Charlie Insert Name Here

This programme contains some strong language.

CHEERS AND APPLAUSE

Hello, and welcome to Insert Name Here,

the show where we discover surprising facts about people

with just one thing in common - they've all got the same name.

Joining me are six of the best bespokely named people you could possibly wish to meet.

Please welcome James Acaster, Suzannah Lipscomb, and their team captain, Josh Widdicombe.

And over on the other side, Steph McGovern, Rob Beckett, and their captain, Richard Osman.

CHEERS AND APPLAUSE

-Now, hello, Steph.

-Hello.

You must come across some really strange names in your line of work.

Oh, I certainly do. I've genuinely interviewed Theresa Green.

I genuinely have, media analyst.

And my best one is Dick Shoots.

He had the option of going with Richard. He's chosen his own...

-He has.

-He's American.

-Americans do it a lot.

Yeah, but they've still got dicks over there, haven't they?

They don't call them dicks, they call them Joshes.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

OK, so the all-important question - which name is going to be featuring tonight?

Well, they come as funny tramps, bonnie princes, or even long,

white lines, because tonight's name is Charlie.

CHEERS AND APPLAUSE

Yes, tonight we're going to be talking about people called Charlie,

which needless to say includes Charles, Charlotte and Chas.

Along the way, our teams will be collecting as many Charlies as they can and at the end of the show,

the winning team will have the honour of deciding who's

officially the greatest Charlie of all time and that person

will then be inducted into our Insert Name Here Hall of Fame.

Richard, any early thoughts about who the best Charlie or Charles might be?

It's quite a rich field because some of the greatest Britons of

-all time are Charlies. Charles Darwin...

-Yes.

-Charles Babbage, the inventor of the computer.

-Computer, yeah.

-Charles Hodge...

-Who's Charles Hodge?

-Charles Hodge?

-Oh, come now!

-You might know him as Chas.

Stop being a Josh! Tell me. Come on.

LAUGHTER

He teamed up with Britain's greatest David, David Peacock,

-to form Chas and Dave.

-Oh. AUDIENCE: Ah!

I think now we're in the room.

-Now you're talking, aren't you?

-Now you're talking.

-Yeah.

James, you look like a man of distinction.

Do you know any Charleses or Charlies?

My nephew's called Charlie. He's four.

I rang him before coming here for some advice on how to be funny.

Good advice.

He said, "Talk a lot about..."

He thinks it's funny when peacocks peck each other.

-So I'm going to get that in later.

-Do it!

-To flag it up as well.

-Yeah, at some point.

That's something to look forward to.

And he said also, "Make a joke about hot chocolate rice."

-Oh, yeah.

-We'll look out for that as well. Hot chocolate rice.

I said to him, "What's that?" And he looked at me like I was an idiot.

-Which was odd, because you'd phoned him.

-Yeah.

Listen, let's get on with the show.

Time to pick a Charlie, any Charlie you like.

Our panellists choose a category and behind each category lurks

a famous face, which our teams must then attempt to win.

So, we have got...

Richard, your team's going to go first. What do you fancy out of that lot?

I think maybe we'll go for Silent Charlie, please, Sue.

-You're going to go for Silent Charlie.

-Yes.

-It's Charlie Chaplin.

Oh!

So, let's have a look at his stats...

LAUGHTER

-He did a speech though, didn't he?

-He spoke in real life.

In real life, yeah.

-Oh, leave it out! No! Was it The Great Dictator?

-Yeah, The Great Dictator.

-The Great Dictator, there's a huge speech in that.

-It's just a joke, Rob.

Who'd have thought Rob was here as the fact checker?!

That's the one I've seen, the one where he speaks,

so I was quite surprised he's silent!

I've always been very keen for Rob to try out silent comedy.

You should give it a go.

I'll do silent when you do actual comedy!

Wahey!

We can all sit at a desk with an iPad, Richard!

I tell you what, our team is really getting on.

-Yeah, we're all friends, it's really nice.

-Exactly.

We're like three peacocks pecking each other, aren't we?

That's my material. You can't nick it.

With respect, it's not your material.

So, Chaplin was born on the 16th of April 1889 in London.

His father, a notorious drinker, abandoned Chaplin and his mother not long after his birth.

Aged ten, he's joined a touring troupe called Eight Lancashire Lads.

What was the act?

-So was it a talent like juggling, or...?

-Yes.

-Human pyramid?

-They were clog dancers.

-Clog dancers?!

Yeah, he did clog dancing.

Here they are, sporting the classic Lancastrian look of large ruff and sombrero.

That's the kind of outfit a dead ghost child wears.

Most ghosts are dead, of course, aren't they?

Now, Chaplin stayed with the act for over two years,

occasionally attending school, but left education for good, aged 13.

He was then signed to Fred Karno's music hall company,

where he became a star.

Who was his understudy in those days at Fred Karno's?

-Was it Buster Keaton?

-No, but think as famous.

-Was it Hitler?

-LAUGHTER

Hold on! That means it might have been.

Of course, after Hitler left the Eight Lancashire Lads,

he carried on to Fred Karno's, before realising

-he wanted to adopt sort of quite hardcore German nationalism.

-Well, they did look alike.

-It was actually Stan Laurel.

-Oh, really?

-No way.

Stan Laurel, or to give him his proper name, Laurel And.

He's obviously best known for his Little Tramp character,

which he developed in just his second film in 1914.

People loved him and his routines,

including this one - the classic Bread Roll Dance from Gold Rush.

How did audiences react to this scene when they first saw it?

Hungrily.

-Did they throw bread rolls at him?

-They didn't.

But they were so excited that they made the theatres stop the film,

-roll it back, play it again.

-I do that when I'm at the cinema.

-You do do that, or you'd like to?

-Yeah, every time I'm at the cinema,

I just stand up and go, "Stop and rewind that!"

Everybody ignores me. I go, "I said stop, please!

"I like that scene!

"Rewind the film! No! Excuse me, madam!

"Rewind the film, please!"

1931, Chaplin released what many considered to be his masterpiece,

City Lights, where the Little Tramp becomes involved

with a blind girl and an alcoholic millionaire.

Who did he invite to the premiere?

-Big in his time. Big in all times.

-What's the year?

-BFG.

-Alexander the Great.

-Not him.

The Lord Jesus Christ.

He would have had a right laugh with those bread rolls!

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

-If I was to give you a clue, I would say his appearance was all relative.

-Albert Einstein.

-Albert Einstein.

Albert Einstein, indeed, was invited to the premiere.

Time now to play for the Charlie.

One of the by-products of Chaplin's fame was that he was copied,

not just by the public, but by other actors.

There was a Mexican actor called Charles Amador,

who blatantly ripped off Chaplin and one of his movies.

There he is.

That's Charles Amador. Now, what name did Amador use for the movie?

-Bendy Cane.

-Was it Charlie Choplin?

-Just to get people get in, like, a kind of...?

-I'm going to give you that.

-It was Charlie Aplin.

-No!

Charlie...

You know like when you go to Piri Piri Rooster's, instead of Nando's?

Josh, is there a Josh Iddicombe working, do you think, the circuit?

I don't think so. Are you about to reveal that there is?

LAUGHTER

Look to your right, my friend. Look to your right.

-AS JOSH:

-What...are people doing?!

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Congratulations, Josh. You win.

CHEERS AND APPLAUSE

Right, Josh, my love, it's your turn to pick a Charlie. You've got...

I'm going to go with Fun-Loving Charlie.

Well, you've picked the merry monarch Charles II.

-There he is.

-Ooh!

Let's have a look at Charles II's stats...

Charles's father, Charles I, naturally,

was executed and replaced by Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell,

so Charles II spent much of his early years abroad or in hiding.

After losing to Cromwell's army at the Battle of Worcester

in September of 1651, he needed to get somewhere safe.

-Where did he end up hiding?

-Middlesbrough.

-It's a safe place.

-It is a safe place.

-It's not!

-I've been there on a Saturday night!

-Not with me, you haven't, love!

-That's true.

-That sounded like a threat!

Suzannah, I'm thinking you might know this.

Yeah, was a supporter of Theresa Green.

He was up in a royal oak,

which is why so many pubs were called Royal Oaks.

-What? He was in a tree?!

-He was in a tree. He hid in a tree.

-How long did he stay there for?

-He was there for a whole day.

Oh, right. I thought it was like a year or something!

A day?! I've been in a tree two weeks once.

Charles II was crowned king in 1660,

after Oliver Cromwell's intensely Puritanical rule.

How did he take revenge on Cromwell?

Did he kill him with a wig and a pen.

And that is why so many pubs are called Wig and Pen.

Did he wether him with some spoons?

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Suzannah, I think, might know.

He dug his body up and basically when Charles came back and

took the throne, they said, "OK, you can take the throne,

"but you're not allowed to have revenge on everyone who went against you,"

except the people who'd killed his dad.

And so Cromwell, and a few other people who'd been at the trial,

they were dug up and their rotting corpses taken along to the

Old Bailey and then a judge pronounced the death sentence

on them and then they were dragged through the streets on sleds

and taken to Tyburn to be hanged.

And then they took Cromwell's head off,

after that... After they'd hanged him for a bit,

and put it on a spike near Westminster...

Do you know what? The real answer was a bit bleak.

Although, it does remind me a lot of Wetherspoons.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

So, Charles was all about bringing back fun.

Cromwell had shut the theatres and Charles reopened them.

But how did he revolutionise the theatre?

-Oh, I actually think I know the answer to this.

-Oh?

Did he invent pantomime?

-He didn't invent pantomime.

-Aw!

LAUGHTER

-That sounded good!

-Yeah, it did sound good.

-He's behind you!

The head on a spike!

I've never been so sure that I'd got an answer!

-I think I know. Did he introduce royal boxes?

-No.

-Aw!

-That was good!

-Did he...?

-Go, James! Get in!

-I know the answer!

-Here we go.

Did he make it OK to stand up and ask them to go back a scene

and start again?

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Do you know, Suzannah? Do you know?

-I think it's that he put women on the stage.

-He did indeed.

He legalised acting for women and even today,

attractive women up to the age of 25 are allowed some parts.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE So, thank you.

Going to the theatre enabled Charles to watch actresses,

but even more importantly, meet them and have sex with them.

He enjoyed a succession of mistresses, several of them actresses.

Small clues available to modern historians as to who were his

favourite mistresses...

Might it be Moll Davis?

Might it be Barbara Villiers?

Or could it possibly be Nell Gwyn?

Hm! LAUGHTER

What's the opposite of "hard to get"?

That was rather like when Judy Finnigan had that wardrobe malfunction.

Can you talk us through that...? I mean, is that a well-known sort of style of portraiture?

Well, it's because she was a mistress, so all of them had

-sort of low decollage and this one particularly low, and it's to show...

-Non existent!

That is low!

I think if she turned up tonight,

we would describe that as particularly low.

Was that Charles essentially getting something that

he can show his mates? Is that essentially what he's doing? Yep!

Loads of people bought them. Pepys had one. He had a naked picture...

Peeps? I thought you meant loads of people.

That's actually, everybody in South London...

Yeah, just dropped out a posh for peeps there.

Surely his wife knew,

because he's not very good at having an affair, is he?

If that's on his phone and his wife takes a look,

she's going to go, "Wait a minute!"

That is your phone up there, isn't it, Richard?

If it turns out that's what you're in to, no-one will be surprised.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Degree of rivalry between the mistresses.

On one occasion, Nell sabotaged Moll Davis' visit to the King.

How did she do that?

Sabotage? So did she, like, leave something in the house?

-She gave her a cake with laxative in.

-She did.

-No!

-Oh, that's brilliant!

-Oh, no!

I bet that's what Mary Berry's just done to Paul Hollywood as well!

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

I think you'll find this is quite the show stopper!

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Time to play now for the Charlie.

So, Charles was also known to drink a kind of medicine known as

the King's Drops.

What were the main ingredients of the King's Drops?

Was it Calpol?

Absinthe?

-It was alcohol, so that was one of the ingredients.

-WKD.

What do you...? I'll just accept alcohol,

but when you want a bit of texture in your drink, what would you...?

Oh, hot chocolate rice.

Goddamn it!

That was a sitter and I missed it.

What would you put in there?

-Isn't it part of the human body?

-Yes, it's a little bit of skull.

-Just a crumble of skull.

-What?!

-You're right, Suzannah.

In the 16th and 17th centuries,

Europeans drank remedies containing human bones and blood and fat

as a cure for everything from headaches to epilepsy.

Congratulations, Josh's team. You win the Charlie. Well done.

CHEERS AND APPLAUSE

Right, Richard, your turn. A couple of Charlies left.

What would you fancy out of these two?

-Shall we go Vocal Charlie?

-Let's go vocal.

Let's go Vocal Charlie because that'll be a singer, right?

Yes, it is. It's Welsh opera star

turned pop star turned political activist,

-the wonderful Charlotte Church. AUDIENCE:

-Ooh!

Right. Let's have a look at her stats...

SAYS NAME IN WELSH ACCENT

Charlotte was first heard singing down

the line to Richard and Judy in a phone in and made her first

TV appearance on the Big Big Talent Show in 1997.

Why was she on the show?

I think she wasn't on the show. I think her aunt was on the show.

Very good, yes. She wasn't the booking, basically. She came on to introduce her aunt Caroline,

who was a contestant on the show. Jonathan Ross asked her to sing a little to the audience before

her aunt came on.

Take a look at this.

# Pie Jesu

# Pie Jesu

# Qui tollis peccata mundi

# Dona eis requiem

# Dona eis requiem. #

-Wow! What about that!

-CHEERS AND APPLAUSE

Effortless. Effortless.

What you can't quite hear there is her aunt crying backstage.

Charlotte Church has travelled the world with her singing and

has performed for two US Presidents, Bill Clinton and George W Bush.

What did Bush ask her?

-Did he ask her where Wales was?

-I'll give you that.

He asked her which state Wales was in,

to which the answer of course is, a bit of a mess actually.

Like everywhere else at the moment.

Like everywhere else. APPLAUSE

In 2005, Charlotte started a high-profile relationship

with Welsh rugby player Gavin Henson. Here they are.

In 2010, following Gavin's departure,

what did Ospreys Rugby Club ban?

Hair.

Not hair.

-No, "her"(!)

-LAUGHTER

SHE MOUTHS

-I'm a dick.

-You feel like a massive Josh now!

No, obviously, we've moved beyond RP accents at the BBC!

Allcomers, from all parts from this magnificent kingdom!

Stephanie, your answer please.

Imagine if the answer had been "hair" and you'd given it.

Right, what did they ban?

-Was it spray tan?

-It was indeed spray tan. Well done.

Congratulations. Spray tan.

All right. Time to play for the Charlie.

So, we're going to play

Who Is Charlotte Being Totally Honest About Now?

The team who gets the most right wins the Charlie.

So, who is she talking about here?

Who did she say that about?

Is it one of the fembots from Austin Powers?

-Was it Hopkins?

-No, not Hopkins. Another Katie.

Katie Price. She's had loads of fights with Katie, hasn't she?

CHEERS AND APPLAUSE

I don't hate anybody...

Trump.

Trump, it is.

APPLAUSE

-I actually interviewed him once.

-No way!

-Shut the front door!

When he arrived, he walked into the room and he looked

me in the eye and he went, "Oh, my God.

"You're so beautiful that I'm going to have to leave this room to

"make myself look better because if we do this interview now,

"everyone's just going to be staring at you."

Never saw him again.

It took him that long!

As a good northern girl,

I literally couldn't control my laughter and I went to him.

"Listen, mate, I've heard better lines than that down Club Bongo,"

-which I actually have.

-LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

And finally, "When you get close to her..."

Is it Mel?

No!

Aw!

I've even given them my favourite Charlie Brown!

But, yes, Mel is quite a bit older than I am.

All right, so, who do you think is this one?

-The Queen.

-Margaret Thatcher?

-The Queen is right. Well done.

APPLAUSE

Congratulations, Richard's team. You win the Charlie. Well done, Richard.

Time now to fire up our Charlie-flavoured fruit machine.

Each time I spin, out will pop three faces.

Our team have to match the extraordinary facts to the

extraordinary Charlie. So, let's spin.

We have got, Public Enemy frontman Chuck D,

we've got Charlie Sheen,

and we've got Charlie Simpson, AKA Charlie from Busted.

The question is, who published a volume of poetry called

A Piece Of My Mind? Josh, what do you think?

I actually know quite a lot about Charlie Simpson from Busted.

LAUGHTER

-So do I.

-Do you?

-I'm a huge fan of Busted.

When I was travelling around America,

the only thing we had to do on the train was that we had...

We'd bought some Smash Hits Top Trumps at the airport,

so I can tell you that Charlie Simpson from Busted is 193cm tall.

And he has a phwoar factor of 97.

Phwoar!

Yeah.

I think they're trying to lure us in with Chuck D just because he's a rapper.

I think Charlie Sheen is the kind of person,

he's done lots of unlikely things, hasn't he?

-He's done everything else.

-And he's quite outspoken. He'd give people a piece of his mind.

He would give people a piece of his mind. I'm going to...

-We're going to go for Sheen.

-Sheen, for you. OK.

-And how about your team, Richard?

-Charlie took himself very seriously,

but didn't write the lyrics in Busted, that was James.

-Thank you.

-LAUGHTER

My secret is out!

I have been to the year 3000.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

I once met James from Busted and Tom who leads McFly and they

wrote the songs together and I talked about The Year 3000,

because it says, "I've been to the year 3000..."

And it says, "Your great-great-great granddaughter is pretty fine."

And I said, "Your great-great-great granddaughter's not going to be there in the year 3000, James,

"because it'd be like your great-great-great-great-great-great great-great-great granddaughter."

He said, "Advances in medical science, mate."

-So, Chuck D or Charlie from Busted?

-Chuck D, please.

-Chuck D.

You want to go for a bit of Chuck D. Let's see the right answer.

It's Charlie Sheen.

APPLAUSE

Published in 1988 under the name Charles Sheen.

Of course, one of Sheen's favourite lines is...cocaine.

Josh, you win. Congratulations. You win the Charlie.

CHEERS AND APPLAUSE

So, next up, we've got B movie muscleman Chuck Norris,

EastEnders star Charlie Brooks, and Carry On star Charles Hawtrey.

The question is - who had to be rescued naked from their home

by firemen when someone set fire to their sofa?

-I had to be rescued by firemen from my bedroom.

-Did you?

-Yeah.

I had a sliding door and my girlfriend at the time got up

to open it and it came off of its feet and just blocked the door.

We couldn't get out. So we had to get the fire brigade and they climbed through the window

and the first thing the fireman said when he got into our house was, "Bit hot in here."

And I was like, "Most of the houses you're in are on fire, mate!"

My initial feeling would be that it would be Charlie Brooks,

Janine from EastEnders,

because I don't think they'd have chosen her as one of the options,

would they? I haven't thought about her in 15 years!

So you're going to go for Charlie Brooks. Richard's team, who do you think?

-What do you think?

-We should go Chuck, shouldn't we? Because when you get an action man,

they're normally the ones who muck up on their real life.

What do you think, Rob?

-Maybe he might have dropped one of his Uzis down the sofa.

-His what?!

His Uzis. He's got an Uzi. We're clashing with accents here,

-aren't we?

-We'll be subtitled, don't worry.

Every time Richard speaks, it just says "normal".

-We're going to go for Chuck Norris.

-You've gone for Chuck Norris.

The correct answer is...

Charles Hawtrey.

Charles Hawtrey had to be rescued by the fire brigade naked and without his toupee

after an enraged rent boy, whom Hawtrey had refused to pay,

set fire to his sofa.

-He was notoriously tight, Charles Hawtrey.

-Oh, yeah?

He moved to... LAUGHTER

Are you saying that's how the fire started?

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

He didn't pay cab drivers, he didn't pay rent boys, so one set fire to his sofa.

By the way, that's not just a normal list. Cab drivers, rent boys... That's a hell of a jump.

-Do you tip your cab driver, Richard?

-Oh, yeah.

What about your rent boys?

Well, he lets me come on the show.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Can you imagine if you'd hired a rent boy and Rob turned up?

-Do you spoon?

-I do whatever he wants.

There's no way that you are ever the big spoon in that situation!

Sometimes big men need to be vulnerable.

That's nice, that's quite sweet.

Let's not start it now though. Let's move on with the questions.

It's your money, Richard. I'll do what you want.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Sadly, no-one's going to win the Charlie,

but we have had a massive window into Richard Osman's personal life.

Now it's time to play Finish The Fact.

I'm going to start by reading out a Charlie-based gem.

You're going to buzz in when you think you know how it ends.

First up, we've got wealthy art hoarder Charles Saatchi.

-BUZZER

-The least of their worries.

-BUZZER

-Was it...? Did she have to do it?

Yes, she did. She did.

I don't know if she had to do it, but she did do it.

Yeah, it was done by Nigella.

-BUZZER

-In evidence.

BELL James.

On Ready Steady Cook.

-When she got married, where were they going?

-Holiday.

-Honeymoon.

Honeymoon. Absolutely. The leftovers were taken...

And only then did he try and strangle her.

So, well done. You win the Charles. APPLAUSE

Next up, we've got Death Wish actor Charles Bronson.

-BELL

-Disciple.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

No, he was the 11th, it's more prosaic than that...

-BELL

-In his imagination.

-BUZZER

-In the backpack of the 14th.

Well, it has something to do with hand-me-downs.

More to do with clothing.

-BELL

-Older sister's school uniform?

-Correct. Yes.

-Wow!

He had to go to school in his sister's dress.

-AUDIENCE:

-Aw!

It was then he realised what a death wish was.

Well done, Josh. You win the Charles.

APPLAUSE

And so we've come to the end of the show and I can tell you that

tonight's winners, with the most Charlies...Josh's team!

Well done! CHEERS AND APPLAUSE

APPLAUSE DROWNS OUT SPEECH

So, big moment now. Big moment, Josh.

Who are you going to nominate as the greatest Charlie of all time?

I was thinking - British hero, and also she slags people off,

I want to be on her good side, Charlotte Church.

I'm very happy with that. CHEERS AND APPLAUSE

So, let's put her in our Insert Name Here Hall Of Fame.

That is a house party right there.

Charles Darwin is sitting at home now going, "What the fuck?!"

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE My thanks to all of my guests,

special thanks to all the Charlies here, there and everywhere, but

mainly a massive thank you to you at home for sitting and watching.

Thank you. Good night. CHEERS AND APPLAUSE