that's when
rich people need an excuse
to get drunk,
they have charity events.
And I really recognised the name
of the charity, I was like,
"Oh, this is really ringing
some bad bells for me."
And then I realised that my mum was
a patron of this charity thing that
I was waitressing at and I
hadn't told anyone I worked with
that my mum was Jennifer Saunders.
My mum's Jennifer Saunders, guys.
So I texted her, I was like, "Are
you coming to this thing?" And she
was like, "Yeah, I'm coming."
And I was like, "OK, well, when you
see me just pretend not to know
"who I am, please.
"Cos all my cool waitressing
friends don't know who you are."
And she was like, "OK, will do."
And then got there
and sort of stared at me.
Just sort of sat there
in the corner going...
And I was like, "OK, OK."
Just trying to go about my job
and then she came over and went,
"Can I at least give you a hug?"
And I was like, "Fine,
just do it like in a corner."
But then like everyone saw and then
afterwards someone came up to me
and was like, "So your mum's
Jennifer Saunders?"
I was like, "Yeah." And they were
like, "Is that why
you got this job?"
I was like, "No. If I was going
to ask my mum for my job,
"I wouldn't ask for a
waitressing job, probably."
I mean, I would have asked for a
part in one of her famous sitcoms,
maybe.
Which I did almost get a part in.
Basically I used to be in a
sketch group and we all got parts
in these AbFab specials.
Like, speaking roles.
And all the girls had done their
parts and it was time for my scene
and I showed up and I looked
at the script, I was like,
"Oh. I mean, they're's nothing for
me on it yet, but when I get there,
"I bet she'll write some cool lines
for her daughter."
And then I got there and she was
like, "Oh, I was thinking you could
be a waitress..."
Cos I know you can do that.
Yeah, I've seen you do that.
You're good at it.
And she was like, "Do some funny
waitress stuff in the background."
I was like, "Cool, cool."
And then it sort of... The day went
on and sort of time ran out
and Stella McCartney at one point
came over to me and said,
"Oh, are you the head extra?"
And I was like, "Yeah.
"Yeah, I am." And then when it came
to sort of viewing the episodes,
I saw my friends sort of get these
really cool speaking parts and you
saw the back of my head just for a
second in one scene and that was it.
But were you doing funny
waitress stuff at the time?
I was trying,
but I wasn't on camera.
You know, the funny waitress thing
you're supposed to do is come out
the door
and as you get to the table,
spill the soup all over the floor.
Oh, shit. That always works. Oh, my
God, I should have done that. Why
didn't I think about it at the time?
I think your mum did the right thing
because you are like...
In the first part, you are like, "I
don't want my friends to know that
you're my mum,
"so keep your distance." And then
in the sitcom, she was like,
"Here's your distance. You're a
nobody." That's the distance.
I think your mum did the right...
She gave you what you wanted.
Yeah. I mean, she can't be
accused of nepotism. For sure.
Or even not listening to you.
She listened and then
she did the thing.
Was your...? Your dad of
course is Adrian Edmondson.
Yes. So is he any better
in this kind of situation?
Are you able to say to your
waitress...
"My dad is Adrian Edmondson?"
Even though you can't...
Don't want to talk about the fact
your mum's Jennifer Saunders?
Well, I wouldn't mention
either of them,
but I bet he would be better at
accepting that and sort of taking
a...
Cos he's always like, "Oh, I
don't want to tread on your shoes,
"I don't want to..." "I don't
want to tread on your shoes?"
Toes.
That drink is a good drink.
Yeah, it's a really good drink.
Really solid drink. She probably
just hadn't written it.
Yeah, no, she hadn't.
She probably...
Cos I remember...
Oh, shit, I was supposed to write
something really cool... My kid!
It's the last thing on my mind.
But she used to leave things so to
the last minute that when we were
kids,
she used to dictate scenes
to us in the car from AbFab.
Isn't that the famous thing
about your mum? Is basically she
writes stuff on the day?
So she would go into meetings
with something that I'd written.
In crayon. Yeah.
And then Joanna says, "Fuck off."
That's perfect. So she's saying the
lines while she is driving?
While she's driving. She saying
write this down, write this down.
And you're writing in crayon? Cos
you can't be trusted with sharp...
Or you're a small person.
I think I was about ten.
You were about ten but
still only with crayons...
You know what, I think that's
fabulous... Absolutely fabulous.
Look at that.
Here's the thing. I drive my kids to
school and my daughter, when she was
ten, she's little older now,
used to sit in the front and the
little one would sit in the back
cos you can't have them together
cos they just kill each other.
Oh, sure. You know you get text
messages in the morning about school
stuff,
like some mum will say, "Does
your kid have my kid's sweater,"
or whatever.
So this one would text.
I would drive and I'd be like go
into my contacts, find so and so,
and then once I had an argument
with my husband, I was so furious,
"I'm going to text your father."
I was like, what can I say
that can kind of be coded,
like not upset her too much but
enough to get it out of my system,
so I wrote to him, "I will call a,"
then I said, "Put a capital L
and a full stop."
Lawyer, obviously.
And she was like, "What's an L?"
And I'm like, "Oh, it's this thing
that on your wedding anniversary
"you get an L," and then I felt very
guilty, what if she figured out it
was a lawyer?
I'm not divorced.
No-one could figure that out!
Could! Could!
"I will call a L."
You just said,
"L - a lawyer, obviously."
I don't know, I had no idea.
That was my guilty conscience.
What you've written there is,
"I will call Al."
I thought you were doing
a Paul Simon song.
But that's so good,
it makes me feel much better.
No need for... You can call Al,
I will call Al.
Yes, exactly. Are you
married to Paul Simon?
No, but I think your mum was
totally right to do that,
to have your kids collaborate
with you in all possible ways.
It's about the fact that kids take a
while to sort of understand adult
things. My daughter is 15 now but I
remember when she was about three,
she used to call me daddy but then
every so often she would hear people
calling me David and that would
confuse her and she would call me
David
and then once this very embarrassing
thing happened which was,
I was taking her for a walk
on Hampstead Heath
and it was a very hot day
and there were lots of people on the
Heath and she had to go for a wee.
So I have to take her into the men's
toilet even though she was a girl,
I took her to the men's toilet,
I had to barge through all of these
men in the toilet, get her into the
cubicle, I pull her pants down and
that's the moment she chooses to go,
"David Baddiel!"
Honestly, I could feel
all the men outside thinking,
"That's not her father.
Call the police."
I could see your back skin!
Oh, my God, what a business idea.
So, Sindhu, tell me about
your spare... Actually no,
it's only a joke for me that makes
me laugh because the producer's
always saying to me,
"Stop saying 'tell me about'
"before every single
person's story that you go to.
"You always say,
'Tell me about your thing.'"
And when they come to do the edit,
it's just me saying, "Tell me,"
about 85 times in a row.
So find another way...
It's hard to know what else to say
though if you want someone
tell you a story.
Would you like to
extrapolate on something...
Watch this...
Why've you got spare Bibles?
Brilliant.
Brilliant, what a segue.
What a glimpse behind
the magician's cloth.
Well, so, I...
This was a while back, I was at
university in Canada and my mother
came from India over the summer and
I used to teach undergrad classes.
She came so that she
could get me married off,
as an Indian mother it's like her
lifelong aim and I was already in my
mid 20s
so I was really over the hill
in her opinion.
Well on the shelf.
What happened, every day she would
come to the park in the middle of
campus with my lunch.
One day I came for this lunch
and she was opening the lunch
and there were these
six little books,
like very beautiful, blue,
and they were embossed with gold
and there was a little stack of
them. And I said, "What's that?"
And my mother said,
"Oh, it's books."
Which immediately put me on edge
because I know it's books.
I immediately know she doesn't
want to tell me, I say,
"Well, whose books are these?"
She says, "It's Bibles, you know."
"What do you mean, it's Bibles?"
She said, "One lady came and
gave me," which is a total lie.
I immediately know
my mother is lying.
I'm like, "OK, I'm not going to eat
this lunch until you tell me what
happened." And here's what happened.
She said, "I was sitting
in the park."
This is exactly how my mother
speaks. I can't talk about my mother
without speaking like her,
cos she's in my head. I like it.
So she said,
"I was sitting there and one lady
came behind and said to one man,
"'Do you know Jesus died
for our sins, can I discuss?'
"He said, 'No, please go away.'
"Then she went to another couple
and said, 'Do you know Jesus?'
"So obviously a Jehovah's Witness.
"'Do you know Jesus died for our
sins?'" And she said, "I felt really
bad for the lady,
"no-one wants to talk to her
and the story is so sad also."
So I said...
It is a sad story.
Although there's a twist,
which is quite happy afterwards.
But not if, as my mother says, "It's
OK, he came back for everybody,
"but his mother, poor mother,
Mary had to look."
She's very... This story really has
always bothered my mother a lot,
just like the literal version.
Yeah. So anyway, finally, she said,
"The lady came towards me
but then she saw my face."
My mother... We are Hindus, she's
got the full-on...
This thing, this thing, you know.
"She looked at me, but she was
very courageous, she came to me
"and she said, 'Excuse me,
can I talk to you?'
"And I said to her, 'Yes, but only
if I can tell you one thing.'
"She said, 'What?' And I said,
'Do you know Jesus died for our
sins?'
"And the lady started crying."
No shit, she started crying because
this was like the best thing
that had happened to her
her whole life.
Yeah. So they got into this big
conversation and this and that,
and then my mum said, "Then she gave
me and said, 'Please take this,'
"and I said, 'No, I have no money.'
She said, 'No, it's free.'"
It is impossible for me to overstate
what the sentence, "This is free,"
will do to my mother.
Free shit. So she was like,
"It's a free Bible."
And she said, "I immediately thought
of all the poor people in India
"who don't have Bibles, so I
said to her, 'Can I have more?'
"I have to go to India
and make people Christians.'"
Can you imagine?
So this lady was like,
"I have five more, here."
Then she said, but, you know,
"Can I help you more?"
And then my mother said,
"I told her, 'Yes, please,
I would like 50.'"
50. Because it's free!
And there are 50 poor
Christians in India for sure.
Yeah. Well, yeah. And my mum
intended to give these out.
There's a place in Delhi
called the Free Church.
So I said, "Well, OK,"
and I was uncomfortable.
She said, "But, so, you know,
tomorrow morning..."
I'm like, "What do you mean?
Is she coming to our house?
"Or my apartment?"
She said, "I know you'll have this
kind of unfriendly reaction."
And I'm like, "I don't want you to
give my address to a
Jehovah's Witness
"as like a major Christian person."
I'm not any kind of Christian,
first of all.
She said, "No, no. I have told her
that she must give me the delivery
"of the Bibles secretly."
I said, "Well, how did you
convince her?" She said,
"I told her, you see,
"I'm living in the house of a very
intolerant, fascist Hindu lady."
What?
I was like, "What are you
talking...?" She said, "By the way,
"it's you." I'm like, "I know that.
There's only two of us in that
flat."
But she said, "In order to
get the Bibles secretly,
"so she doesn't come to the house,
when she rings the door bell,
"you must loudly start
chanting in the next room."
I was like, sorry, I was like,
"Mum, are you stealing?"
She said, "No, I'm giving to the
poor. It's already free. You can't
steal free things."
So I really didn't know how to get
out of it. I thought, it's a good
cause,
and this lady showed up at eight in
the morning and rang the door bell.
My mother said, "Go and chant,
go and chant."
So I went in the next room and she
said, "Do a loud Ganesha chant."
So I did. I literally
sat in the room going...
SHE CHANTS
And she opened the door and quickly
took these Bibles and then finally
she said, "OK, she's gone. Come out.
Shall we go for breakfast?"
After stealing Bibles off this
poor lady - which, by the way,
she did give away to
50 people in the future.
That's good. That's not
really stealing, is it?
Has she ever come to a gig of yours?
Yes, she has. And I told her when...
Laugh!
Go on! No, I said to her... Does she
get furious if it doesn't go well?
No, no. Well, I had one
terrible gig.
It was the only gig my father's come
to. My father is a very erudite,
scholarly, south Indian man,
very few words,
very wise man. And I said to him one
day, "I'm going to do a gig."
And he doesn't understand why I gig,
but he's fine with it.
Anyway, I was in Delhi and we went.
It was a lot of people and literally
people were not just not laughing,
they were talking to each other,
they were on their phone.
They didn't like my material
because it was like, not brazen,
but I wasn't sort of
pandering to some... Whatever.
And my mother had been to other gigs
of mine. My father sat through this
and, when we were leaving,
he looked at me and he said,
"Child, I don't think
they quite understood
"your elevated sense of humour."
Aww. That's beautiful.
And as we were stepping out of the
restaurant, my mother said...
And how do I translate this?
Well, you don't have to put it in.
But she said,
"These, erm...
"These poxed puppies
of leprous bitches...
"..they have no sense of humour,
I spit on them."
And she spat in the restaurant
and said, "Ha!"
And I was like... I felt very good,
actually, because that's how I felt.
And we left. That is typical of my
life, my father and my mother,
but she was so furious
that they haven't laughed,
she called them the poxed
puppies of leprous bitches.
I'm just impressed you
translated that. That's amazing.
Because we think in two languages.
That's the title in a nutshell.
No, but she was furious.
Whereas my father was like,
"It's OK, and have understanding."
..leprous bitches...
I did five minutes
at the Comedy Store.
I did five minutes at the
Comedy Store for the first time.
My dad was in London, so he came,
and he was really, really nervous.
He hadn't, on my behalf,
but he hadn't been out properly
for years and years, I don't think.
So he arrived before I did.
Can I just clarify? Out properly?
As in he hadn't been on
the sort of... On the piss.
He hadn't been out, he hadn't
been drinking for years.
As in, he drinks in the house.
Oh, he drinks in the house.
Yeah, but not in pubs and stuff.
He doesn't go out very much.
And so...
He was on it. He was giddy.
And obviously the Comedy Store
is big and busy.
I turned up and he went,
"Are you on this?"
And I said, "Yeah."
He went, "Oh, this Comedy Store!
"I think it's really
going to catch on.
"There must be 400 people here.
"They're all drinking,
they've all paid £20 a ticket.
"There's a licence to print
money in this comedy."
I said, "Well, it's
been going for 30 years."
"30 years?!" And then a girl walked
past in a backless dress
and he went,
"I can see her back skin!"
What the hell is a girl's back skin?
And it was like
too much for him to take.
He was like, "I mean, they must be
making a fortune on the bar.
"Are the comedians being paid?"
"Yeah, yeah." "Oh, my God.
What a business idea!
"This comedy's really
going to catch on!"
I can see her back skin?
He'd never heard of comedy or backs.
That's amazing.
You are in room number one,
ground floor.
He opened the door and it was like,
Oh, fucking hell, Prince!
Prince was there as well?
Basically, my dad loves sailing and
he loves sailing so much that even
though his whole family
hates sailing,
he made us go on a sailing holiday
around the Greek islands.
It doesn't sound so bad.
No. Apart from...
Why do...? This is your mum and
there are three daughters...
Yeah, three daughters.
So none of you like...
No. What is it, you don't like the
boat or you don't like all the
stuff?
Does he make you do stuff?
Yeah, basically, he gets very angry.
He's basically...
I have memories... This is brilliant
comedian Adrian Edmondson we're
talking about.
I'm seeing him as Vyvyan,
except on a boat.
Yeah. I mean, he's very much
mellowed with age but, when we were
kids,
he was basically Basil Fawlty.
Like, he was just annoyed.
I mean, to be fair to him... Kids
are annoying when you are a dad
though. Kids are really annoying.
We were always arguing.
I got really badly seasick and my
older sister basically hates boats
and has panic attacks.
So, like, every time the boat moved,
she was like, "What's that?
"What does that mean?
What's going on?"
Did he take you on boats when you
were young to try and...?
Yeah, yeah. And it just
backfired completely.
He tried, he really tried.
And my mum sort of sits there with a
glass of champagne, thinking she is,
you know... Sunglasses.
Yeah, yeah, shawl.
But, erm...
Sailing in Greece, and there was
this one time it was particularly
bad,
we were trying to park the ship.
Is that what you do?
Yeah, it's called something else.
Something else.
Was there a meter?
Yeah! But it's basically parking.
It is parking.
Trying to parallel park a ship.
CAH. Yeah.
But, we are having great difficulty
in this little Greek town.
You are in a town?
Parking, aren't they?
It's a car park.
Yeah, but you want to be
in a harbour.
Yeah, that's it,
that's the word, harbour.
And it was becoming
increasingly difficult.
It was taking quite a while, and Dad
was sort of trying to keep the...
Are you trying to get
between two boats?
Yeah, yeah. Backing in?
Trying to back in.
It's just car words, isn't it?
All we know is car words -
backing in, parking.
We're trying to reverse
the boat into a parking space.
Sort of, as it went on
and as more shouting happened,
more and more townspeople
sort of migrated to the harbour.
You know, there's all the
restaurants on the seafront
and everyone's just turning around,
going, "Oh, what's going on?"
And, erm...
So he sort of gave up and drove back
into the bay and somehow released...
Drove back!
Yeah, drove. Took the handbrake off.
What he needed was a boat
and not a car.
That would have made it
all much easier.
Wait, he's in charge.
He's doing the steering,
the reversing.
I mean, the rest of you,
what is he expecting you to do?
Er, I mean, I don't know.
To this day. One of you has
got to leap ashore with a rope.
Yeah, and go and wind some sails in.
Sails, sails. Take the sails down.
But then we went back into the
harbour and somehow he released the
anchor,
but then reversed back
over the anchor,
which then went round the propeller
of the engine, so the boat stopped,
and my mum was like, "I'll sort it
out," put a knife between her teeth,
sort of dove in. Really?
If you can imagine.
Jennifer Saunders had a knife
between her teeth...
Erm, yeah.
Are you not making it up? She
actually put a knife between her
teeth and dived into the harbour?
Is this a dream? I can imagine!
I think it's a cartoon, isn't it?
Great mind. I think
I can visualise it.
I was quite young, but I have an
image of her with goggles on and a
knife.
At least you have it
with a knife in her hand.
Yeah, yeah. And she goes down and
was cutting the rope off the
propeller.
Oh, my God. And the
propeller was... The engine...
Still going? Still going.
What could possibly go wrong?
It went off, but she wasn't hurt,
amazingly, but the boat
zoomed forward into another boat,
and this sort of Greek man
came out, was really very angry.
Yeah.
But this whole time, I for some
reason had been in a dinghy,
holding on to the back of the boat,
and at this point I had let go
and then was sort of cast adrift,
sort of sailing into the sea.
Which was... It doesn't sound to me
like your father should be in charge
of any vehicle whatsoever.
This sounds like a
health and safety video,
of things that could go wrong.
It's amazing, that bit about your
mum diving down to get the...
I know! I mean... The engine's
still going as well!
He knows about boats.
He knows about boats, Adrian.
He's a lot better now... Did he know
how to turn off the boat at that
point?
Cos that's the thing to do.
Yeah. I mean, I think he was just...
It was the whole stress
of everyone's watching.
I think. Yeah, cos he's not used to
everyone watching, Adrian Edmondson.
It's just his first
bad gig for years.
Also, I think, if you're on a boat
no-one wants to be there with your
family and the panic
gets very quick very fast.
Had he been drinking?
No! No. No.
Was he trying to kill his wife?
Mum's down by the propeller...
HE IMITATES PROPELLER
No. I mean, it got to point
where, maybe...
What age were you when you
were adrift in the harbour?
I think I was about 11.
How long were you adrift for?
I wasn't adrift... I didn't have
a paddle or an engine,
so I was literally just...
But someone came out to try
and get me in their dinghy
and then there engine
ran out of petrol.
So, there was two dinghies just
adrift in this harbour.
But I think I did get
rescued eventually.
I think you did, yes.
I'm guessing...
Yeah. Yeah, I did.
Wow. And your mum didn't
freak out during all this?
No, I don't think so.
She's quite chilled.
She's quite chilled!
Well, that's very cool. Bye!
Yeah. Oh, wow, so no more
boating trips then?
Was she shouting out scripts,
meanwhile, while she was in the sea?
Write them down, in crayon,
in between the propeller...
As I'm drifting away!
Charlie says, "Fuck off!"
Was this a boat
that you'd chartered?
Yeah. That's the word.
That is the correct word, isn't it?
The first correct word we've used.
It wasn't hired.
Yeah. So, did you get into trouble
for losing the anchor?
Smashing the front up? Probably,
yes. My dad really doesn't like
to talk about it and he's
probably really going to hate
that I'm telling it
on this show but...
I bet he lost his deposit. Yeah.
Yeah.
What I like about it is it's one of
my favourite things that your father
did was The Dangerous Brothers.
Oh, yeah. Do you remember?
They used to ride around
on a bicycle...
Yeah, it was brilliant. "Sir Adrian
Dangerous will now do a stunt."
He'd ride around on a push-bike
going, "I have no brakes!"
"I have no brakes!"
If he'd just done it as
the Dangerous Brothers,
he could have pulled it all off
as a comedy routine.
Now, Elis, this B&B in Swansea,
of which you speak.
Oh, yeah. I was doing a gig in
Swansea and they provided a hotel,
but it wasn't the nicest.
It was quite a cheap B&B.
I think I was the only resident.
So, when I turned up, the guy
in like, tracksuit bottoms.
He was... "Right then...
"you're in room number one!
"Ground floor." And he opened the
door and there was a dog in my bed.
So I opened the door and
I thought...
And he comes in, he's like,
"Yeah, we do a breakfast..."
And he saw it and was, like,
"Oh, fucking hell, Prince!"
Prince was there as well?
Oh, no!
"Oh, bloody hell!"
But the dog was tucked in.
Dogs can't tuck themselves in.
No. That is one of the things
about them.
So this dog's...
And he's, like, "God! The state
of this! Bloody hell, Prince!"
So he's trying to shoo the dog out.
The dog gets out of bed but the
dog is faster than the man,
so he's running rings round him.
So he's trying to chase him.
"Fuck off out of the room, then,
"I've got someone staying!"
So, he's chasing the dog and the dog
is literally running rings round
this guy.
So, eventually, he gets rid
of the dog and he says,
"You're not allergic, are you?"
I said, "Not really."
"Thank fuck for that, then."
So, that's it. So, I go and do the
show and I come back and I realise
I've forgotten my toothpaste.
So, I ring the bell at reception
and he comes down, like,
in his dressing gown.
And I said, "Have you
got any toothpaste?"
And he went, "What?"
I said "I've forgotten
my toothpaste.
"Do you sell those little
tubes of toothpaste?"
He went, "You've forgotten
your toothpaste?"
I said, "Yeah." And he went...
HE SIGHS
"Give me your brush!"
Really? So I went back to my room
and I produced my brush.
He said, "Right then."
Then he comes back with it in
his pocket with a little pea-sized
lump of toothpaste
on the toothbrush.
And he went, "Same arrangement
in the morning?"
Thank you. Thank you.
And did you have to sleep in that
bed the dog had been in?
I did sleep in the bed, yeah.
Did it smell? It did, yes.
But I wasn't paying for the hotel
and I didn't feel able to complain.
Couldn't you...
Why? I'd have said,
"Can I have a look at room two?"
Yeah! No, I just thought that was...
Once you get to a certain
level of being a comedian,
they put you up in nicer hotels.
Whereas, with the B&Bs, you don't
know what you're going to get.
I stayed in a B&B in Preston.
I got told off for not clearing my
plate over breakfast.
"You don't like beans, do you?"
I said, "Well, I do a bit."
"That's a lot of beans gone to
waste, thank you very much."
You just think, "It's a bit
full-on, this, isn't it?"
I remember once being at a B&B...
Customer service! ..on tour.
I was there for two nights.
And the first breakfast,
the coffee was so weak,
it was basically just water.
And, so, I said, the next day,
"Would you mind,
"can I have a slightly
stronger cup of coffee?"
And it came back with what I would
say was one more grain in it.
And the bloke put it down and said,
"You could stand your spoon
up in that."
But you're right. B&Bs, they're
not... You do graduate from them.
I once stayed in a B&B and we
requested a room for four people
and they, basically, pushed
two double beds together.
Like they were expecting us
to have some sort of...
orgy in this, sort of,
four-person...
Cos you're a four-person
sketch group?
Well, we were a sketch group,
plus our techie.
So, you will slept
in the same big double...
Yeah! Was Prince there,
by any chance?
Did you see Prince
at all, after that?
Or did you not call him,
or anything?
You know, he was hanging around.
I felt we'd bonded a bit
but he wasn't interested.
But he was under the duvet.
That's the great thing.
Just his head poking out.
I love that. I love that.
Well, we should wrap this up.
I have to come up with a title.
I've been given some suggestions.
Intolerant Fascist Hindu Lady,
I quite liked.
Hi, I'm The Edge,
is another good option.
I Love A Salty Room.
I Love A Salty Room.
I Love
A Salty Room.
Yeah, I do.
I also quite like Prince In
The Duvet as a possible one.
Ooh! Prince In The Duvet.
Same Arrangement In The Morning?
Very good. Same arrangement
in the morning.
Oh, yeah. Back Skin is one, as well.
I can see her back skin.
I think I know what I'm going to do.
Anyway, please, everyone,
thank by guests.
Beatty Edmondson.
David Baddiel. David.
Elis Jones. Sindhu Vee.
I'm Alan Davies and
you've been watching
The Poxed Puppies
Of Leprous Bitches.
Subtitles by Ericsson