Laughs in the Park

This programme contains strong language

Hi, I'm Katy Brand and I'm in a field in Hertfordshire,

except this field is in a park in St Albans

and this is Britain's biggest outdoor comedy festival -

Laughs In The Park.

Over three nights, three of the world's top comedians will perform

to around 20,000 people,

with another 16 acts appearing on the BBC Comedy Presents stage.

It's like a comedy Glastonbury.

So here to kick us off is comedy legend Ross Noble.

CHEERING

Thank you very much! Oh yes!

-Good evening, St Albans!

-CHEERING

Oh, wow!

That was... Oh, what a lovely warm welcome that was, that was...

I wasn't expecting you to be so lovely and warm there.

Anyways, it's nice to be here in the park,

in what appears to be a local dogging area.

It's always nice. Look out for that later on, on the big screens.

You might occasionally just see some buttocks,

just rising out of the foliage like that.

These lights here, if they flash four times

that means you can come and join them.

Don't... Just don't judge me, right?

The other day, I was sat, I was thinking and I went,

"Yeah, yeah, I'd piss on a squirrel."

Right, oh no, no, because just... Like I know you think you wouldn't,

but don't judge me, you would, right, trust me you would.

Seriously, I thought I'd piss on a squirrel.

Not in a mean way, like, not in a mean way.

If you're just having a piss on a tree, like that, and a squirrel...

Now don't' tell me, don't lie to me, don't judge me.

If you were pissing on a tree... You know they do that thing

where they run round the tree and pop their heads out like that?

Don't tell me, if you were having a piss

and a squirrel put its head out, you'd, "Go on!"

Come on, see! You would, wouldn't you?

You wouldn't be able to help yourself.

You'd go, "Take it yer eyes!"

See, don't judge me because you'd all do it!

Well, mainly the fellas obviously,

it's quite hard for a woman to piss on a squirrel,

I'll give you that.

You'd have to hang in the tree, wouldn't you?

You'd have to hang like that and wait for it to...

You'd have to put some nuts by the bottom of the tree

and then hang like that.

"Hoy, there's some nuts down there!"

"I'm not getting them!

"I'd rather go without, to be honest with you."

"Ah, come on, it's my dream since I saw Ross,

"I want to piss on a squirrel."

"You freak, hanging from the tree!"

You'd have to get on another tree, be on a swing on this side here

and you'd have to...

The squirrel's over here, right?

The squirrel's there like that, getting ready

and you'd have to start pissing

because you'd have to get a good flow on, wouldn't you?

You'd have to start swinging like that.

That's not enough, is it?

There's not enough of an arc, is there?

You'd have to really...

Oh, hang on, you'd be on the seat, that wouldn't work, would it?

It would come off the side.

I've not fully thought this through, to be honest with you.

You'd have to cut a hole in the seat and then get a friend...

No, don't get a friend to push you.

It'd be fine on the up swing but when you come back,

you'd go, "Argggggggggh".

You'd have to get a friend in a wetsuit,

you'd have to get a friend in a wetsuit with an umbrella,

cut a hole in the swing,

start the pissing here and then slowly get higher and higher.

And then, just at the top of the swing,

you'd have to give it a little...

a little flick of the hips.

It's not going to work, is it?

You'd barely splash the squirrel.

That's like a good new euphemism there, isn't it?

When we have the break, go, "Where you off to?"

"I'm off to splash the squirrel."

You can have that for free.

Anyway, the... No, sorry about that.

Why am I apologising to women?

Sorry, ladies, you don't get to piss on a squirrel.

You can just piss in a cup and just chuck it, that's the best way.

That's the way to do that one.

Well, not a cup really, it's more of a beaker,

so you'd get it straight on.

A cup, you'd have to go side on because of the handle.

It would arc.

It would arc around.

The squirrel would be there getting ready

and you'd go, phumpf, like that and the squirrel would just shwish,

a big arc of piss, it'd go like that, "Not bothered."

Get a friend, get another friend over here

with another cup of piss, right,

to arc it the other way, then you're one step ahead of the squirrel.

You'll stand there like that, squirrel's there.

Here we go! Whoosh, whoosh!

Big arc of piss that way, squirrel goes, "I don't think so!"

Aaagh, in the face!

Yeah!

One squirrel splashed!

From above, those two arcs of piss, those golden...

it would be like a McDonald's advert.

In fact, that should be the new McDonald's advert,

it should be a helicopter hovering like that from above

and it'd just be a squirrel stood there unaware

and then two women at the same time

throwing arcing cups of piss in its face.

Phoomf!

I'm lovin' it!

Just an idea.

Thank you very much for the applause,

that's a beautiful thing, thank you.

That has got to be one of the most reluctant rounds of applause

I have ever received.

You're going, "That's very funny

"but the wrongest thing I've ever heard.

"Are we genuinely applauding

"somebody throwing two arcing cups of piss into the face of a squirrel?"

Yes, yes you are.

Ooh, that was weird, a load of women, "Whooo!"

What's that woman doing there?

She's climbed on the chair.

Don't do any of this stuff I'm talking about!

Did you see the trees rustling over there?

"We're not having that, we're not having that!"

I don't want to see next week's episode of Countryfile.

"Hello, I'm John Craven and we're in the St Albans area.

"Look at that squirrel.

"Cover your eyes!"

Are you all massive Countryfile fans?

"We don't, we don't want to see that!"

It's all right, it's a grey squirrel, it's not a red squirrel.

-It'll be a red squirrel afterwards.

-AUDIENCE GROANS

What? It's Countryfile live!

OK, so tonight we've got probably the best comedy show

you're ever likely to see, certainly observed by wildlife.

Are you up for an absolutely amazing night of comedy tonight?

CHEERING

Raise the roof and welcome onto the stage, Tommy Tiernan!

Thank you very much.

A big round of applause please for Ross Noble.

APPLAUSE

As you probably know, things are very tough in Ireland right now.

There's no money,

which is another reason why I'm here.

Everybody is on the dole.

Everybody.

Even the lady who gives you the dole is on the dole.

I don't think that this is a thing Irish people need

to be upset or worried about.

I think we're used to hard times.

We've always had recession,

going all the way back to the 1960s,

to the 1920s,

all the way back to the great potato recession

of the 1840s.

Where 2 million,

2 million

Irish people died

because of no potatoes.

Heaped on top of one another in the ditches,

no, no, no potatoes.

The thickest fuckers on the planet.

the fields were full of cabbages and sweetcorn

but no, I don't like cabbage.

I don't like the smell of it.

It's like the inside of a psychiatric hospital.

Sweetcorn, don't fucking talk to me

about sweetcorn!

All sweetcorn does is hitch a lift

from your mouth to your arse before it fucks off to the next person.

I'd rather die in a ditch

of no potatoes...

..than have sweetcorn laughing at me.

Lots of people now are trying to get the Irish economy back on track.

That's the last thing we should be trying to do.

Barack Obama came to Ireland and he said,

"Ireland, your best days are ahead of you."

Great...

What'll we do in the meantime?

That's like going out for a drink with somebody and he says,

"Jesus, we'll have some session next month!"

I think that we found out when Ireland had money,

that money doesn't suit Irish people,

and when we had money, Irish people, we did things.

Yeah, we spent the money as quickly as we possibly could.

Economists don't understand this, economists are telling us now,

"You fucked up the good times."

We're saying, "How?"

And they're saying, "By spending all your money."

And we reply, "But that's what we were supposed to do!

"That's why they were called, 'the good times'."

You can't be saving your money during the good times, because then...

they are not the good times.

Then they're the 'in preparation for the bad times' times.

But we tried things, we tried stuff.

Irish people went skiing.

Who did we think we were?

We get panic attacks

if we're in a shopping centre with more than one escalator.

Was there anything more frightening to the posh fuckers of Europe,

up there on top of the Alps?

They've been skiing for generations in their designer gear.

Gucci boots and Prada trousers and Dolce Gabbana belts.

And we were there, head to toe, Aldi skiing gear.

We were in the nip by the time we got to the bottom of the hill.

The stuff disintegrated if you went faster than five miles an hour.

Now, I got married recently and marriage can do strange

and wonderful things to a man.

First of all, we got marriage advice from a priest.

LAUGHING

What was that about?

Before a man gets married, he likes to think of himself as wild.

"Oh, you should have seen me before I met you.

"I'd sleep anywhere on my hind legs in the rain at night,

"with me Mickey in the wind like a horse."

It's amazing what a few years of warm food

and central heating will do to you.

Now you get panic attacks if you're left behind in a shopping centre

that you've never been in before.

They have to make an announcement over the tannoy.

"A husband has been found beside the Early Learning Centre.

"Would the wife that owns him please come and collect him immediately."

"I told you you were walking too fast!

"I just slowed down to have a look at a train and you were gone."

Is it wrong to give

your own...wife...

Rohypnol?

LAUGHTER

Not for any kind of deviant sexual purposes,

but for a bit of peace and quiet.

Like, you know, if there's two matches on a Sunday or something.

You have to make an effort when you're married, don't you, lads?

You have to.

I've awful lots of stuff wrong with me.

This is going to sound horny.

I've a soft palate flutter.

"Oh, lord, does he have butterflies in his throat?"

No, I snore, or do I?

It's just an excuse for my wife to fucking hit me.

And I've no defence against it because I'm asleep.

Sometimes, "You're snoring!"

"I'm reading a book, how the fuck could I be snoring?

"I was only pretending to be asleep.

"You're fucking caught right now, so you are!"

"Yeah, well, you'll probably be doing it later when you're asleep."

And even if I am doing it later and she wakes me up,

she's getting no sense out of me.

I'm in the middle of a fucking dream.

"You're snoring!"

"It's the elephant's turn to take a penalty.

"Is the match over already,

"have the zebras gone off in a huff or something?

"What's happening, was I snoring?

"I'm sorry.

"I am sweetheart, I'm...

"I said, I'm sorry.

"I'm not...!

"Fucking time to get up yet, is it?

"I'm not grumpy love, I'm not.

"I'm delighted that you woke me up, I am, yeah!

"There's no point in one of us getting a night's rest.

"We both need to be exhausted in the morning

"so we know how the other one feels."

I've had to make an effort,

so I contacted the British Snoring Association

and I bought everything.

I wear it all...

at...

the...

same...

time.

It's like a homemade Hannibal Lecter kit.

I've a strip that goes across my nose to open up the nasal passageways.

I have a blue rubber mouth guard to stop the air

going near my soft palate flutter.

And to stop my jaw from falling open,

this is what I do for my wife,

to stop it opening,

I wear a strap around my head

like I'm a patient in a Victorian mental asylum.

And when it's all on, I can't talk, I can't talk.

Which is fine, except we have small children

and sometimes they wake up in the middle of the night

and it'll be my turn to go in and comfort them.

I roll out of the bed, naked to the waist,

a soft horn sticking out of my boxer shorts,

ploughing across the landing with my hobbit feet into the child.

"What's wrong with you?

"What do you mean you can't sleep?

"There's nothing to be afraid of.

"Your father is here now, so he is.

"Will I tell you a story, will I?

"Once upon a time, there was a man and he was getting no rest

"and he went fucking insane."

Sex doesn't get any easier when you get married, it gets harder.

When are you supposed to find time to make love to your wife

when you have five children?

Can't leave it till last thing at night

because you're both exhausted, you've been up since six.

You're lying there on either side of the bed,

looking at each other like a pair of seals.

You've sexual needs and sexual desires,

but you've no fucking energy.

"Hah!

"Hah!"

"Uh-uh-uh-uh!"

"Hah!"

"Ahhhhhh!"

"Hah!"

A good time to make love is about 11 o'clock in the morning.

The three older kids have gone to school,

Mammy is putting the two younger kids down for their mid-morning nap.

Daddy follows Mammy upstairs in the hope of a little loving.

The only problem with this is, you end up making love

to whatever music is putting the babies to sleep.

You just gotta go with the flow of it.

# Twinkle, twinkle little star

# How I wonder...

# Three little kittens have lost their mittens

# And don't know where to find them...

# Oh, Mother dear, oh did you hear, we have lost our mittens?

# You've lost your mittens you naughty kittens

# You shall have no tea

# Oh, Mother dear, oh did you hear We have found our mittens?

# You found your mittens, you lovely kittens. #

St Albans, it's been a terrific pleasure talking to you.

Thank you very, very much for listening.

CHEERING

God bless, and a beautiful English midsummer's evening to you. Thank you. Good night.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

The area I live in London at the moment is really middle class.

There's a shop near the river that sells bread for the ducks.

How amazing is that?

Middle class people don't want the trouble of carrying a mouldy loaf!

I thought it was just going to be an old loaf or something. Brioche!

Brioche for the ducks! How amazing is that!

How posh are these ducks floating down the river, just going,

"Oh, I'm sorry, is that a bap?

"I don't think so.

"It's brioche for me, we'll leave that bap for the seagulls."

Start the applause, build it up, build it up!

Give it all you've got! Whooping, cheering!

Here he is - it's Henry Paker!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Hello!

-Woo!

-Woo, that's how you reply to hello, fine!

-Hello, everybody, are you having a good time?

-Yes.

-Good. Have you had a nice day?

-Yes.

Good. I came up on the train,

and I noticed a lot of very trendy young people on the train listening to their iPods.

I've a question for you. Are headphones getting bigger?

Or are wankers getting smaller?

Can't work out which one it is. It's definitely one of the two.

I've had quite a bad start to the day, actually,

this morning, because I was supposed to get up.

LAUGHTER

Yeah, I sort of failed the first task of the day,

which I do quite a lot because of "snooze".

Snooze, the insanity of the snooze button,

it's the enemy of my life, it's the enemy of achievement, it's the enemy of getting things done, isn't it?

Snooze holds us all back.

Give me a cheer if you own a snooze button.

CHEERING

OK. Now give me a cheer if you own a boat.

LAUGHTER

Point made.

Point made, methinks.

Snooze, it's the most irrational of all the buttons,

the snooze button.

it's the only button in all of human technology which does the opposite of the machine.

It's the getting-up machine,

but we put a not-get-up button on the getting-up machine even though it's imperative that you get up.

That's why you bought the getting-up machine and you set it for the time that it's crucial that you get up.

But don't worry, you don't have to get up because there's a not-get-up option

we've put on the getting-up machine for the not-get-upping-get-upper.

It's like having an asthma inhaler which has a button you press and a pack of fags pops out!

Ladies and gentleman, are you ready for the second act of the afternoon?

Yes!

Laughs In The Park, make some noise for Angela Barnes!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Hello, hello, how are you doing? Are you OK?

Well, I grew up in a town called Maidstone in Kent. Do you know it?

AUDIENCE: Yeah!

Really?

It's a hole, isn't it?

It's no coincidence that an anagram of Maidstone is I am stoned.

Nothing else to do.

Just anagrams.

But it's OK, I escaped, I live in Brighton now!

AUDIENCE: Whoo!

Always gets a whoo! Everyone loves Brighton.

It's because we're so optimistic.

Yes, the shops on the seafront in Brighton sell buckets and spades.

It's a pebble beach.

The only way any castles are getting built on that beach is if they start selling bags of cement.

So I'm going to tell you some things about myself.

-I am an ichthyophobe. Does anyone know what that means?

-You don't like fish.

Exactly, madam, I don't like fish. I've a morbid fear of fish.

People tell me that's irrational. I say, tell that to Steve Irwin.

I once got dumped by a guy because I'm afraid of fish.

Right, the guy in question was 31,

plays Dungeons And Dragons and is obsessed with Lord Of The Rings.

Yeah, he dumped me.

Haven't felt that uncool since my Dad picked me up from the school disco in our motorhome.

Genuinely, right, this guy sits me down and he says,

"You see, Angela, the thing is,

"I've always imagined living in a house where one entire wall is an aquarium,

"so we can't be together."

"Really, well, I've always imagined a sex life where I don't have to dress up as Frodo.

"It would appear only one of us understands the concept of beggars can't be choosers."

Yeah, I don't have much luck with men, I don't have much luck.

I recently had a bit of an experience where my eardrum burst during sex.

I don't know if you've ever had an eardrum burst on you,

but it's not pretty, lots of blood and pus involved.

The look on the guy's face was spectacular as he thought to himself,

"Jesus Christ, I've actually banged her brains out."

Despite everything, though, I've just been asked to be a bridesmaid.

Whoo!

No. That's the seventh time, I'm 34 and single,

they're definitely taking the piss.

And brides will insist on dainty little shoes.

I've got size 8 flat feet.

Dainty little shoes make my feet look like whales shoved into canoes.

I was a bridesmaid last year for my so-called friend. She made me wear a gold dress.

I'll say that again, gold.

I looked like an Oscar in a wig.

Somehow, though, I did manage to pull that night.

-Whoo!

-Thank you.

Went back to his place and on my way home,

I realised nothing says old slag like a 34-year-old bridesmaid on a bus at eight o'clock on a Sunday morning.

You guys are going to have an awesome day, so enjoy it. I've been Angela. Goodbye.

Yes, make some noise for Angela Barnes.

Superb!

Oh, yeah! This is great now, isn't it? Look.

I'm even looking a bit more, woooooh!

Sorry, I just feel like I'm at Glastonbury now. It's brilliant.

You know how I feel, I feel like Bono now.

Look at that, those people just going, "Knob."

LAUGHTER

That's it, isn't it?

Like Bono, what's he got to do to...?

I mean, I know he wears sunglasses inside and that's enough,

but it's just... The biggest rock star on the planet, it's Bono.

"Knob!"

How did he even play Glastonbury? That must have, you know...

"Ladies and gentleman, U2!"

He was like that... "Hah!" Ten thousand people go, "Knob!"

He's bloody... He's going off to Africa, saving the world.

"Knob! Knob!"

Do you think the African villagers do that when he turns up?

He goes over there.

IRISH ACCENT: "Ah, Bejesus, I've come over here to save yas all!"

That's how he talks, Bono.

They... "Ah, Bejesus, I've gone and travelled all the way over here

"and I've come to help yas out and save your lives and all the rest of it.

"Look, I've made a gun that I fire, it cures your AIDS.

"Right, I've come over..." Too far, perhaps.

"Ah, Bejesus, hello there, me name is Bono, right oh,

"I've come to save yas all." "Mr..."

No, that's Nelson Mandela. No, hang on, no. That's not right.

Fuck it, the Bono impression's nothing close, I might as well have the African village chief.

"Ah, Mr Bono.

"Mr Bono.

"Thank you for..."

Oh, it's gone a bit Chinese there. What was that?

I didn't know Nelson Mandela was some kind of kung fu legend.

"Hello there. I am Nelson Mandela and I will fight you. Ahhhh!

"You, sir, Mr Bono, are my arch Kung Fu nemesis

"and I will fight to the death."

"Ah, Bejesus! I'll bloody shoot you with my special anti-Aids gun, so I will."

"So, Bono..."

He should have done this at Glastonbury, hey?

Not pissing around in his sunglasses, singing songs.

Get a Chinese Nelson Mandela out. Let's see you fight.

I was watching him at Glastonbury, right?

He did this thing, right?

He was coming out and he was doing his usual, you know, all that singing.

I think one of the reasons why people will think he's a knob

is because he is always performing on rooftops, isn't he, Bono?

He can't leave it alone, can he? Just use a stage like everyone else.

But, oh no! "Ah, Jesus, lads, there's a roof up there! Come on, let's get up there!

"Let's get up there and perform for the passers-by in the street below."

# Streets have no name... #

"Get off the roof, it's a health and safety disaster!"

You leave a window open just a fraction,

if you don't lock your windows, Bono will be in there.

"I'll be on the fucking roof.

"Get away, I know the kung fu.

"Ah, Bejesus!"

Oh, no. Hang on.

It's all confused.

Anyway, the point is, I was watching him at Glastonbury, right,

and there's Bono doing one of those songs that he does.

# I wanna be with you in the moonlight and the sunlight

# I wanna be with you in the moonlight... #

That's not actually a U2 song, that.

Just so you know. What I'm doing there is I'm putting into effect something I've invented.

It's my random U2 lyrics generator that I've come up with.

What you do to write a U2 song is you just say what you want to do with a woman

in various different lighting states.

That's all you do.

# I wanna be with you in the moonlight, in the sunlight

# In the torch light, in the head lights of a car, in the fridge light

# I want to make love to you in the fridge light

# I want to open the fridge and the light comes on

# And I'm making love to you there with cheeses and dairy items

# And I'll close the fridge and I'll open the fridge

# And then it's on again I wanna make love to you

# In the moonlight, in the twilight Well, not Twilight

# That's a movie about vampires That'd be weird

# I'd be shagging a vampire next to a fridge

# The vampire's cold and so is the fridge

# I wanna make love to you near a toaster

# I wanna make love to you I wanna press the toaster

# And the glow comes out

# And that's warm which counteracts the fridge light

# And the toaster oooh I wanna walk with you

# Make love to you in a lighthouse

# I wanna make love to you in a lighthouse

# Which isn't easy because the light tends to move around

# And you have to try and keep out of the light

# There you go I wanna make love to you quickly, faster

# The light's catching us

# Quickly, I wanna make love to you

# It's catching us now

# It's silhouetting our buttocks onto the rocks out there

# That's a bit weird I wanna make love to you

# In the torchlight

# In the moonlight In the toaster light

In a tunnel, up the tunnel, come out of the tunnel

# A little bit more and then go back again

# Oooh, I wanna make love to you in the headlights. #

Hey, what are you doing with the headlights?

Back off, man, shagging someone in a garage!

That's how you write a U2 song, right there. That's what you do.

Oh, yeah!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

So, anyway, he was on at Glastonbury, right,

and he was... And he's singing away, right?

# I wanna make love to you... #

"Don't...start...again!

"If he thinks of any more lighting sources, we could be here for several hours."

So he's on at Glastonbury, right, and he's singing away and it started to rain.

Oh, I was laughing because his goggles, right, them goggles of his,

they started to steam up, didn't they?

Because I thought, like, cos they're just normal sunglasses.

Some people think that they're like,

they've got like a display in them that tells him information.

Like the eyes of the Terminator.

So when he's singing... # In the moonlight... #

Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep!

Three metres to the edge of the stage, two metres,

one metre to the edge of the stage. Danger, danger!

AS BONO: "I'll back off there."

# In the moonlight In the twilight... #

Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep!

Poverty detected, poverty detected, detected, poverty detected.

Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. Poverty detected. Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep.

# In the moonlight... #

That's what he has, he's got special poverty-detecting goggles that he wears.

If Bono were to walk into a Lidl, his head would explode.

LAUGHTER

Aaaaaaaaaaaah!

# I wanna make love to you In the light of my burning face... #

But the point was, right, he's singing away, he's doing the Bono thing.

# I wanna touch you in the moonlight... #

Right, but the glasses started steaming up and Bono, he doesn't want to take them off,

because you'll see that there's nothing there.

And there's just nothing but glowing red, burning eyes.

# In the moonlight... #

And you can see him getting closer to the edge of...

Not The Edge, obviously, he was over there, wasn't he?

So he's singing away, and he did this, he does all these movements.

He walks around the stage like that, and he just points at people

and he does all this stuff, and then he just unnecessarily just climbs onto things.

Wow, good balancing, Bono. Wow, you must be great, budgies can do that.

It's what he thinks he is, Bono, he just thinks he's a big budgie, he's wandering around the stage.

# Where the streets have no name... #

AS BONO: "Give us a cuttlefish."

So... But it's like he ran out of things to do, right.

He was singing away and he did this.

This is the move of a man who's run out of physical movements to do.

He's singing away and then he just did this one.

# I wanna be with you in the night-time... #

Kneeling. Now, he thinks he's cool, right, Bono.

He thinks he's looking good, he thinks he's being rock and roll, doing this with his hand.

But no, you know what he looked like to me? He looked like a man who was high-fiving a dwarf.

That's what he looked like.

He looked like a dwarf had run onto the stage and Bono had gone,

"Come on, little fella, give us a high-five there."

You know what my dream is?

My dream, if I had the money, I would pay for dwarves to tunnel under a rock stadium.

Weeks and weeks of tunnelling, tunnelling, tunnelling

and then create a special trap door just there.

This would be my dream, if I could have anything in the world.

There's Bono. # I wanna make love to you with a candle

# A flickering candle I wanna be with you... #

And I'd be there going, "Come on, do it next to the trap door, Bono. You can do it".

And I'd hand out pamphlets so everyone knew it was going to happen.

The anticipation! Bono has got the audience hanging off his every word as he's singing away.

# Ah-ah-ah. #

Do it! Do it!

And then just at that moment, down he goes, the trap door opens. "High-five, Bono!"

And just as the dwarf leaves the stage,

he turns around and he goes, "Oh, and by the way, you're a knob!"

That's my dream. Oh, yes.

You've got to have a dream, you've got to have a dream.

Come on, people, make as much noise as you've got. Do it now!

Welcome to the stage, Andrew Lawrence!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Thank you very much.

Laughs In The Park. How nice to be here in St Albans.

It's a lot of people! Too many people. I don't like to be around that many people.

Too many people in general, we're getting in each other's way all the time.

I was rushing around the other day trying to get things done,

and I ran into a sandwich shop just to grab a sandwich.

There was a large obese man in front of the sandwich shelf.

I don't care if people are fat or thin, but he's taking for ever.

I started coughing to let him know I'm there, he spun round chuckling.

He said, "Oh, decisions, decisions, hey!"

I said, "I tell you what, I'll make one for you, shall I?

"Here you go - chicken salad sandwich, reduced fat, 270 calories, that's the one for you, Chunky.

"Take it, pay for it, waddle off somewhere and eat it."

He said, "You can't say that to me!"

"I can say what I like to you.

"Because if I start running, you can't catch me, can you?

"Not unless it's downhill and you're rolling."

It's aggravating, it's frustrating, you get stuck in a queue behind people.

Life is so short, we shouldn't have to spend any of it stuck in a queue!

Some people get angry if they're stuck in a queue, they count to ten, they try to calm down.

It doesn't really work for me, I've got a little song I sing.

# Get out of my way, get out of my way, you're ruining my day

# With your languid display of insouciant dawdling

# You shower of vermin How dare you impede my progress

# Please be so kind as to step aside before we collide

# How hard could it be to step to your right?

# I've really tried to be polite I've swallowed my pride

# Towed the line, I've traipsed behind for quite some time

# Now I'm in a fragile state of mind

# There's every chance this could end with a fight

# Get out of my way if you value your life

# If I had a gun I'd shoot you in the face

# Get myself a water cannon I'll blast you all into outer space

# You vacuous fray Shameful melee

# Appalling brigade of slouching dismay, ruining my day

# You can't imagine the hell I will raise

# If you don't get out of my way. #

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

I find I start singing that, I tend to get served a little bit quicker a lot of the time.

Please welcome on stage Andi Osho!

That's what I'm talking about.

Hello, people!

CHEERING

-Are we well?

-Yes!

-Pray it doesn't rain.

I've got a roof.

I don't care, I don't care.

This is nice. It's so middle-class,

having a little comedy festival out in a park.

I can virtually smell the pesto from here.

When I was a kid,

I was such a stay-indoors, geeky, nerdy little kid.

My favourite thing to do was making stupid noises.

I'm going to do some of my noises. Who did this when they was little?

Uhmmmmm!

"I'm telling!"

Everyone did that. Yeah, you did, you grass.

It's brilliant. I don't understand why we don't still do it as adults.

Say your mate calls you up.

"Claire, it's me. I'm having an affair. Darren doesn't suspect a thing."

You just go, "Uhmmmmm!

"I'm telling!"

This is my favourite sound.

I'll do this and some of you will know straightaway what I mean.

Who used to do this when they was little?

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

And have a competition to see who could do it longest.

"Ahhhh!" "You cheated, you breathed! I'm telling Mum and Dad!"

OK, a lot of people here know. There's a few people over there.

A bunch of people here just don't know what I'm talking about.

OK, for the people who don't know what I'm talking about,

I'll tell you why you may not have done this.

It's cos you had toys.

All right, the rest of us just had, "Ahhhhhhhhhh!"

That was it, that was our whole lives.

I want you to enjoy it, I want you to bring it into your adult life.

I'll tell you when you use it.

If you find yourself in a bit of an awkward situation, yeah?

And you don't know what else to say, say that.

Imagine the situation, someone comes up to you, and goes,

"Did you realise you were doing 40 mph

"in a 30 mph zone?" Turn to them and go,

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" And see how long you can do it for.

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"

Just do it, just do it!

Although I'm going to have to update that mime.

That is an old car, innit?

Ladies and gentlemen, you've been lovely, I've been Andi Osho.

Cheers! Enjoy the rest of your night.

Andi Osho!

That's how it's done.

I'm joined now by the man behind the whole thing, Eddie Izzard.

-Am I the man behind it?

-You are. How did you get the idea for the show?

I just got pissed off with being on the B stage,

and if someone on the main stage, a band had turned it up to 11,

then you're going, "So, anyway!

"Then! I went into a room!"

-"Na-na-na..."

-Then a rumour goes round the main band has gone on stage and half the room empties.

-Yeah.

-In the middle of someone's comedy set.

Well, I worked out that you had to play

at like 3.30 in the morning at The Comedy Store.

You had to play it really fast, really tight,

hammer through it,

and people could also be quite blasted as well.

And music festivals, cos it's a feel gig,

and comedy is a mind gig,

and that is the difference in it.

If you go from theatre through stand-up to rock and roll,

I have been trying to steal from rock and roll from the beginning,

because we were kind of...

Initial photographs in the comedy lexicon

were kind of photographs like this,

which I thought, "That's awful, let's do moody photographs."

We now all do moody photos,

and great, everyone's gone in different directions.

This is not because of me,

I was just in that group, pushing to change things in the 1990s.

But it is a theatrical experience,

because people need to be paying attention.

They can be lightly buzzed, but not off their faces.

Most comics, when you ask them, will tend to say

they like to play small, intimate environments,

where they can see the whole audience,

and the idea that it might be a small number of people,

but they all really get what you do

and you can create an atmosphere in a small environment.

Whereas something like this - it's so huge at the back.

-How do you navigate round an audience?

-You play large intimate environments.

-Big intimacy is something...

-Big intimacy?

What's your strategy to create big intimacy?

Play it exactly the same as you do to 100 people.

I did street performing for five years, where we used to shout our heads off,

but I found, bringing it in is the trick.

Don't push it out.

Actually, just do whatever you were doing before.

So if somebody doesn't analyse it,

just gets on stage and does the same gig, that should work better.

I went through the gamut of analysing it,

re-analysing it and coming back to the beginning of saying,

"Just do the small gig, cos they can see it."

It's amazing how you talk about it, because your stage persona is obviously famously whimsical,

and sort of artfully distracted,

and so people might be forgiven for thinking

you're just waltzing onto this, doing your thing and waltzing off again,

-whereas you're very involved in every aspect.

-My military strategy.

I'm a transvestite who's got this far, so...

You see these seats? I'd prefer people sitting on the grass, which we're doing at the BBC stage.

Next year we'll probably take these out, leave those at the back.

We can keep changing it. I want people to camp over here.

I want it to extend into the three days properly. We're experimenting

-with every bit of it.

-You're building to a proper comedy festival?

Yes, if this is a success, there will be more comedy festivals,

like there was a Glastonbury, now there's a whole bunch.

There was a Monterey, there was a Woodstock.

Last year we were the baby Woodstock of comedy. That was half a million,

we were slightly less than half a million.

-Thank you very much for talking to me.

-Not at all.

-Enjoy your show tonight.

-Thank you very much.

Ladies and gentlemen, go wild and crazy and welcome

Eddie Izzard!

St Albans!

CHEERING

Yes, I know you're not really St Albans.

Who is St Albans? If you're St Albans go "whoo".

-CHEERING

-If you're not St Albans, go "ooh".

-LOUDER CHEERING

-St Albans,

you're going down in a fight.

Tonight I will talk to you

about everything that ever happened in the world

because I have read Wikipedia and I know it all.

Now there are mistakes in Wikipedia,

but you know, you know,

wars have probably started from arguments. People saying,

"How do you make soup, how do you make it? Oh, you put that thing in,

"No, you...oh." Arguments.

Jim. Freddy. Kenny. Rogers. Two people.

Mr Jim-jams. How do you... And people don't know.

Now before, you just did, like,

"Fucking soup's made with ladles."

Now you go, "Hang on, hang on, I've got an iPhone and Wikipedia

"and in two minutes I can give you the answer.

"Or I've got a BlackBerry, and with Wikipedia,

"in three days I can...

"On this Blackberry, fucking piece of shit. Oh, it types well."

There's stuff. Everything is there on Wikipedia,

more stuff than is needed.

There's more things on Wikipedia than exist in the world.

You say "Jam, how do you make jam?"

And you put in jam, Wiki - that's all you do -

and it says jam was invented in 1470

-by Mr and Mrs Jam who...

-HE MUMBLES

..and they made it out of strawberry, raspberry, Frisbee, Frisbee jam,

cannonberries, blueberries, blackberries...

whiteberries? I don't know.

Too much, and there's photos, have you noticed there's photos?

People take photos of jam, jam, jam,

jam, jam, jam,

jam dancing, jam on holiday,

jam shopping, jam in a helicopter, jam...

You do this with your finger on the BlackBerry,

I don't know what the fuck you're doing.

And there's too much, but there's other words in colours,

you can click on another word, and it goes "Helicopters!

"Helicopters are much more interesting than jam,

"invented in 1570 by Mr and Mrs Helicopter,

"come in lots of different flavours of helicopter."

Apache helicopter,

Chinook,

the one with the bubble,

one with people like this...

And sometimes you click on a word

and it says there is no page for this word.

Why the fuck have they put a page when...

Just don't light the fucking word up,

otherwise you'll light every single word up in the whole of the world,

and say there's no page for this word, there's no page.

It's stupid. Cos we've got a habit now, haven't we?

We have a habit, like Pavlov and his dogs.

Pavlov would ring a bell, the dogs would do things.

He'd ring once, the dogs would dance.

He'd ring two times and they'd sing, "Ruh-ruh-ruh,

"Ruh, ruh, ruh-ruh-ruh."

Three times,

and they'd make cake mix! Cake mix.

Cos a dog's paw is perfect for cake mix.

If you run electric voltage through a dog's paw - vrrrr!

The dog looks a little bit wired.

This is the thing, we now have power, we have power,

we have these computers. It's so fast now with Wi-fi.

You write an email, a little box comes up on the screen and says,

"Do you want to do a software update? Like a latte?

"Do you want a latte?"

"Yeah, OK."

"Do you want to do it now?"

"Yeah, OK."

"Do you want to know the details?"

"No, not really.

"Too fucking complicated."

And then the blue line!

The blue line of time appears on the screen,

and when the line of time appears on the screen,

time fucks off and goes round the back of its brain.

It does something that would make Einstein go, "Whu-whuzzat?

"Whuzza-wuz g'wan?"

Because it goes, "Eight minutes to download!

"Seven minutes to download,

"six minutes to download, five minutes to download, nine minutes to download,

"12 minutes to download, three hours to download, six minutes to download,

"four minutes to download.

"A day to download.

"Three years to download.

"Two seconds to download!

"Three years to download...

"Two seconds to download!" Then it turns into a barbershop,

with that bluey-whitey thing.

You go, "Toothpaste? What the fuck now?"

Then it finishes down to zero and says "unpackaging" like it's getting its pyjamas out or something,

and it's just brushing its teeth.

"Hang on, I'm going to do the software.

"Just got to unpackage something and put stuff away,

"put that over there, that makes everything slightly different."

Then it stops and says, "Hang on,

"You've got to sign a new agreement with iTunes."

And I have signed 4,529 agreements with iTunes,

what the fuck do they want?

They're like the three witches in Macbeth.

"Ha-ha-ha, we'll make a new agreement,

"a new agreement for the world!"

"Yes, indeed, I agree."

"We'll make them sign the terms and conditions again."

"Again, yes!

"Shall we change the terms and conditions?"

"Not at all!

"Exactly the same."

There's tonnes of terms and conditions.

We get it so much. Little box there,

"Have you read the terms and conditions?"

We tick the little box there, and when we tick that box,

"Yes, I have read the terms and conditions,"

a little part of each of us dies.

Because the truth is

that no-one in this field has read the terms and conditions.

No-one in St Albans.

No-one in the area,

no-one in London, in the world!

Even God has not read the terms and conditions.

The people who wrote the terms and conditions didn't read them,

just went, "Anything, anything.

"Cheese will be taken from your buttocks and given to Mr Jim-jams."

"Accept?" "Yes, fine, I agree."

"We will sell your knees to the Chinese."

"I love that, that's fine."

There should be a thing saying, "Have you read the terms and conditions?"

and a box that says, "Of course not."

There should be an "of course not".

"Are you joking? What are you, mad?"

Another box should say, "Have you read half the terms and conditions?"

"Mmmm, no."

"Have you read one paragraph of the terms and conditions?"

"Ah...no."

"Have you read even one word of the terms and conditions?"

"Nah!"

"Have you not read the terms and conditions but you don't care?"

"Yes."

And remember, we've all done this.

I think everyone here has done this,

and they could come for us.

iTunes could knock on the door and say,

"Yeah, you said your children could be put into a box

"and your buttocks can go to the Chinese."

"Hmm?" "It's an iTunes thing you signed. The ninth paragraph."

"Oh, for fuck's sake!"

They could come at any time.

I think they're quite nice people, but they could do.

"We've put something in there, man, you wouldn't believe."

So you do that and you tick it,

and they do the update,

and nothing changes on the computer.

It's exactly the same.

So, beginning of time, right? Nothing.

Three billion years of stromatolites.

Look them up when you get home on Google.

Boring, just carbon dioxide turning into oxygen.

Dinosaurs, I thought dinosaurs were all over this.

No, dinosaurs are here.

165 million years? We're only 5 million.

165 of idiots!

Dinosaurs were just idiots. "Blah!" That's all they did.

Every morning, tonight, all day,

seven days a week, for 165 million years.

Big ones, small ones, wide ones, thin ones, and the ones that flew.

"Blah!" That's all they did.

Think about it. There was no finessing of that.

"Blah! Ooh. Blah!"

There's no hesitation,

no, you know...no contemplation.

"Blaah?"

No mercy, no pity.

"Blah!" "Oh, bluh?"

"Blah!" "Ah-gah?"

"Blaaah...ah, bluh-huh." "Ah!"

Nothing. No administration. They never had any organisation. No...

"Ah-gah-ah?" "Ah, ah was ah-tha."

-MUMBLING:

-"Ah-gah. Agh-ah-wah." "Ah didn't."

"Ah was ah-thah."

"Ah fucking gah wah."

"Ah, wah tha be tha, the fah."

"Ah, for fuck's sake!"

There was no poetry, no dinosaur poetry.

No dinosaur ever went,

"Ah was ah, uh was whuh,

"Ah tha whagh-gha-hah,

"Uh no-no wha gha hell uh whuh,

"But agh, ah-hoo, agh-ba-ghuh.

"Abee gha-bee, abuh ghu-buh."

No music. The Tyrannosaurus rex has a perfect shape,

perfect shape, for playing the ukulele.

All dinosaurs stupid. But there's one not stupid one.

The dinosaur in the film Jurassic Park, the Steven Spielberg one,

the raptors. Raptors were clever.

They were smaller, our size, maybe the same brain-space ratio.

And in the film, do you remember they opened the doors?

They do a lot of head turning. "Rargh! Myaah!"

Sounded a bit like Kenneth Williams. "Nyaah!"

Opened a door at one point. They switched off the electricity.

"Nyaah!"

They downloaded pornography at one point. "Myaaah!"

And I think a raptor in a small car, with a little hat on,

maybe he could just be one of us driving around.

"Raargh, argh!

"Aargh..."

Police pulling him over - "Is this your car?" "Aah, yah!"

"Do you know what speed you were driving at?"

"Uh, uhh, uuuh, pfff...45?"

"No, 127 mph."

"Aah, aah, aah very busy!"

"Yeah, well...

"Come on, get out of the car... Aaah! It's a raptor,

"it's a raptor in the car. A raptor in the Renault Megane.

"Give me the bazooka.

"OK, ready?"

Whoosh... Pow!

"Shit! Missed!

"No, I hit... I hit something funny."

I can't think of what to put there, so...

that's one for you to take home and to fill in.

But to finish up tonight, I will tell you about the Romans

cos the Romans conquered the known world

and they killed many people and were based here.

They killed people, we don't know their names, so it's OK now.

But they did this with a language which we know from school is shit!

It's too confusing - nominative, accusative, evocative,

dative, ablative. Too much, man, it's too confusing.

How did they conquer the world?

When Hannibal attacked and came across the Mediterranean,

across Spain, the south of France, over the Alps, on elephants!

For the first time and the last time.

And he won one battle, two battles,

he was winning battles everywhere, and the Romans

were scared for the first time and messengers were running around

with messages in Latin, to inform the soldiers, in Latin, what to do.

It must have been terrible. "Ave, centurianus...centuriate?"

"Ave, messenger... Avare messengerani...messengarius...

"Dictate a moi...

"Just fucking tell me, all right?"

"Si, si, mein herr.

"Messengario Hannibalus...Hannibal - arriva...arrivaramus...

"arrivarandus - arrivederci - veni, vidi, vici!"

"Veni, vidi, vici?" "Ja, mein herr"

"Mit soldatus?"

"Naturelement mit soldatus, yeah." "Und how many? Wie weil soldatus?"

"Oh, right. Number soldatus M, M, M, M, M, M, say M, M, M, M, C, M, L...

"Hang on... M, M, M, C, M, L, L, L, X,

"X, X, C, I, V, V, V, I."

"27 soldiers?"

"No, a million a night."

"Oh, I mean, multos, maximus, infinitatus soldatus,

"infinitatus soldatus, mathematicalatus, impossibilatus.

"Non pensare, then ask Pythagoratus.

"Pythagoratus infinitatus?"

"Oh, impossibilatus."

"Merci."

"Pi?"

"Oh, thanks very much!"

"Also, Hannibal, he'll be coming round the mountains when he comes.

"He'll be coming round the mountains when he comes.

"Coming round the mountains, coming round the mountains,

"coming round the mountains when he comes.

"And he comes mit elephantine, mein herr." "Elephantine?" "Elephantine."

"Quod the fuck elephantine erat?"

"Elephantine tres dangereux. Front partus,

"maximum squirrel upside-downus back to frontus,

"back partus - biggest piggus ever seenus."

And that is why Latin is now a dead language.

Thank you very much!

Laughs In The Park, St Albans! And goodnight.

For more Laughs In The Park, digital viewers can press red now.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

E-mail [email protected]