2013 Seann Walsh's Late Night Comedy Spectacular

This programme contains strong language

Welcome to a night of comedy at the Edinburgh Festival.

Also home to theatre, ballet, opera -

if you're into that sort of thing.

Personally, I couldn't think of anything worse.

We're coming to you from The Caves, deep under the streets of Edinburgh.

This is the dark, damp and murky heart of the Edinburgh Festival.

These caves have a rich and fascinating history...

probably, I mean, I don't know. Google it or something.

Tens of thousands of comedians come from all around the world

to perform here - some in tiny rooms, some not even in rooms!

That's what's amazing about this festival.

It can just be you and three other audience members

watching a man do stand-up in a fudge shop.

That man would then go on to play the O2 Arena.

Well, he probably won't, he's probably just a nutter. Probably.

Be lucky to end up working in the O2 shop.

Now, I bring you a selection of the freshest, funniest,

most fantastic comedians this festival has to offer.

Welcome to the Late Night Comedy Spectacular!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Fantastic crowd! Look at this!

Brilliant!

Hello, Edinburgh!

CHEERING

Good. So, are you enjoying the Festival?

-ALL:

-Yes!

The Edinburgh Festival, this is the launch pad for some of the biggest names in comedy.

Michael McIntyre!

-ALL:

-Woo!

-AS MICHAEL MCINTYRE:

-It's good to be here. We like it in Edinburgh.

We love The Caves, we love the caves, it's incredible.

We love The Caves. There's WHISKY in The Caves, WINE! We love wine.

Batman! INCREDIBLE!

-AS KEVIN BRIDGES:

-Back in the day when telephone boxes were only 10p!

LAUGHTER

Not just big names at this festival, is it?

Street performers out on the street. Have you seen these guys?

I love our reaction to these guys.

We all do the same thing - British people especially.

If you're walking down the street, you'll see the street performer, I saw one a week ago,

a man on stilts with three chainsaws juggling.

Everyone gathers around, "Look at that, that is incredible, isn't it?

"Wow, it's brilliant. Ready to... Oh, dangerous! Is he going to fall?

"Wow, such admiration. Is he finished?

"Oh, it's the big finish! That is incredible!"

As soon as that man says, "If you just leave a pound in the hat..."

"Fuck off, see you later!

"I want nothing to do with this. Get a real job, dickhead."

When I've been walking around the festival,

what I mainly get as I walk round, all I really hear is...

HE WHISPERS

"(Justin Lee Collins.)"

-HE WHISPERS

-"(Justin Lee Collins.)"

It's a beard, I think. It's the beard, I hope.

Beard, long hair, beard combo.

It's a strange combo, the long-haired beard combo,

cos it means from behind I look like Sarah Jessica Parker. Doesn't it?

And from the front I look like anyone that just got back from Thailand.

You get called a lot of names with this look.

People just walk past me and shout things, "JESUS!"

"Aslan!"

Someone said I looked like the girl from Outnumbered...

if she had a sex change AND a breakdown.

Robin Williams halfway through Jumanji.

My own mate said I looked like the lead singer of Nickelback,

when on the line-up on Never Mind the Buzzcocks,

I'd be one of the ones he wasn't.

But I think you can tell a lot from someone's look.

I mean, you can tell from looking at me

that, you know, I don't really get stuff done.

I mean, just look at my head, I'm not one of those guys...

I'm not a proactive person.

You know these people, proactive people, they are out there.

The sort of people that when a light bulb goes they change it.

You know these people? So I'm more, sort of...

HE CLICKS

"Ugh, I'll just live in the dark until I move house."

Proactive people, not just active, proactive.

"Yay, active, woo! Yeah!"

Usually got an iPhone strapped to their arm.

"Look at that, active! Jogging! Blood pressure! Calories! Woo!"

I'm only active by mistake, you know?

Like, when I remember I'm running a bath.

"Bollocks, Jesus Christ! Quickly! Quickly!

"Oh, thank Christ for that. Oh, Jesus."

I've always had this attitude.

You know, I used to be, I used to be quite a healthy young lad.

Big fan of football. Big fan of football.

I was actually quite good but...

Now, I can't do it now.

90 minutes of running around?

HE EXHALES

Are you kidding me? I'm fucked after a baguette.

That's my exercise now. The baguette.

Just going, "Mm, no, I'm done. Leave me alone. I can't see.

"I don't know who I am. Help me."

The closest I get to football is when I'm walking through a park

and a group of guys are playing football in the distance,

kick out of their imaginary pitch, and the ball comes towards me,

and I have to kick it back.

It's a terrifying moment, I think you'll agree.

Like, the ball they hit, "Oi, mate!"

"Oh, God. Oh, no. Please, someone else deal with this. Please."

When you just hope that someone else is there?

Like, when you're hung-over

and you see a woman trying to carry a pram up the stairs.

Going, "Someone else deal with this, Please. I can't handle this. Please, please."

"Oi, mate!" I'm thinking, "Maybe they don't mean me. Maybe it's not me?"

"Oi, mate!" "Just ignore it."

"Justin!" "Definitely me. OK, fine. All right, good."

"Give us the ball! On the head, on the head! Not to him, to me."

All of them shouting at me.

Thinking, "Oh, God. Oh, God, I've got to do this.

"Right, how am I going to...? Oh, God, I don't want to look stupid.

"I don't bend as much as I used to. I mainly crack now. Oh, God.

"I have to give this back.

"Come on, Seann, you can do this like you used to."

MUSIC: "Nessun dorma" by Giacomo Puccini

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Ladies and gentlemen, are you ready for my first guest?

-ALL:

-Yeah!

You may know this man from sitcoms Friday Night Dinner and Plebs,

what you may not know is that he is also a fantastic stand-up.

Go wild for Tom Rosenthal!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Hello! Hello, Caves! I'm sorry for barging through all those people.

You thought I was just some prick, didn't you?

I'm not, I'm supposed to be here. Honestly!

Anyway, hello, how are you? Are you well?

CHEERING Having fun, Edinburgh? Delightful.

Well, it is an honour to be here for you and BBC Three.

Oh, just as a warning, this is how I sound. This is my voice.

This is the sound that comes out of my head. I'm sorry, I can't control it.

I'm going to sound like this for the whole time.

I've just realised, it's just not a very human sound.

You know what I mean? It's a bit, "Meh!"

I've got the voice of a very intelligent sheep.

You've just got to just get, just get used to it.

Also, my accent is a bit odd.

It is, sort of, like, half London, half Berkshire, sort of, fused.

Half posh, half not posh, you know.

I've got the voice of someone who would own horses

but I'd make them fight for gambling purposes. That's my...

I'd eat a pheasant from KFC. That's my voice.

It's lovely to be here, Edinburgh.

My show this year is about going to Bulgaria, really.

I went there to film this thing I was in called Plebs, as Seann mentioned.

-Wahey!

-One fan in. Thank you very much. I love Bulgaria.

It's just so different out there, ain't it, man?

They've got two types of cheese.

Just let that settle on an Edinburgh fringe middle-class trip. Cheese.

The two cheeses you can get are white cheese and yellow cheese.

That is, honestly. A Bulgarian will separate cheese into those two...

Mozzarella - white cheese, Edam - yellow cheese, Stilton - not cheese.

That's how they do it! In this country we got the quattro formaggio

but that is four cheeses on one pizza.

We've got more cheese on one 12-inch space

than they've got in 42,000 square miles, it's ridiculous!

It's just because they're new to capitalism, right?

So they're bad capitalists and then got less shit to compete over.

They've got, like, 12 songs. Honestly, 12 songs.

Two Destiny's Child, two Black Eyed Peas, two Michael Jackson

and then six by Celine Dion. That's...

It's like they've got to Now 36

and gone, "Oh, well, that's music. That'll do us."

Comedy is the same, man.

I had a conversation with the waiter, I was like, "Any stand-up comedy in Bulgaria?"

He goes, "Yes, there is a comedian."

I went, "Any good?"

He goes, "No..."

"..but..."

"..he is the comedian."

I had so much fun out there, though. Danny Dyer was in it for a bit.

Do you know Danny Dyer? Yeah? He's, like, an actor.

He's LIKE an actor.

I loved him so much.

He rose to prominence in the '90s classic Human Traffic,

where he played, like, a drug-taking cockney and then, of course,

The Football Factory, where he played, like, a drug-taking cockney,

and then the film Outlaw, where he played a pre-op transsexual.

No, he was a drug-taking cockney! I love him and he's incredible.

He's too much cockney for one man. Cockney squared, all right?

The first, conversation I had with him, we were in a lift and he went,

and he kissed me on both cheeks, and just went, "Sweet dreams, son."

Just going to kill me or fuck me? How am I supposed to deal with that?!

And he just makes these sounds all the time as well.

Just like, "Wou-ua-a-a-ah."

"Wou-u-a-ah!" It's like Danny Dyer grammar, that is, basically.

Like, "Wou-ua-a-a-ah," is a comma. "Wou..."

And he asks a question, as well.

Would just be like, "Er, ph-woua-ah, know what I mean, Tom?"

"No. You sound like a '90s modem, how can I know what do you mean?

"There is no content to any of this."

I had to do, like, a naked scene with Danny Dyer, so I saw it. Yeah.

I saw Danny's Dyer. I saw it.

And there's, you know, it's...

"Ah!" Is big. Big penis.

I don't know how to say that.

I don't want to be crass but in the competition between mine

and his genitalia I finished third, you know I mean?

There's just lots going on but it's just weird

because he wasn't happy with how big it looked, for some reason?

So, like, when we were filming, it wasn't going to get shown on TV

but there was, like, a female member of crew and she just kept, like...

Yeah...

kept, like, manipulating it to look bigger.

If anything, I'll tell you about Danny,

is at one point he grabbed his own penis, right,

he looked down at it and he went,

"Get a stiffer you fucking mug!"

To is own penis and he started helicoptering it around, like that.

Helico... I couldn't even do that!

I couldn't get the centrifugal force to make mine go around.

It starts making a sound! It starts blowing scripts everywhere.

It's freezing, he's air conditioning the set now! It's all in my hair!

I'm standing there like the fucking Earth going...

HE SHOUTS THE EARTH SONG

All the Bulgarians are like, "Michael Jackson, I like!" You know, it was ridiculous.

Thank you so much. Have a wonderful Edinburgh. I've been Tom Rosenthal, enjoy The Cave. Thank you.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

That was Tom Rosenthal! Now, follow me! Come through.

We leave The Caves bit, we're going through The Caves,

we're now going into a bar. I feel like I'm hosting Crystal Maze.

-Hello, everyone! Yes!

-THEY CHEER

"YEAH!"

Erm, now, you'll hear comedians say a lot of the time,

"Oh, this next guy's a close personal friend of mine,"

but this next by actually is a close personal friend of mine.

It's the wonderful Marlon Davis!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Hello!

Woo-hoo!

Good evening!

-ALL:

-Hey.

-Hiya, Edinburgh. Yes.

First things first, what you can see is I've got this face, all right?

And people say, "This isn't a face of authority at all, is it?"

It's not!

It's like, I couldn't be your boss at work.

Like, "Why are you late? Come on now."

I've got a round face.

I grew up in a council estate, I couldn't rob no-one.

I tried! I was like, I was like, "Yo, give me your money!",

He was like, "Come on now. You look like Kenan & Kel, come on."

"I'm SERIOUS!" "Course you are."

There's nothing gangster when you're trying to rob people

and they're pinching your cheeks. That's not the one, is it?

So I had to go out and get a real job.

Make some noise if you got a job. CHEERING

It's great having a job

-but you have annoying people at your workplace, don't you?

-Yay!

-Eh?

See, there's some of them in here right now.

Yeah, if you don't have annoying people at work, right, it's YOU!

Right, you're the one at work that everyone hates.

And they always say they're leaving, "I'm leave..."

"Well, fucking leave! You've been saying that for the last ten years!

"Everyone in this place hates you.

"Even the seat you sit on is like, 'Why do I get this arsehole, why?' "

That's what it is.

I used to work in an office before I did this

and I'll tell you what used to annoy me the most was birthdays.

Couldn't stand birthdays.

Not the fact that it's someone's birthday,

it's just the big hoo-ha in the office.

Cos they come round your work station like they are ninjas.

Like... HE HUMS

"What?" "You need to put a pound in the envelope for Karen."

"Who the fuck is Karen?!"

"She works downstairs. Quickly, sign the card..."

"..before she comes back from lunch, it's a surprise."

It's not a surprise!

Everyone in a workplace gets a birthday card on their birthday,

don't they? That's not a surprise.

A surprise would be if the boss came out and did a shit on her desk.

It would be disgusting but you'd remember that day for ever, innit?

We got people in here in relationships? CHEERING

Relationships are good, right?

But I think to myself it's a little but overrated.

It is, you've got that first stage of love

where they're all kissy, kissy, kissy, mwah, mwah all right?

You've got the cosy bit, which is nice

and you got the end where you have to bury them, right, it's lovely.

Is lovely, it's lovely, it's lovely.

But what I do like is the second stage in a relationship, right?

You know, you start getting comfortable with that person.

You start kicking off your shoes, you start getting fat, you're like,

"I've got you," it's nice.

It's nice when you get there but there is a test to let you know

that you've got to this point in the relationship.

Some people say it's farting.

It's not farting, you can get through a fart, it's not that.

The test is if you can flush their poo, all right?

Now, looking at everyone's reaction, right here,

lets me know that's the reason why that is the test.

There's no way of going back from that, right?

Cos I saw in the toilet and the first thing that

came in my head was, like, "How the hell did she do that?! I mean...

"That's DISGUSTING!"

But I looked at it but it was still cute because it came from her.

GROANING

She does little poo-poos and it's sweet, you know?

You don't even smell it cos the love is all around you.

You don't even smell it.

And then you look at it, and it becomes a secret between you

and the toilet...

and Facebook.

I got a "like" over there, which is nice. It's nice, it's nice.

But I've been in a relationship for a while now

and I've got a baby boy, all right. CHEERING

Yeah, some people ain't impressed. They're like, "So what? I've got a dog."

But got... I've got a boy.

I like at this age, he's a toddler now

so we started to do more stuff together, all right?

I like taking him out to the playground.

I take him out to the playground cos that brings you back to your childhood

because you've got the slides there,

you've got the swings and sometimes he pushes me, it's great, I love it.

I love going into the playground but when you walk into the playground

you have to have a thing called playground etiquette.

I'll tell you what I mean by that, you have to be REALLY, really nice.

REALLY really nice and fake, like a children's television presenter.

Because sometimes the kids in the park, they have altercations.

My son pushed another little boy.

I had to be on him straightaway, I said, "Kayden, Kayden, come here.

"You don't push other children, you play nice in the park, all right?

"Don't push other children, play nicely. Now, go play.

"Go play, go play."

But in my head I'm like, "Knock him out," all right?

"Give him a little kick when no-one is looking."

But you know what it is like for your kid to lose a fight? Do you know?

Cos this little boy came up to my son, right?

I say little, he was massive. He was on steroids, or something, right?

This kid was a monster and he came up to him,

and he started pinching him for no reason at all.

He started pinching him right here.

And every pinch you start to feel that

because that's your flesh, that's your blood.

And he went to the back of my son's head, and went, "Biff!"

Just like that.

Now, I'm on this park bench and I'm thinking to myself, like,

"Yo, where the hell is this other kid's parents?

"And if they ain't there I'm going to fuck this kid up."

And I went up to the kid and I was like,

"HEY! You get the hell off my son! I will kill you!

"You get the hell off of my son!"

And he looked at me and started laughing.

He was like, "Ha-ha-ha! You got a round face!"

I was like, "Come on, let's go." Thank you very much!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

One more time for Marlon Davis!

Yes. Now, as we've seen, there are lots of amazing comedians

at the Edinburgh Festival but what about the city itself?

What makes Edinburgh so special?

We've sent our roving reporter Tash Demetriou to find out.

Over to you, Tash.

Thank you, Seann.

Welcome to Edinburgh, the home of leprechauns, four-leafed clovers,

the luck of the Irish and, of course,

the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Festival...Society of Art.

There's drama and so much comedy with... It's a festival of...

of all performance. In many ways, it's 2011... 13.

IRISH ACCENT: Top of the morning to you, laddie!

Oh, would you look at the time?

It's a quarter past Facts.

This is the city where JK Rowling wrote Harry Potter.

Welcome to Scotland!

Edinburgh's most famous street, it's Her Majesty the Royal mile.

The Royal Mile is full of performers promoting their shows.

Let's go and see how it is done.

How do snails get their shells so shiny?

How...do they get them like that?

Snail varnish.

Ha-ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha!

Ha-ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha!

Did you know it's illegal to laugh in Edinburgh

outside the month of August?

These women are prostitutes

and by "prostitutes" I mean they're desperate for clients,

and by "clients" I mean audience members.

Good luck, ladies!

Not a lot of people know that they built the River Thames here

and transported it to London.

Ahh, what a tiring day I've had in the city of Edinburgh

but I give it five stars.

IRISH ACCENT: To be sure, to be sure, to be sure.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am very excited about my next act.

He's going to go on to big things and I can't wait to see what.

Go crazy, go wild, go really loud for Dane Baptiste!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

-Yeah. How you guys doing? Are you all right? ALL:

-Yeah!

How many people here are from Edinburgh?

CHEERING Cool, cool.

It's my third time here, guys. Thank you for having me in your city.

Erm, I do enjoy it here but I have to be honest,

when I am here I kind of feel like a Coco Pop in a bowl of Rice Krispies.

I could be in worse places, OK? I've been in worse places.

Like, I could be at work doing a normal job.

How many people here enjoy their job? WEAK CHEERING

So, that's about four of you?

I have a job. I hate the job, I hate the people I work with even more, OK?

I hate my job so much that in my office, on my desk,

there's a picture of a family...

..that I'm not related to.

But it's there just so when those dickheads from work go,

"All right, Dane, coming for a drink after work?"

I can go, "I'm afraid I can't."

As you can see, I have a family, so..."

Normally I get, like, cynical responses from people like,

"Dane, your family look a bit Filipino. Why is this?"

And I'm like, "Well, we're adopted, OK?

"You've heard of Benetton? We're the Benetton Baptiste's.

"Why don't you get the fuck away from my desk, Steve?!"

Now, you guys don't know Steve but Steve is a real dick, OK?

He's one of these guys that comes into the office a bit too enthusiastic.

He's always like, "Hey, guys, I'm doing the marathon.

Who was to sponsor me? M'yah."

He says that too, "M'yah."

Like, how many people here watch the marathon?

Yeah, exactly.

Look, I don't give a fuck about the marathon, OK?

I don't see why middle class people can dress up

and run through London, and that's called a marathon.

Me and my friends do that shit, they call it a riot, which I don't think...

LAUGHTER

..I don't think is particularly fair.

The objective is the same, to raise money for the disadvantaged, so...

So I won't sign your sponsorship form, Steve.

So, you'd be surprised to know that I lost that job

but, like, I'm doing my best

because I know, like, no-one wants a guy that is unemployed.

I'm looking for a job right now, OK?

But, you know, we're living in austerity times

and it's hard to find a job in the recession

so you've got to embellish your CV slightly.

You know, exaggerate.

I was in an interview the other day and they were like,

"OK, Dane, so it says here after you graduated from Hogwarts

"and defeated the Decepticons...

"..but you also served in the SAS?

"Can you tell us more about that, please?"

I said, "I would love to bet that shit's classified, so."

It's hard. I mean, it's hard all round.

Like I said, I know it is not good for a man to tell people

you're unemployed but I think that's the least of our worries.

I'm wondering where all the real men have gone in this world, OK?

Like, I know people my age that say stuff like, "Oh, times are hard."

Times can never be hard when you can pause television, OK?

Number one. Not only that, all this free porn.

I don't want to hear people complaining, OK?

Because I remember having to struggle to get hold of some porn, OK?

In those days the women in porn had something

I like to call pubic hair...

which you don't see any more in porn

but in my day we weren't scared of pubic hair, OK?

If you pull down some knickers

and you saw an Ewok doing a somersault you went ahead.

Cos men were men, OK?

And we didn't worry about STDs in those days.

The only STD we worried about was the lurgies,

and you just touched somebody else, and continue with your playtime, OK?

We were real men and we weren't scared of STDs.

And you know something?

If you caught one you just drank a Lucozade

and you walked it off because men...

..men were men, OK?

And I'm worried about my generation of men and where they're going

cos I see some shit that is fucked up nowadays.

Like, for example, I'm in an airport on the way to Edinburgh, guy comes

up to me, and he's like, "Excuse me, sir, can you help me with my suitcase?"

I said, "No, I can't help with your fucking suitcase, you're a man,

"you packed it, you carry it, OK?"

"What, am I supposed to push a wheelchair as well?!

"Get the fuck out of my face."

That's not even the worst part, seriously.

That's not even the worst part.

I'm out with some friends having a great time a few weeks ago,

I saw a guy eating a cake with a fork.

What the fuck is that?

I had enough. I went right up to him,

slapped that shit right out of his hand, told him to be a man.

He starts complaining, "Dane, what's wrong with you?

"This is my wedding, blah, blah, blah."

"I don't give a damn what day it is!"

"You're out-of-control, you should leave."

I said, "I didn't want to come to your wedding anyway, Steve."

He was like, "M'yeh."

But, no, I mean, like I said, I'm from London where we have,

like, a serious, like, youth gang culture.

There's a little problem there.

I think the problem is nowadays that kids are no longer

scared of consequence, OK?

No-one scared of going to prison any more

because prison has PlayStation, OK?

The only person I see on TV giving people discipline is Supernanny

but I'm not scared of these little wannabe rude boys

cos I know what they're scared of.

You want to know what they're scared of?

-You want to know what they're scared of? ALL:

-Yes.

Wasps.

Listen, I don't care who you are,

no-one is a gangster when there's a wasp around, OK?

I've seen good friends use each other as human shields,

I've seen the sexuality of rude boys change in the blink of an eye.

Guys walking around like, "Yeah, bruv, round here

"I don't give a fuck..." HE BUZZES

"No, that was a hornet, OK? That was a hornet and I am allergic.

"That's the only reason I did that.

"You guys all know that wasps are the bullets that can think, OK? So...

"That's the reason I did that, so. So, yeah."

But, guys, that's been my time. I've been Dane Baptiste.

Thank you very much, guys. Cheers. CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Dane Baptiste! Yes!

Fantastic stuff!

Now, our next comedian is doing his debut stand-up show

up here at the Fringe.

I love him, you're going to love him,

it's the brilliant Liam Williams!

Thank you.

That was lovely. Lovely to be here.

All right, here's the first joke. I hope you enjoy it.

So, the universe implodes.

No matter. Thank you.

Liam Williams at your service. What a good joke.

It's a bit geeky, that's the problem.

I was always a bit of a geek at school.

I used to get bullied for that but I dealt with it.

I always gave as good as I got.

In fact, I gave better than I got.

Not to the same people, to the smaller boys, the weaker boys

and my family's animals, and that helped.

Now, a brief gag-based-about- me-section, to begin with.

My name is Liam, brown hair, blue eyes, always up for a laugh.

I live in north London.

I don't really like where I live cos I hate my neighbours.

I'm sure a lot of you have got annoying neighbours.

My neighbours piss me off all day.

Their Wi-Fi connection is so slow, it's just unbearable.

I feel very lucky to be here.

How did I, who left school at 16, before going to sixth form

and university, come to be...

..standing before you this evening?

Well, I'll tell you my story

and I'll tell you through the MEDIUM of storytelling.

Just normal stand-up.

We begin in Leeds, in 1974,

and then immediately fast forward 14 years to 1988, the year of my birth.

My mother is talking to my grandfather, her father, and friend.

"Dad, I'm pregnant with the semi-professional comedian Liam Williams."

I should say my grandad was a wise, complex,

somewhat troubled gentleman, but, for comedic purposes,

in this skit will be portrayed as an old Yorkshire git.

"Oh, wonderful news.

"You will of course raise him as we raised you, won't you?"

"You mean, emotionally repressed and in relative poverty?" "Aye."

"No, Dad." "Why not?"

"Well, Dad, there's this alternative lifestyle we've read about.

"It's called being lower-middle-class."

"What?"

"What does that mean?" HE EXHALES

HE COUGHS

"It means... We'll encourage him to eat three or four portions of fruit

"and vegetables a day and strike him biannually at most.

"We really think this is for the best.

"Please, Dad, say you understand."

But Grandad didn't say he understood.

He just turned away and muttered something about his hat.

"This is a flat cap."

My parents did give me a good upbringing, but they were the kind

of parents who would always remind me I was having a good upbringing,

and say, "Liam, we fed you, clothed you, we put a roof over your head."

I'd say, "Well, I am grateful for those things, Mother and Father, but

"if you didn't do them, you'd have to deal with the police at the door,

asking, "Why is there a starving naked boy on your front lawn?"

So I grew up. Here I am now. And I've realised what I want from life.

Money. I just want money, really. Money and things.

There are a number of inciting incidents that led me to this

realisation, and I'll tell you the one of greatest narrative interest.

This girl came back to my flat, and we made - well, not love,

but the requisite levels of mutual trust to concede bodies to each other

and escape our respective states of loneliness for a little while.

We made sweet that.

And afterwards, she is looking round the room,

I guess just collecting data to take away with and use to assess

the extent to which she is selling herself short in these transactions.

After a minute or so of looking at the room's four walls,

she turns to me and says, "How long have you lived here now?"

I say, "About two years. Why?" "It looks like you've been here a week."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you've got some things here, but there's no thought.

"It's like your room doesn't have a personality."

And as a joke to imply self-assurance, I say,

"That's because I don't have personality."

And the contrived earnestness in her voice when she says,

"That's not true, Liam."

It's made me quite scared.

So now I want money and things so I can be like, "Ah!

"Look at my on-trend boat shoes. Look at my leather bound iPad case.

"I'm going to get an iPad to go in there one of these days.

"Hand me a MasterCard and this month's GQ magazine and, darling,

"when the bedroom is bathed in sodium light

"and the abyss yawns over the trees, do not stare at it, nor at the

"bare ceiling and presume me bare too, but look instead at this poster

"of skyscraper builders in the olden days eating their lunch on a beam!"

Thank you.

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

Brilliant.

So far, we've had a lot of brand-new comedians, but now we're going

to meet a double act who were at their peak in the music hall

of the 1970s. Over to Mr Winchester and Tommy.

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

Hello, comedy fans.

-My name is Mr Winchester, this is my assistant Tommy here.

-Hello.

-We are classic entertainers and we do not fuck about.

-We belly laugh, mate.

-Get off. Now, we're here at the Edinburgh Festival.

-Fringe Festival.

Don't belittle it, Tommy, it's still valid.

We were up here at the festival to show these alternative

-"comedians" - dickheads.

-Dickheads.

-Dickheads -

These alternative dickheads how this comedy business is done,

cos I know what I'm talking about,

because I've been around the comedy block

and I've got a few hundred thousand comedy on my comedy clock.

-Comedy dashboard.

-Don't fucking labour the point.

Now, I've noticed, during my lengthy time as a comedian, that this

comedy business has started to be taken over by...

-Jews.

-Young people!

-That's what you said, wasn't it?

-Shut up! Not bloody Jews.

-You can't say that on television.

-Why not?

-Why not? Why not?!

Because there might be one fucking watching.

So, we're going to have a chat with some young people to find out

what they believe comedy to be today.

So, we're sat here with Nick, who is an all-round entertainer,

and in 2011 he was nominated for the biggest prize of all -

the Edinburgh Comedy Award.

But he didn't win.

He's fucking sat right there. Rub it in.

Nick, you are a poet. Why don't you give us one?

THEY CACKLE

-He's doing innuendo.

-He knows what I'm doing, he's not a prick.

So, come on, Nick, give us one of your poems.

There was a young man called Beanie

Who magically wished up a genie

But after a wish He asked for a fish

And the genie said, "You fucking idiot. You could have had anything.

"You could have had anything! You're a fucking time waster."

-Is that it?

-Is that like surreal?

-Yeah, is that surreal?

Yes, it's sort of surreal.

I mean, no offence when I say this, Nick, but surreal comedy is

what you find in a skip round the back of the castration clinic.

-What's that?

-A load of bollocks!

BOTH: Haw-haw-haw-haw!

That's a proper joke. Have you got anything like that?

-No, I don't have anything like that.

-Well, go on Google.

-There's loads of it, just nick it.

-Won't take you long.

-Exactly.

You've got to clothe and feed yourself with this stuff, son.

You want to grow up. All right, goodbye. Great act. Great act.

Poor sod. Honestly. Poetry!

I mean, I wish him all the best with his career,

but sadly I have been in this business too long,

and something tells me we'll be plucking his alcohol-soaked,

bloated body out of a swollen river in two or three years' time.

-Isn't that right, Tommy?

-No, that's my left.

Haw-haw-haw! That's fucking funny.

Yes, it is, yes, it is.

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

Now, ladies and gentlemen, go crazy, go wild for Aisling Bea!

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

Hello! Hello, how are you? Hello. Hi. Hi, everyone, are you all well?

-AUDIENCE:

-Yes!

Yay! Oh, great. I am from Ireland. I know, I know.

I was going to use it as a surprise reveal at the end,

but I suppose I'll tell you now.

I am from Ireland, but I live in London now. Ooh! That's right.

My mother used to think I lived a crazy life in London where

I went around brushing my teeth with cocaine

and wiping my arse with money,

and then she visited me

and realised how much of my life I actually spend

sat on the floor in my pyjamas watching the clock tick by

eating my 12th mini Kinder Bueno Hippo.

She said I should try and do exercise, you know,

get out and do exercise because it would be really good for me.

But I found that actually really offensive,

because my mother knows that I have a terrible disability which

prevents me from doing exercise, which is where I actually can't...

I can't...

be arsed! I can't be arsed, I really can't.

But I don't understand certain parts of exercise. You know like running?

Run-ning. Does anyone here know about or go running? Anyone go running?

Exactly. Why would you go running if you're not being chased?

I don't know why.

There's no natural panic in my legs that makes me

want to go any faster than this.

I've got this flatmate called Steph and Steph is American.

Are there any Americans in?

Yeah, because you know if there were.

SHE SHRIEKS

I mean, I love Americans, please come back and invest in Ireland.

I do love Americans, but they've got the sort of natural

enthusiasm for life, and Steph is the same.

Steph is so enthusiastic, and she's just always going for a run.

AMERICAN ACCENT: She's just always going for a run,

just always going for a run.

Steph gets such a buzz out of going for a run that two days later,

she'll do it again.

Do you know what I get a buzz out of? Sitting down. I love sitting down.

Has anyone ever tried it? It's good, isn't it?

There's always these stories in the tabloids about those men who

are found sat there in a chair dead and alone

and they hadn't been found for days.

And they were covered in their own wee. Oh, no.

What those stories never mention is the smile on that man's face.

I can't wait until I've alienated enough of my friends

and family that I can just sit me in a chair all day, weeing

the days away, judged by neither man nor beast watching afternoon

television waiting for the end to come.

I mean, that's kind of the dream, isn't it? I love that.

Cos I don't like moving, you see.

But my mother rang me, she's like, let me give you a piece of advice.

She said, "You have to start doing exercise or you could end up

"becoming fat-thin."

I said, "Jesus Christ on a stick, Mother, what is fat-thin?"

"I read it in a women's magazine." "Well, there's the first problem.

"The only target of women's magazines are other women."

She said, "Fat-thin is where you're thin,

"but you're secretly fat cos you don't do any exercise.

"You can also be thin-fat, fat-fat, thin-thin, too fat,

"too thin, thin in the wrong place, thin in the right place,"

and I said, "Mother, as if I don't have enough problems in my life

"trying to walk down the street and not get raped, trying to get equal

"pay, trying to live in a society where 25-year-old women are sticking

"plastic and poison in their faces so that they don't look old so that by

"the time they get to 40, they've nothing left to do to themselves

"but pull out their eyeballs and stick babies' eyeballs in instead,

"that we live in a world where there have been telephones developed

"to send a picture of a cat from one side of the world to the other

"in under a second, yet still, in over 200,000 years of humanity,

"we have not come up with a better way to have a baby child than to

"push something the size of a bowling ball out my tiny hole!"

APPLAUSE

"And now... I have to worry about being fat-thin!"

I said, "Go fuck yourself, Mother."

I didn't. Obviously. I agreed to go to a Zumba class.

My name is Aisling Bea, have a lovely fringe festival.

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

They loved her!

Right, ladies and gentlemen, the next man is a fantastic,

very funny comedian.

He's won not one, not two, but...

No, hang on, two, all right, he's won two.

That's still a lot, though. He's won two national new act competitions.

Give it up for Pat Cahill!

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

Good evening. Good evening, everybody. We all right? Yes. Good.

Right, OK, first things first.

You might be wondering, yes, this is a hands-free microphone stand.

CHEERING

Thank you. Manufactured entirely from a coat hanger. You're very kind.

Why? Well, I suppose it's a combination of two things.

A little bit too much spare time. And a coat hanger.

You've got to keep yourself busy.

And it opens me up, opens up the body language.

That's no bad thing, being more approachable, it's nice.

Cos you don't know who I am - I don't know who I am. I've no idea.

I've asked myself the major questions.

Where was I when I last saw myself?

What was I last doing when I had myself?

And have I checked my pockets? I don't know who I am.

So I come up in front of people and try to work it out.

With that in mind, let's have a bit of audience participation

while I sum it up. Basically, when I say, "I'm just an old school",

I want everybody to shout out, "boom boom". Let's give it a go.

-I'm just an old school... AUDIENCE:

-Boom boom!

-One more time.

-# I'm just an old school...

-Boom boom!

# Entertainer trying to come to terms with sensitivity. #

LAUGHTER

That's it.

Basically, I wish it was the 1860s and I could just come up here

and do a little Cockney music hall number for you with all

the nudges and winks and double entendres.

Where I'm not saying what you're thinking and you're thinking

what I'm not saying - something like,

# Come, come, come on an able seaman

# Come, come, come on an able seaman

# Shit on a pile of bricks and then fall and snap your twat. #

You know?

SCATTERED APPLAUSE

-Thank you. # I'm just an old school...

-Boom boom! #

Thanks for paying attention. It's a certain time and a certain place.

It's time for a poem. This is called I Love. It goes like this.

I love girls

I love women

Isle of Man

Isle of Dogs

Isle of Skye Isle of Wight...

Sheppey. Guernsey, Canvey island - it's in the estuary.

Portsmouth, technically. Ireland, of course. Greece.

The British Isles, for that. Any landmass that's surrounded by sea.

Thank you.

Some of it's not funny, it's just beautiful.

But I'm not lying when I say I do love girls, I love women.

I love a bit of the old how's your father?

You know, a bit of the old, where's your sister?

LAUGHTER

A bit of the old any family member at all. You know what I'm talking about.

You know, sex.

A little bit of the old. HE BLOWS A RASPBERRY

You know, sex. A bit of the old... sex.

HE MAKES RANDOM SOUND EFFECTS

A bit of the... sex. Sex. A bit of the old... sex.

RANDOM SOUND EFFECTS CONTINUE

A bit of the old...

Sex. Hey?

It's just life, working it all out, putting it out there, advice,

to-ing and fro-ing. You've got to be careful with advice.

I've had some bad advice in my day.

My father gave me a horrible misogynistic chestnut

when I was younger. He said, son, if you want to know what a girl is

going to look like in future, look at the mother.

If you want to know what it's going to be like in 25 years,

look at the mother. We've all heard it.

It's horrible - live for the moment, experience it and all that.

And if you've got a logical, practical brain like me,

you just think, why wait? So...

So now I fuck mums.

The trouble is, the old advice carries on, carries through,

doesn't it? What's Mum going to look like in 25 years?

She'll be a gran, so you start fucking grans.

And what's Gran going to look like in 25 years? Well, she's dead.

So you start fucking the earth.

What's the earth going to look like in 25 years?

It will be the same, so you expand, 25 billion years - well,

it could get sucked into the sun, so you fuck the sun.

The sun collapses and becomes a black hole,

you're fucking a black hole.

The black hole becomes a white dwarf, you're fucking a white dwarf -

I'm hoping no-one walks in on the conversation at this point.

All you've got left is space, so you're just dangling it around.

Then you've got time, you're doing time.

You haven't done the crime but you're doing the time.

Then you think, hang on,

maybe it was just some bad advice in the first place.

Fuck dad.

That's right, ladies and gentlemen,

-I'm just an old school... AUDIENCE:

-Boom-boom.

Thank you very much, you've been lovely. I've been Pat Cahill, cheers.

Thanks.

Yes! Give it up one more time for the wonderful Pat Cahill!

Now, the Edinburgh Festival welcomes comedians from all around the world.

This next comedian is from Canada.

Welcome to the twisted imagination of Bobby Mair!

Wow.

Thank you. Hi, I'm Bobby,

and I've done as much cocaine as I look like I've done.

Oh... I went clubbing my first night in Edinburgh,

and I saw something amazing,

I saw a dwarf selling MDMA.

He just came up to me, he was like, "Hey, do you want to buy some MDMA?"

I was like, "No, clearly I'm high enough,

"I'm seeing a dwarf selling MDMA."

Like, "I am on the right level."

Cos it takes balls to be a dwarf drug dealer.

Like, I'm afraid to be a drug dealer, cos any of you could stab me

and take my drugs.

If you are a dwarf drug dealer, at any point somebody could just

come along, pick you and your drugs up and take you away.

And you can't do anything.

And then I remember this one-night stand,

and during sex this girl really scratched my back a lot,

like, she dug her nails in.

And then afterwards she calls a cab.

And I went outside to the cab with her,

she was like, "You don't have to wait for the cab with me."

I'm like, "Yes, I do." She was like, "Why?"

I'm like, "Cos look, if you get kidnapped and murdered,

"my DNA is under your fucking fingernails.

"And I don't seem like the kind of guy that wouldn't kill a chick."

Like, I know what I am.

I was walking down the street

and this crowd of kids kept shoulder-checking me really hard,

so I said, "Hey, kids, stop touching me!

"You're violating my parole."

Oh... I have a bit of a cold right now.

The worst part for me about having a cold

is when you smell women's hair on the bus, they can hear you.

I grew this beard because I wanted to, like, have the beard of a man.

It didn't work, though.

I just have the beard of a woman in the circus.

Sometimes people scream at me...

Yesterday somebody screamed, "Hey, is your beard real? "

Is it real?!

As if, if it wasn't, this is the beard I would choose.

Like, "I'll take patchy hobo again."

And I was like, "No, actually, it's not real.

"I just model it after Mr Miyagi's balls."

# When I was just a little boy

# I asked my mother "What will I be?"

# Will I be rich?

# Will I be famous?

# Here's what she said to me... #

"NO!"

That's what she said.

MAN IN AUDIENCE: Aww.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a superhero.

That was my dream.

I'd watch Spider-Man, and then I realised, "Oh, his parents are dead."

Then I was watching Batman, and I was like, "Oh, his parents are dead too."

And then I was watching Superman,

and I was like, "Oh, his parents are also dead."

And then the next day, I was just sitting there

staring at my shitty parents,

realising they're the obstacle to me having powers.

Like, "Yeah, you guys got to get out of the way.

"I hope the roads are icy tomorrow and you die, so I can learn to fly."

And I love X-Men.

My favourite X-Man is Professor Xavier,

because that guy's in a wheelchair, but he can move things with his mind.

But that's what I never understood - like,

if you could move a huge building with you mind,

shouldn't you be able to move your legs with your mind?

CHEERING

I think he was just faking it for a better disability cheque.

That's what was going on.

I'm actually adopted.

I am. I've never met my mom, I don't know what she does for a living.

And that makes it hard to enjoy a lap dance.

Some guys want some beautiful stripper,

I just want one that doesn't have my nose.

That's all I'm looking for.

And I was adopted into a dysfunctional family.

That's bad luck.

It's like, my biological parents were like,

"Oh, we do not have the capacity to take care of this child."

Then my adopted parents came in, they were like,

"Hey, we also do not have the capacity to take care of this child,

"but luckily we're not self-aware.

"Come here, baby Bobby."

Well, I've been trying to sober up. Reading the news more.

I like Obama, and not cos of his policies -

just cos I'd be sad if David Cameron lost his only black friend.

But I have an idea - I want you all to tell me what you think.

I think that every person who lives in the Middle East

should get to vote in the US elections.

Cos it really, really affects them.

Like, more than you. More than anyone else.

Like, if you were a guy in America,

who gets elected is just really a figurehead

you blame your problems on.

But if you're Ahmed in Afghanistan, it fucking matters.

Like, who gets elected determines the size of your next family reunion.

So, I'm mentally ill.

But...I'm on meds now, I'm very medicated.

And when I'm not, I have weird bursts of rage.

Even weirder than you've seen already.

And, like, I was on a train platform and I was reading a book.

And I bumped into this lady accidentally

and she said, "Excuse me!"

And I was trying to be nice. I was like, "Oh, what's going on?"

And she was like, "No!

"You should have said excuse me before you bumped into me!"

And you have to understand, when someone annoys me,

I just want instant revenge, and right as she said that, a train came.

And all I wanted to do was jump in front of the train,

then look her in the eyes

and say, "You know, lady, this is all your fault."

And then die.

And then I want my tombstone put on her front lawn.

And it's just going to say, "Bobby Mair. 1986-2013.

"EXCUSE ME!"

And then you'll all read that in the paper and be like,

"That guy took that joke too far."

I'm Bobby Mair, you guys have been great.

Thank you.

Have a great night.

Yeah.

That was Bobby Mair!

Thank you everybody.

What an amazing night we've had.

Give it up one more time for all the fantastic comedians you've seen.

Luckily we've got time for one more act.

They're a comedy hip-hop duo from Limerick, Ireland

with plastic bags on their faces.

I know what you're thinking.

"Oh, not that sort of thing again."

Yes.

It's time for the YouTube sensation, the wonderful Rubberbandits!

HIP-HOP BEAT PLAYS

# I'm at Amanda's wedding

# In a church on Thomas Street

# I'm lookin' at a bridesmaid

# And she's lookin' back at me

# And when the service ends I ask her

# If she wants a lift back to the hotel

# And if it goes well finger and a shift

# She says Fitzy drives a Mitzy

# And he offered me a spin

# And Enda have a Honda

# So I might just go with him

# And Darren Gibney said he'd bring me in his Subaru

# So what the fuck would make you think

# I'd wanna go with you?

# I said, "Fuck your Honda Civic

# "I've a horse outside

# "Fuck your Subaru

# "I have a horse outside

# "And fuck your Mitsubishi I've a horse outside

# "If you're lookin' for a ride I've a horse outside"

# She said, "I don't believe ya"

# I said, "It's fuckin' true

# "I swapped him for a bag of yokes in 1992

# "I don't need insurance

# "I don't need no parkin' space

# "And if you try to clamp my horse

# "He'll kick you in the face

# "I don't pay no tax

# "Fuck MOT

# "You'll arrive in style if you ride with me"

# And the boys are walkin' over

# Jinglin' their keys

# I look the fuckers up and down

# And give them one of these

# I said, "Fuck your Honda Civic

# "I've a horse outside

# "Fuck your Subaru I have a horse outside

# "And fuck your Mitsubishi

# "I've a horse outside

# "If you're lookin' for a ride

# "I've a horse outside"

# Giddy up now, baby

# Bless my soul

# I rode the fucker round a field back since he was a foal

# He runs a bit like Shergar

# And he jumps like Tir na nOg

# He looks like Billy Piper after half an ounce of...

# And the boys are lookin' jealous

# As I lead yer one away

# And just before I close the door

# I look at her and say

# "Would you be my girl?"

# She says, "I will of course

# "If ya grab me by the ponytail and ride me like a horse" Ya!

# Fuck your Honda Civic

# I've a horse outside

# Fuck your Subaru I have a horse outside

# And fuck your Mitsubishi I've a horse outside

# If you're lookin' for a ride I've a horse outside

# Giddy up now, baby

# Giddy up now, baby

# Giddy up

# Giddy up

# Giddy up... # HE SCATS

# Giddy up... # HE SCATS

# Giddy up... # HE SCATS

# Giddy up

# Giddy up

# Giddy up, my fuckin' horse Yeah. #

Good night!

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd