QI (2003–…): Season 19, Episode 4 - Sideshows, Stunts & Scavenger Hunts - full transcript

Applause.

Good evening and welcome to qi

where tonight we are swanning
around sideshows, stunts

and scavenger hunts.

Phew!

Let's meet the
fairground attractions.

Roll up, roll up,
it's Rosie Jones.

Applause.

The wild man of
croydon, nish Kumar.

Applause.

Behold, the freak of nature
that is gyles brandreth.



Applause.

And the star of Ferris
wheel's day off, Alan Davies.

Applause.

Right, let's hear how
much fun you're all having.

Nish goes...

Circus music.

You can't help yourself
but start doing that, can you?

No, you've got
to bounce to that.

Rosie goes...

Circus music.

Gyles goes...

Circus music continues.

And Alan goes...

Clown hooter.



How did this woman pick up men?

Oh.

Ooh.

Is it going to be with
her teeth or something?

Well, you're
heading in the right...

Am I?

Oh.

Heading in the
right direction, yes.

This is one of the
great acts of all time.

Ah.

Gyles?

It's a strong woman
of some kind.

Yeah.

It's the very first
female body-builder.

The first female body-builder.

Yes.

And doesn't she look, if I
may say so, are we allowed

to make personal remarks?

Or will I have to
apologise on...?

She's dead, so
I think it's fine.

Oh, fine.

She was a fine
figure of a woman.

She's called Katie brumbach,
aka the great sandwina.

And if we pull out on this
picture, we can see that she's,

there's rather more to her
than we had first anticipated.

Oh.

And what I like is, her act involved
picking up her five foot, six inch

husband and twirling
him over her head.

That's, I think it's a fine
way to make a living.

Sorry, I feel like
I need to say it...

Yes?

She's fit.

That waist, those arms, oh,
the things she could do with me.

Ooh!

Well, she's an extraordinary
woman, she was born in Vienna,

she was the daughter of a strong
man and a strong woman in the circus.

She was the second
of 16 children.

Wow.

Her father could reportedly
lift more than 500 lbs

with a single finger.

What?

Wow.

I know, right.

She starred in the
barnum and Bailey circus.

And in her spare time she
became the vice president

of the circus's
suffrage movement.

Oh, wow.

And her husband,
Max, would tell a story,

I suspect it's a tall tale,
that he met her when he took

on the challenge of wrestling her
with the hopes of winning 100 marks.

And when she threw him to
the ground, they immediately

realised that they
loved each other.

And that there was a
good double act in it, I think.

Have a look at this picture, we've
got her underneath her human

bridge, there she is.

Whoa.

Oh.

No.

Basically, she's a good egg.

Yeah.

She was a good egg,
she was a feminist,

she was a suffragette and she
did good works for the cause

of strong women.

And she was fit.

Exactly.

You know we're all
stronger than we realise?

I learnt this when I
was a very little boy,

because I was born in Germany
after the second world war,

the late 1940s, not a lot
of work for the circuses.

And my parents engaged
a couple to look after me,

as a sort of nanny
and governess.

And they were strong
people from the local circus.

So almost the first things I
learnt were to walk the tightrope,

and to stand on my head,
and to be a strong baby.

You can, we can all
do this experiment now.

Put your hand on your head.

Ok.

Like this.

Oh, wait, I've got
to find my head.

Ok.

Now, with your other hand,
attempt to lift your arm off your head.

From underneath,
just push with this hand.

Please do this at
home if you're watching.

You can't do it, can you?

No.

You really cannot do it.

The strongest person in the
world, that strong woman, could not

lift my hand from my head.

It's all done with mechanics.

They're not
particularly strong at all.

That's the trick I learnt when
I was two and I'm pleased

after all these years to be
able to share it with you now.

Someone told you that
when you were two?

Yes.

And you remembered it?

Yes.

How?!

I treasured it.

Yeah.

I don't...

Never ask gyles a
follow-up question.

Applause.

Sandwina actually got her
name, because her real name

was Katie brumbach, she
got it from the very first male

professional bodybuilder.

Oh, eugen sandow.

Yes, indeed, darling.

Yes.

There he is, look at that.

I mean, there's
a use of blu tack.

Hang on, are we just, like,
how did you know that?!

Because he was my
great uncle's godfather.

Not, frankly, that he looked,
he didn't come to the christening,

I assure you, dressed like that.

Gyles, I've wanted to ask you
this for a long time and I want

you to give me
a straight answer.

Are you quite literally
Forrest Gump?

No relation of any kind, but
eugen sandow and my great great

uncle, I've got that generation
right, they knew one another.

He was incredibly famous.

Even today the mr Olympia
competition, the trophy

is a statue of sandow.

The legend has it that eugen
sandow and Katie brumbach once had

a competition to lift a
300lb weight and she won.

Wow.

And so she referred to
herself as the great sandwina.

But this guy, he would do a
somersault holding a 24 kilo

dumbbell in each hand.

He would sometimes lift a dumbbell
that had a huge sphere on each end,

and when he put it down, a
grown man would walk out

of each of the spheres.

I mean, he could lift a grand piano
with an orchestra of eight on top.

Wow.

Now, gyles.

Yes?

Tell me, what's the best way to
win a nonstop speaking competition?

Oh, look.

Oh, look, there you are.

There's a picture of me in
younger and happier days.

Hm.

Making the longest speech
in the history of the world.

I spoke on that occasion only
for about three and a half hours.

Oh.

I then broke the record again,
speaking for seven hours.

Then for eight hours, then
for 11 hours, I shared that

record with Nicholas Parsons.

And eventually I retired
when I'd spoken nonstop

for 12 and a half hours.

Do you actually make
notes, or do you just...?

No.

You had to do it without notes,
without repetition and keeping

the audience there,
that was the challenge.

And also staying
there through the night.

Hm.

And I...

Could you have a wee, darling?

That's the whole problem.

Hm.

I knew I'd need to go the loo.

But this was for a charity
and they supplied me

with an appliance that
you strap around yourself.

It's given to field marshals.

And babies.

I know.

It's a full size, for field marshals
on cold parade grounds.

Old men.

It's a sort of tube thing.

Isn't that uncomfy?

Well, initially, but it's
quite exciting, actually,

as the evening wears on.

Do you know, it's very funny,
they said, "see if gyles can be

persuaded to
reminisce," and you were.

Well, nonstop competitive speaking
is a sort of lesser known sibling

of the dance marathon craze.

There was a thing in 1928
called the 'noun and verb rodeo'

and it took four days.

And you could say whatever
you wanted, as long as you spoke

for 22.5 hours a day.

Could you do that, do you think?

Yeah, oh, certainly.

Don't start, I mean...

But wouldn't that be exciting?

We could do it here and break
a record and do something

useful for a change.

But repetition was allowed.

There was one woman who
repeatedly recited the part of lady m

until she passed out.

Another competitor used his
words to propose to a fellow player

who used her time to explain
why she wasn't interested.

And a third said something so
offensive they had to have him

arrested for "loose talking."

In fact, as far as I know, the
longest speech is a filibuster

in the United States senate.

Yeah.

Which was a man called storm
thurmond of south Carolina,

us senator, in 1957.

And he spoke for 24
hours and 18 minutes.

It's a record that still stands.

Wow.

But he's not my favourite
person, because he spoke

against the civil rights act.

Yeah.

What a prick.

Yeah.

What...

Yeah, yeah.

It's like one of those
olympic records where

the person was on steroids.

Yeah.

Like, it definitely should
come with a big old asterisk.

Yeah.

I mean, don't speak ill of
the dead, apart from him.

Yeah.

You know, I'm going to
say it, right here, right now,

I think I can beat that,
because all I need to do is say

like four sentences.

All right.

Absolutely, that is one
of the ways of doing it,

just take it very slowly indeed.

But for me, the challenge, really,
was keeping the audience awake,

as you can imagine,
because that was the rule,

they had to stay.

Sorry, I'd drifted off, I wasn't
listening, but you were...?

So, lots of competitive
crazes in the United States.

The late 1930s, swallowing live
goldfish was a competitive craze.

Oh.

This guy, whose name
is lothrop withington,

he was a freshman at Harvard,
he said he settled his stomach

with some mashed potato
before he swallowed.

Yeah, don't do this, ok?

It's not nice.

And also, in this country you'll
be I think arrested and banned

from keeping animals.

The young man who brought
the goldfish looks a bit put out.

He does look a bit put out.

Well, no one said
anything about this.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

They said, have you got a fish?

And I said, yes, I've got
Geoffrey and I'll bring him in.

What I love is this guy looks
so sort of trendy and everything,

so I had a look to see what
happened to him later in life.

There's a terrible interview
when he's an old man,

interviewed about his collection
of antique spoon moulds.

And you just think,
"oh, you were so exciting

in 1939, now look at you."

Another swallowing phenomenon
of the era is one of my favourite

vaudeville acts of all
time, the great hadji Ali,

the great regurgitator.

So, this guy, he was billed
as the Egyptian enigma.

And one of the things I
like about him is he was

Judy garland's favourite
vaudeville act, ok.

So he would swallow...

"I love him!"

"I think he's fabulous."

He would swallow increasingly
improbable things and then reproduce

them in an order
specified by the audience.

Oh, brilliant.

So he could swallow 50 hazelnuts
and an almond and bring the almond

up at the moment
requested by the audience.

No!

Yeah.

And his greatest...

"What a great show.

I love nuts."

"I love the almond."

Why in all these pictures do
there have to be three men in suits

who appear to have
nothing to do with it?

No, they don't.

To bulk out the crowd.

Yeah.

His greatest trick, right, so he
would swallow some kerosene,

then some water, then he
would regurgitate the kerosene,

set it on fire, regurgitate the
water from six feet away and put

the fire out.

How do you discover
you're good at that?!

This is le petomane
in reverse, isn't it?

It is, exactly le
petomane in reverse, yes.

Yeah, yeah.

Le petomane was a
similar period, I think.

Yes, I think it's about right.

A similar vintage of act.

Yeah.

And he was somebody who
broke wind, out of his backside,

le petomane could blow
out candles at a distance.

Well, darling, he could do the
whole of the 'marseillaise', apparently.

Oh, yes.

Yeah.

You can do that.

No, I can't do that.

I can't, look, all, look, ok,
Rosie and I spent a lot of 2018

and 19 on tour together
and I, all that would happen is,

I'd have a nando's slightly too
close to the show and unfortunately

there wasn't as much
privacy in the dressing rooms

of the regional arts centres
of the United Kingdom.

And so, just every so often I'd
hear Rosie go, "can you not?"

You cannot imagine the stench.

Oh.

Nonstop speaking and goldfish
swallowing are both forgotten sports

and possibly
should stay that way.

Is my, are some of my
other records on your list?

No, darling, what are
your other records?

Oh, well...

Oh, I can't believe
I asked you that.

The longest ever screen kiss?

You?!

Me.

Were you alone?

The record was held for many years
by Regis toomey and Jane Wyman,

the first wife of Ronald Reagan.

Yes, indeed.

In a film called, "you're in
the army now" in the 1940s.

They had an osculatory marathon
that lasted about two and a half minutes.

And I thought it would be
rather fun to see if I could beat

this on screen, and be in
the guinness book of records

again for the longest
sustained screen kiss.

And this was in the 1980s and
I was on a programme called

TV-am with a lovely
presenter, Anne diamond.

And she agreed on
Valentine's day to give it a go.

And so we began kissing,
the clock was ticking,

but these were the early days
of TV-am and we had a mission

to explain, and unfortunately,
about two minutes into our kiss,

we had to go live to
Moscow for coverage

of president brezhnev's funeral.

You killed brezhnev?

And it was felt inappropriate.

They wanted to put the picture
in the corner of the screen.

Yes.

But actually, as madame
brezhnev was weeping and the body

was being put into the...

They felt this
was inappropriate.

Anyway, so we did not break
the record on that occasion.

But a year later, I thought,
I'm going to do it again.

So here we are on Valentine's
day and there is the lovely

Cheryl baker from bucks fizz.

I remember.

Well, she's still lovely,
she's still brilliant.

Anne said "no"?

Anne said, two
minutes was enough.

Anne said, "how's the Russian
president, before we start?"

Anyway, the long and the short
of it is, I have held the record

for the longest ever screen
kiss with Cheryl baker.

Applause.

Thank you.

Right.

Which is easier to do, get a
Sonic boom out of a potato,

unboil an egg or eat
your own umbilical cord?

Oh.

Hm.

Is that what an
umbilical cord looks like?

Not the one in the middle.

Have you not seen one?

No.

I was forced to cut
the umbilical cord.

Yes, yes.

Oh, no.

Of my, well I say unborn
children, recently born.

It's quite tough.

Very sharp little scissors.

Yeah.

You know our
friend Brian blessed?

Hm.

He cut an umbilical
cord with his own teeth.

Why?

Because he was, this is a true
story, and were he here he would

tell it to you more concisely.

He was on a walk and
a lady was giving birth,

and in some discomfort.

He went to the rescue,
with his beard, ready,

and tickled her through
the last moments.

And the baby was born
and he realised he was alone,

somehow the umbilical cord had to
be cut and he bit through the umbilical

cord with his teeth.

And I think he keeps a little bit
of it in a sort of jam jar at home.

Please stop!

So we're talking
about the university

of Chicago's scavenger hunt.

It is possibly the most challenging
scavenger hunt on the entire planet.

The challenges have included
building a nuclear reactor

and getting
yourself circumcised.

Both have been achieved.

It's the gold standard of
scavenger hunts, frankly.

It's fiendishly hard.

First of all because they
don't tell you what the list is,

you have to find
the list yourself.

And there are about
300 items to either find

or do a quest each year.

So over the years, the challenges
have included unboiling an egg.

Now we've done this, Alan, we
did unboil an egg on the show.

Did we?

How does one do that?

What you do is, you
inject urea into the egg.

Piss?!

Yes, darling, I said urea
just to be nice, but yes.

I used another four letter word
that I thought made me look cleverer.

What it does is, it breaks down
the bonds of protein and then

you have to spin it.

Do you remember that?

No, ok.

Wait, did you two wee on an egg?

We have people for that.

Ok.

Because I was going to
say, I missed that episode.

Somebody had to get a potato
to break the sound barrier,

somebody had to get a
live lion, tiger and bear into

the same place on campus.

And one person had to
eat their own umbilical cord,

which they did manage,
because it turned out their mother

had kept it as a souvenir and he
put it in an American cake called

a twinkie and ate it.

Wow.

Sorry, but why?

You ask that question because
you're not a boy at university.

Anyway, the building a nuclear
reactor, 1999, a pair of physics

students at Chicago earned 500
points by building a working nuclear

reactor in their dorm, using
scrap aluminium and carbon

sheets, and it was capable of
producing high-grade uranium.

What?!

So, we're going to try and
get you guys to do something.

You should have two balloons.

This is not exactly a
nuclear reactor, but you know,

just to start simple.

I want you to take your two
balloons, or tell me how you would,

take your two balloons and
turn them into a pair of slippers.

I'm going to go
ahead and assume...

Yeah?

It isn't just a case
of wham your feet in?

Putting your foot
into the balloon?

Yeah, just straight
in the balloon.

No. Ok.

Because it will break.

Do you chop your foot off?

Chop your foot off,
chop your foot off!

Chop your foot off
and put it in a blender?

And then you pour it into there?

How can I say this? No.

Right.

It's never a good sign
when she goes quiet for a bit.

Yeah, just having a think there.

I mean, you'd have to be
desperate to win, Rosie, for that.

I'll do it!

Let's have a look
at how you do it.

Ok, this is a very
straightforward trick.

So you blow the balloon
up and get the friend

to just hold it like that.

And then let the air out.

Oh.

Isn't that clever?

That's brilliant.

Yeah. Oh, that's good.

What attractive
slippers they are, too.

They're perfectly
nice, aren't they?

It's a good job I didn't ask
you to make a nuclear reactor.

So the scavenger
hunt as a sort of an idea

was the brainchild of a marvellous
woman called Elsa Maxwell.

She was one of the great party
hostesses of the 20th century.

And there she is in the middle,
so she's with Cole Porter.

And she threw the very
first one in Paris, in 1927.

And the items included,
somebody had to get a black swan

from the bois De boulogne park.

Do we get a bonus for
knowing who the other fellow is?

Is it your granddad?

No, it's a man
called William lada.

Who?

Well, we don't, that's all we
know about him, apart from

he liked to smoke cigarettes.

So you had to get a black
swan from the bois De boulogne,

a shoe of the music
hall star mistinguett,

a red pompom from a
sailor's hat, and so on.

And riots, riotous scenes
across Paris ensued

because of this thing.

And the police came to
interview Elsa Maxwell and said,

"what on earth are you doing?"

And then she named the
guests at her party and it included

the chief of police's
nephew and the mayor's son.

That was the end of it.

The university of Chicago
scavenger hunt stunts are usually

completed by a bunch of...

..Undergraduates.

Here's a bit of a
spectacle, how do you think

a fight between a submarine
and a stallion would go?

A stallion's a horse.

Yes.

A submarine is a submersible
ship. Nothing gets past you.

Rarely, they rarely meet.

So, there are a couple of
instances where they have met.

So, 1915, there was a
British submarine which fought

and lost a battle
of Turkish cavalry.

What?!

Yeah.

So, British captain,
lieutenant-commander

Martin dunbar-nasmith...

Oh! Not your godfather?!

But dunbar-nasmith, did you say?

You won't, now you're going
to think I'm inventing this...

I'm afraid that submarine
might have sailed, gyles.

This man was born
on the 1st April, 1883.

He won the Victoria cross.

Yes.

And I know about him
because I live in the house

in which this man was born.

What?!

How?!

It's true. It's absolutely true.

How?

And anyway, he was a great man.

And he had many
adventures in submarines.

Ah ha, yeah. He was heroic.

He was extraordinary, but
he, on one occasion, in 1915,

he was attacking shipping
outside constantinople harbour,

and the Turkish cavalry unit
appeared on a cliff nearby.

They spotted the sub and
started attacking and started firing.

And the submarine
had to retreat.

So he was beaten back
by the Turkish cavalry.

But horsemen aside, he
was an exceptional captain.

At one point the crew,
and this is such a good idea,

captured a Turkish sailing
vessel, a dhow, and they tied it

to the sub's conning
tower to act as camouflage.

And so when they were
approaching enemy vessels,

people thought it was just a
Turkish dhow approaching.

And then they worked out that
when they weren't attacking people,

they could use the captured
boat which was attached to

the conning tower to go
up and stretch their legs.

But he also had, apart
from resourcefulness,

nasmith had a tremendous
reputation for gallantry.

So he always used to present
boxes of chocolates to any women

travelling as passengers on
Turkish ships that they'd captured.

He just thought that
was polite to do that.

I feel like we've really
breezed past the fact

that this whole show has turned
into like a posh white version

of slumdog millionaire.

There's the film they
should have made.

Yeah, a film called
posh white millionaire.

Horses were actually transported
on submarines in the same year.

Do you know about that?

Oh, I bet they loved that.

They were taken from
britain to the battle of gallipoli

in the dardanelles.

Ten horses at a
time in a submarine.

Wow.

It was 16 days to get
there, they stopped

for a couple of hours in
Malta so the horses could

stretch their legs.

Wow!

Right, it's time to enter
the horrible hall of mirrors

that is general ignorance.

Fingers on buzzers please.
Which country are ponchos from?

Mexico.

Klaxon.

Shall we go through
other countries?

Let's do lots of countries.

Central and South America?

Bolivia?

Bolivia, no.

Portugal? No.

Peru. England.

England, I want
it to be england.

Ah, of course.

I want it to be
england. Denmark.

Is it Denmark? No.

Give us a clue.
What did you say?

Peru.

Is correct. Yes!

Oh!

This is the greatest
moment of my life!

Yes!

You knew that, right?

It wasn't a guess?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

She's got a few follow-up
questions about how you knew it.

No, no, no.

It's not all about me.

Lots of claims about
who invented the poncho.

In the west we most associate
it with Mexico today, but the first

came from Peru's
paracas peninsula.

You knew all this. Yeah.

I mean, I'm really bored now.

Blah, blah, blah.

So the oldest recorded
poncho is about 2500 years old.

They come from preserved
'mummy bundles' of paracas.

Oh, really?

Now, what's the
highest British mountain?

This is not going to
be the one we think it is.

What do you think it is?

I think it's Ben Nevis.

Then it's not going to be that.

Klaxon.

Is it Richard osman?

It's Richard osman
standing on Ben Nevis.

What country did you speak of?

So, I said British mountain,
but I did not say inside britain.

No.

Hm.

In a territory, a territory?

Ah, very good. Yes,
British overseas territory?

So...

The British overseas territory of
South Georgia has mount paget,

which is 2,935 metres
above sea level,

so twice the
height of Ben Nevis.

The British antarctic
territory contains

mount hope, 3,239 metres.

Bit of a vexed question as
to whether or not it's British,

because there's only
four other countries which

recognise it as such.

It's certainly the highest
mountain that britain claims to own.

Sure.

Even excluding the mountains
in the British antarctic territory,

there are so many higher peaks
in South Georgia and Saint Helena

that Ben Nevis doesn't even
make the top ten British mountains.

Wow. It sucks to
be you, Ben Nevis.

But here's a thing,
Ben Nevis, right,

so there's some volunteers,
2006, they're picking litter off

the slopes of Ben Nevis,
and they suddenly came

across a church organ, ok.

Yeah, quite near the summit.

It was entirely by itself.

This is obviously...

Obviously.

I love the fact that
we're so gullible.

We were like, whoa!

Whoa! Whoa, that's massive!

That's so massive!

So, there was a local
highland games athlete called

Kenny Campbell and he said
he carried it up the mountain

for charity in 1971.

It took him four days,
when he got there he played

Scotland the brave, and
then he couldn't be arsed

to bring it back down again.

Well, I don't blame him.

Someone else can go and get it.

"I'm not bringing
that down again!"

Now, where's the biggest
fire in the solar system?

Alan's buzzer

yes, darling? Is it the sun?

Klaxon

oh!

The sun isn't on fire.

It's not on fire. Is it not?

No. The sun's not on fire?

So what it does, every second,
it uses up 700 million tonnes

of the hydrogen inside it in a
reaction which produces energy

and light, but it's a nuclear
reaction, not a chemical one,

which is what fire is.

And that applies
to all the other stars

that we can see, too.

That's a lot of hydrogen.
It's a lot of hydrogen.

I'm worried about the
amount of hydrogen.

It used to be that oxygen
levels were higher on earth

than the 21%
that they are today,

and it's a good thing
that it's not higher,

because if it was 25%,
for example, then even

wet plants could burn.

And so in the late palaeozoic
era, the levels were 30% to 35%

and there were frequent
catastrophic fires.

So you don't want
too much of it.

But the reason that there
seems to be, as far as we know,

no fire in the solar system
anywhere other than earth, is that fire

requires three things.

It requires oxygen, it requires heat
and it requires something to burn.

And there just isn't
enough oxygen elsewhere.

The only reason there's a
meaningful amount of oxygen on earth

is photosynthesis, right.

So there's no
oxygen without life.

So if there's no life
elsewhere in the universe,

there simply can't
be any fire either.

You seem to know a lot, sandi.

Can you tell us, when is
the world going to end?

Tuesday.

No, but I mean, is there
going to be a cataclysm?

Possibly, darling, but in a
million years and, I mean,

you'll still be working,
but I shouldn't be.

Blah, blah, blah.

Which brings us to the scores.

Scavenging for scraps in
last place, with -16, it's nish.

Boo!

Oh.

Applause

-16.

In third place,
with -8, it's gyles.

Hey.

Applause

in second place, with
-5, Alan. Applause

and in first place...

Hey.

With a positive 6
points, it's Rosie!

Yes! Applause

my thanks to Rosie,
nish, gyles and Alan,

and I leave you with this schooldays
sign-off from Eric morecambe.

"When I was eight, I
ran away with a circus.

"When I was nine, they
made me bring it back."

Goodnight.

Applause