Russell Kane: Smokescreens and Castles

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Smokescreens & Castles,

live at Westcliff's Palace Theatre!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Now, welcome to the stage, it's Russell Kane.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

This programme contains strong language.

Evening, how are you doing, Southend? Are you all right?

CHEERING

People from Southend, give me a cheer.

CHEERING

Westcliff people, give me a cheer.

MUTED CHEERING Yes, we don't cheer, it's rather base.

People from outside the area, give me a cheer.

RAUCOUS CHEERING

Shit. What's that paving stone all about on the corner?

"I don't know, mate, I'm not from your country."

LAUGHTER

"It did not really relate to me, but I found it quite funny."

He did a Nigerian accent. Panic, I'm not sure if we're safe. Panic!

How many copies of the Guardian? He did a racial accent, cover me.

I thought you'd be artistic, it's an Edinburgh show. Heckle him with a quail's egg, he's a chav.

It's been such a mixed year.

Having to rediscover life as a single man - can you believe that? I'm single again.

I know, "Aw!" It's panto, why not? It's the right stage for it.

It's horrible, there's all these pressures. You have to go dating to recover.

Why don't you just go out on a date and recover? All the Essex blokes,

"If I was in your position. Stand up.

"Yeah, kick 'em all in the van. I'd take 'em all out."

So, Essex, I'm actually a bit disabled.

I'm so full of rape and hatred, I can't move.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

My mum's here tonight to witness some of these stories. Awkward!

Awkward!

I don't even have one, I've just got a Ken lump.

Let's begin the story, then. It's time for the formal humour.

Formal humour begins, ding!

That's my old man in Banksy style. That's my mum, me and my brother James in a Wotsits box.

That's my dad looking over me, still scaring the shit out of me.

"Get it right, prat!" "Sorry, Dad."

"Not being funny, at the end of the day, does that make sense?"

That's my mum. "Does that make sense?" Course it makes sense.

"I'm getting the early train, does that make sense?" Course it does!

Cos I'm not remedial, all right?

"Does that make sens-s-s-s-e?"

Why have I got a castle on the stage? Cos that was the nickname of my home from the neighbours.

This is an Essex story, I live in Essex.

My dad's from Leigh. But when he got my mum up the duff,

she was over the border in Hertfordshire.

We get a council house, fine.

Who grew up in a council house? Give me a cheer.

CHEERING Quite different to a council flat.

Cos it's end of terrace, and then Thatcher passes a law that says,

the white, working-class, cash-in-hand male, if he likes, if he so ...ing chooses,

he can buy his own gaff. Wallop, crunch, right?

And that's what my dad does. Immediately,

alienating him from true chav neighbours.

Yeah. It got nicknamed the castle, cos my dad, bearing in mind he's 18 stone and shaven-headed, hard,

Cockney, racist, Nick Griffin-loving...

takes the JCB round the side, built an extension.

That's when the nickname begins, the castle.

Then, what completely excluded us from the neighbours was when my dad took the JCB down the side,

dug a 21ft long ditch in our back garden, 6ft one end, 5ft the other,

and sunk what into the garden of our former council home?

A swimming pool, ladies and gentlemen.

Julie and Dave, my mum and dad, Julie, Dave,

becoming Juliette and David overnight.

Their accents changing from the broad London accent

to the pinched, Leigh-on-Sea, slightly try-hard Essex accent,

which ironically sounds more moronic than the original, doesn't it?

Cos the vowels aren't fixed, but the end of the words make the effort.

LAUGHTER

You must hold in your head the image of the castle,

not just for where I live, I mean, what's behind there?

Do you think it's cold and empty in a castle? Of course not, it's warm, luxury inside, fires burning,

it's just us, the peasants, never get to frickin' see it.

My dad was exactly the same - the outer granite wall, the ET lump of love -

it's locked inside him, he never shows it. He only shows it

to the Essex friends down the pub of the same age, after five Stellas.

The love never coming out. That's the curse of these men - to want emotional acceptance

with complete emotional illiteracy. That's why a lot of the racism and right-wing views are fake.

It's just fear, fear of the other.

"Keep 'em out, boy, keep everyone out."

Even having a Nick Griffin magnet on the fridge.

LAUGHTER

The lowest point was Nick Griffin on the fridge.

A man so right wing, even his eye has collapsed to the right.

The racism begins, doesn't it? Will that happen to me? Do all middle-aged men become right wing?

Will I at one stage just scrape the hummus from my body

and go, "Right, let's be racist"?

A lot of my left-wing views, I only got them to annoy my dad.

Some of you will be, "I always felt the call to be good. I went on visiting projects,

"I just wanted to help others. It grew from inside me."

I wish I could say that. Mine was pure... It is now, but it was purely to spite him in the beginning.

"Yeah, I hate all these people." "I love them then, Papa."

"Get 'em out!" "Let them in, everyone in!"

So I just ended up in the garden covered in Tzatziki going, "Free Tibet! Eh-eh-ay!

"Eh-eh-ay, free Tibet!"

But now I'm left wing.

No, I am, so we clash over everything.

The Nick Griffin magnet. "I'm not racist, boy."

Cos he sees himself on these programmes having the piss taken out of him by me.

He gets the names of the programmes wrong. I know you do it on purpose, middle-aged men, to annoy your sons.

"When you're on that Mock Out Of Ten Apollos, boy...

"why do you make o-o-out,

"why..." Three-syllable Essex "why" - W-A-Y?

W-A-Y?

"Why do you make o-o-out... I'm racist?

"Some of the things you... I'm not racist,

"but..." That's the danger word.

Nothing very good normally follows that comma, does it, Westcliff?

"I'm not racist, but..." That's like saying I'm not a rapist, but get in the van, get in!

This is the latest one, innit? "Why do you make out I'm racist? I'm not." That's what my dad says.

"All I want to do is have a sensible discussion about immigration, yeah?"

LAUGHTER

"All I want to do is have a sensible little chat about..."

No-one with that face wants a sensible discussion about anything.

Trust me, yeah.

"Sensible little chat in the back of that Transit van over there...

"and me and my brothers and the rest of your family, Mr Wullama-Wullama, however you pronounce it,

"cos it ain't Smith, mate, let's face it, right?

"A little chat about immigra..." Listen,

I am very left wing cos the things I've experienced,

I can't stand homophobia, I can't stand racism, but I love democracy.

I love the fact there are people in this room thinking I am like that.

I'm not slating you, saying you're wrong, I just disagree with you.

Hurrah that you can express those views within the law

and I can express mine and we can have a debate. But I wish you'd have the courage

to go, "I use phrases like that, what I mean is people of colour offend me

"and I don't want them here." Wouldn't it be refreshing

just to hear the truth for once?

That's why women should be in government, cos they can spot lies, no problem whatsoever.

You can't even finish a lie. "I'm sorry I'm late..." "You're lying, Gary!"

Let me finish the lie before you spot it, you psychic bitch!

I know, cos it's... You've evolved the capacity cos of us pervy men, you have to spot our lies.

"Come in, come in." "I'm not trying to have sex with you, it's not about that tonight." "Come in."

"Why don't we just... Look, rather than doing it, we'll just lie under the duvet together naked,

"with our bodies touching for the emotional experience of nakedness."

Five minutes till you feel the no-handed kidney punch, girls. "What was that?"

"Touch it, touch it."

"Expelliarmus!" Never say that.

"Anyway, don't worry about it."

LAUGHTER

"All I want to do is have a sensible discussion, right?"

And it's the same with the emotional language. These guys, we're not slating you, we love you.

You're our dads, we know how much you love us,

but how can someone have so much love and such inability to show it?

My dad's like this, "Why do you make out when you're on that Mock Out Of Ten News quiz, right...

"why do you make out I'm not a loving father?

"You do all this and it makes out I wasn't loving or I wasn't..."

Listen, there's a difference between love and loving, is there not?

Love, what any normal man in this room will feel for his offspring,

no matter how of a shit dad he is, you cannot deny he loves it, right?

But that's not the same. You know, "I love you, son.

"I'd throw myself in front of a car for you. But I won't speak to you between the ages of 12 and 18."

LAUGHTER

Cos I'm emotionally retarded by my own dad, and in turn, I'm attempting to retard you.

Right?

And that's not the same as "loving", is it, Dad?

It's not. And I've not got any of these memories.

"Stop it, Dad." We're playing football. "Stop kissing my head."

"I can't help it, I love you. Me in goal next. Ha-ha!"

I've not got any of those. I've got plenty of those -

"Prat, clear it up!"

"Why do you make out, why do you make o-o-out...

"I wasn't a loving father?"

As pathetic as it is, I got excited, cos I'd never seen him like it.

He passes the age of 50 and he's changed so much.

I've come to the conclusion that's when men finish puberty.

We're complete arseholes mostly until that point.

"I'm 51, I've lost my car keys, I'm not going to smash up the living room. Brilliant!"

It's an opportunity to relax. Puberty has finished.

So I thought that's what happened, these apes suddenly chill out when they get into their 50s.

He's got the Christmas hat on, it's Christmas Day, the eyes fill.

It starts happening, these hard men have tears in their eyes.

It never breaks lid, though. "Do not go onto cheek."

Show the love, take it back the next day.

The love boomerang.

I love you... Not really, prick, not really.

LAUGHTER

What's coming? Every boy in the room, and you are all boys on the inside, you want to hear it.

If your dad's around, you want to hear it. As American and cringy as it is, you'd love to hear it

just once. They can't say it, though.

I think it's coming. Want to know what he actually said? "Why do you make out I'm not a loving father?

"I never fuckin' hit you." That was it.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

That's all it takes, ladies and gentlemen.

As long as you don't close your fist and beat the little shit...

there's no A-level clubs, no journeys, no fancy dress, no talent competition,

no Alton Towers, just don't break its neck.

And then I was laughing, like you guys on the inside, a bit disappointed,

but then he carried on. I thought I've judged him too quickly. He went, "Do you know why I never hit you?"

"Why, Daddy?" Cos secretly you mean "daddy".

"Why, Dad? Why?" And he started... I thought it was going to be that overwhelming bond.

You know, those in the room with kids, which will be hardly any of you, because comedy attracts

childless people, we love it. "Let's have no children, let's laugh at everything, then die alone. Ha!"

LAUGHTER

You're always telling us, you people with kids. Shut up! We don't want to hear it.

We're confused by the fact we don't have children. You don't even describe it. You're more annoying.

"When you hold that baby and it's your own, you'll know.

"I wish I could put it into words, but I simply can't."

Get out of my fucking arse then, you smug bastard.

Don't describe the greatest happiness in life and...

Of course, I'm pretending to be a bit more against it than I am

cos I've got no girlfriend, and there'll be people in the room...

Who...couples in the room, adult age,

living together, choosing not to have children, give me a cheer.

You are statistically the happiest people in the UK, according to a recent survey.

But the smugness of us is even worse.

"We're not going to have kids. Why would we? Losers.

"I can't believe you lot getting up at six. Boring!

"We're going to take joints till we're 50. Faliraki for ever!

"Here come the cats. They're just like babies anyway. Stop it, cats.

"Stop it. Here come the dogs. Stop licking my face, I'm lactating.

"Ha-ha-ha!"

Anyway, I thought that's what my old man was going to come out with. Something like that.

Not in those words, but the overwhelming love. I'm assuming most

mentally, genetically normal dads don't want to crush their children's skulls.

"Do you know why I never hit you?" I'm still holding on, pathetic, the 8-year-old boy on the inside.

"Do you know why I never hit you?" "Why, Dad?"

And this is what he said.

"Cos if I'd started, I wouldn't have fuckin' stopped."

Murder. Murder!

That's murder.

Take the child and punch it without stopping.

Do you know what'll happen? You'll kill it. It'll die.

And what's weird is the look of pride on these men's face when they say it.

"I wouldn't have fuckin' stopped, cos I'm that...

"Ain't that impressive, boy, that I could've murdered you?" Not really, no, it's a bit worrying.

And he backed it up with this. "I don't know my own strength." And walked out of the room.

Learn it, you nut-jobs, learn it!

Especially you lot around children. Have a weekend

in Belfair Woods with some meat and metal hanging down, punching it,

squeezing it. Come back with a realistic assessment of how strong you are.

Do you think any woman on the planet's going to be impressed if you show that type of strength?

"Mind if I hold the baby?"

I popped its fucking head, I don't know my own strength.

"You've destroyed my child, but you're very strong, Gary."

The emotional illiteracy's wed to the physicality of the man.

I could have looked like him, been post-feminist male and looked like him.

Cos I look like me, it doesn't have the impact.

You know what I mean, those of you that had...

If there's any guys in the room had hard dads like mine.

He's a god when you're growing up, just a lump of meat god.

The only thing you can hope for when you're a baby is to look like him,

you don't have any other aspirations.

"I want to physically resemble my dad, God in my eyes."

Some of us, me and you, grow up to be photocopies of our mum.

There's something emasculating about being a cross-gender lookalike.

I'm sorry. You should look a little bit like both parents.

It must be worse for you girls that look like your dads,

don't get me wrong, that must be...

Here's the dad coming into the pub,

"I'll have a beer, and I'll have a white wine, my daughter's with me."

"Here come the twins!"

So I don't have any of my dad's six-foot,

18-stone, steroid-using, muscle-rippling,

curly fair hair, blue eyes - I got the dark hair of my mum, like.

My dad, like when his hair eventually drops out, not one ripple,

not two ripples, but three ripples of meat between head and neck!

That's right, an Essex triple ripple!

"Want me to carry a brick? Sick it in my triple ripple!"

There are friends of mine in tonight, speak to them in the bar afterwards,

I'm not exaggerating, they used to take it in turns

to have the courage to knock at my door,

so imposing and terrifying was my dad.

Even the man's urine used to scare me as a child.

Remember the first time you see that horrible dark yellow dad wee

that's been left in the night? Just left there.

Dad up to the toilet, naked.

Discharge urine, retreat, leave display for son.

What is it?! Orange! Almost orange!

With a film on it!

With a film of oil! How manly...

Maybe a seagull in it. Awk!

Here's me with my clear stream of water.

"Papa, I'm in the performing arts! I love them!"

Imagine that. The only thing that trumps his racism is his homophobia.

"Please don't let my son be one of those. Please, God bless.

"I'll do anything. I'd trade my whole disability for that, I really would."

Always looking for evidence of my manliness.

"That's right, boy, get a trade."

"I think I'm going to read a Penguin Classic." "Is that a biscuit?"

"Get a trade, boy, work with your hands.

"That's what men do." "No, Papa, I don't wish to."

"You know, Julie, he's one of them." That's my mum.

Everything about him, brutally manly. Even his answerphone message.

That's what we do. We talk less as we get older.

Make the most of it now, 17 to 25-year-olds,

because men's happiness is testosterone-related.

Testosterone depletes, along with hair, bones, eyes,

and happiness, heading towards the chair of piss in the corner.

30s, 40s, 50s, 60s,

unexplained heart attack, death. Right?

Then the women suddenly come into their own again.

"Hooray, he's dead, how will I cope without him?! Oh, my God."

"He sapped my confidence for 30 years, how will I ever get over it?

"Didn't even get a driving licence because he said I'd be shit.

"Didn't get out the house. Doesn't matter!"

My dad's answerphone message is just his name. Just his fricking name!

Some of you guys in your 20s and 30s now,

you just put a little comedy lift in at the end,

just the traces of the personality you once had, eh?

"This is Scott, leave a message, dink!" Just a little bit..

Just a little lift.

As you hang on to the last cells

before you become a true miserable fuck for the rest of your life.

And now my dad's answerphone message is now just his name, right.

He even has the computer lady from Orange,

she gets you ready to leave your message! Right?

You know the one who was in a different mood

when she recorded every number, that woman?

07450 351.

That one.

At least do them... You've got ten numbers,

do them in the same mood, you weird bitch, right?

"I've had a cracking day, I've won a scratchcard.

"Seven. See you tomorrow!"

"My husband left me. Oh."

"Oh. Seven!"

She does all the hard work. He comes in,

shouts just his name, and sods off again.

It's one of the most depressing proofs of everything

I'm discussing tonight, when I phone my dad's mobile and have to hear,

"I'm sorry, but..." "DAVE!" "..is not available to take your call."

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Anyone who's 17 in the room, give me a cheer.

SCATTERED CHEERS Loads of you. Any of those blokes?

Because you're the ones that are going to have the problem, right?

Cos you're about to choose your first car. I don't even care

if you've been working since the age of 14 in a Saturday job

and saved up every penny for yourself, right, to pay for that car.

If the alpha male is around, just let him buy it. Have no input.

Don't even comment. Everything will be a test. Because whatever you buy,

right, whatever you choose, "Wee pile of shit."

"Death trap." "Waste of money."

My dad said when he saw my Vauxhall Corsa, right,

he walked up to it and went, "You'll die in that." And walked off.

Total review. "You'll die in it."

Even managing to be racist about cars! WTF, right?

He said, "Do not bring Jap crap onto my driveway.

"I will not repair Crapanese..." - Crapanese! -

"I will not repair Crapanese shit."

Cos he's got his man's vehicles, in't he?

The white van, the Transit full of tools, Swarfega, rivets, yeah?

Spanners. "What's the difference between a Phillips and a slot?"

"I don't know, Papa!" "Get out of me house!"

Slot, Phillips, slot, Phillips, slot, Phillips.

WAILS

Got the white van, powered by diesel, of course.

What else would it be powered by?

Diesel is the fuel of men. GROWLS

And then eventually, eventually, after years of manual labour,

hard work and saving, he gets the dream car.

The black diesel automatic Mercedes.

What, bought on credit?

Don't be ridiculous. Rely on no-one.

Save for years until all pleasure is removed from the future purchase!

Only then are you ready to buy the thing

and fricking hate it because you had to save for it.

You broke me, you broke me!

That diesel, of course - he even sounds like diesel, my dad.

I bet if my mum has any sex toys, they're probably powered by diesel.

Rrrrr! "That'll go for hours, Julie, and burn no fuel."

And, er... He sounds...

When he's formulating his next right-wing thought - "Rrrrr...

"Polish go home!" Right?

And I choose the car that's caused the biggest arguments ever -

the Toyota Prius.

Look at the intakes of breath from some of the Garys and Daves in the room.

"Fucking waste of money, load of shit..." Right?

What harm am I doing anyone?

You can be as angry as you like about green taxes,

if you don't believe in climate change,

fair play, you've got a point.

I'm doing no-one any harm if I want to waste my money

on a half-electric, half-petrol car

and drive to the airport five times a year, fly to Australia,

but look, I'm going home in my hybrid, right?

At worst, I'm a hypocrite, but the anger it draws from my dad!

"Why do you want to drive that shit, boy?

"You're a comedian, you can have anything you want, for the birds,

"and impress them. And you drive a car that's..."

Not only is it half petrol, right,

that alone is Glee boxset enough, right? Yeah?

But it's half electric.

The noise it used to make when I drive off from Sunday lunch.

Even that would have been, "See you next week for lunch, Papa."

MIMICS WEAK CAR ENGINE "That's my fricking boy in there!

"That's my boy in there!" Yeah? SCATTERED APPLAUSE

"Why not have Liza Minnelli hanging out the exhaust, get it over with?"

LAUGHTER

Are there any Prius drivers in the room? Any?

No, they won't put their hands up. "Just think of the planet and the energy I'd be using.

"Stop the car! A daisy grows. Look!"

LAUGHTER

"Wait, here's a tramp. Suckle from me, suckle from me!"

And I crashed it. 70mph. Bang, po-pom!

I was on the hard shoulder, called my mum straightaway. "You all right, Russ?

"Let us know you're OK. Call me from casualty, call me..."

Nothing from my dad. Nothing! Not even a text message.

All right, maybe he couldn't manage it with his primordial stumps.

HE GRUNTS

Why do men of this age just stop texting? Why, what's wrong with you?

It's cos we can't spell... HE ROARS

Right?

I was dreading turning up in a courtesy car.

The courtesy car was a purple Nissan Micra. This did not help me!

If he wants to think it, I just play to it now.

"I dropped my keys. Sorry, Daddy!" LAUGHTER

Nothing! And do you know the weirdest thing of all?

He was waiting at the front of the property, going...

He was waiting like that. He was waiting to greet me.

He didn't know what time I was arriving.

Those of you that grew up with a dad like mine, if you are now an adult,

count - you'll need one hand - the amount of times

the alpha comes out of the nest to greet you upon arrival. It does not happen.

Yeah, my mum comes out, you must go inside to seek out the alpha.

In study or garden or office. Often with silver back facing you as you approach, like that.

MIMICS GORILLA GRUNTS

You have to chuck a poo to show he's dominant.

HE MIMICS MONKEY CHATTERING

Not this time, though. He was there, chest facing me, waiting to greet me.

Yeah, I know this is bad. It was mock... It was mock love. I could see the smile on his face.

He'd pre-prepared what he wanted to say. Probably been thinking about it since Thursday.

It's Sunday, and I got out the car. "Hi, Dad, just turn that techno off."

HE MIMICS THUMPING BASS

"Oh, my God! Woo!"

He was in this sort of, you know, Boycie, Superman position like that.

The first noise was a laugh, like a machine gun. "Ha-ha-ha-ha." Like that.

"Ha-ha-ha-ha." I swear to God, this is what he came out with.

He must have been preparing it for about three days.

He just said this, turned around and went straight into the hallway.

"Ha-ha-ha-ha, crashed the Toyota Prius?" "Yes, Dad."

"Well, it's zero emissions now, innit, boy?"

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Went abroad to Australia.

You know, I got to fly first class for the first time, right?

It's unbelievable, guys. Has anyone flown first or business?

It's better then you can fricking imagine. There's an unlimited buffet.

That's the thing that shocked me when I walked in. Tray of unlimited food.

A table of it. Boof, like that.

What's the thought of most people in this room when you see a buffet?

And I'm not talking about Iceland prawn rings, right? I'm talking...

This is champagne, caviar, the works. First class, as much as you can get down you.

Everyone in this room is thinking, "Nick it, nick it, fill the pockets."

But you can't! You're about to get on a plane.

My old man, Dad, has trained me and James, my brother.

He trained us on all-you-can-eat Chinese. We were trained on it!

Because of my energy levels, I've always been able to eat a freakish amount of food.

I've always looked young for my age.

So when I was 12, I was tiny but I could eat a man's meal.

The pride on my dad's face that I could do 'em over for the £7.95 child's price.

He used to make me stretch in the garden. "Stretch boy, fucking stretch! Stretch!

"I'll show that prick children's prices. We'll do 'em right over."

LAUGHTER

"Here comes the prawn crackers.

"No, thanks, mate, we're not idiots. No, thank you!"

All right? LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

I've got all that going through my mind. All-you-can-eat buffet, and I thought, "I've got one option here.

"I've got to call my mum and share it with her."

I can't yet afford to do ridiculous things like that.

I can't fly my mum to Australia, I can't afford it.

So I got my mum up on the old laptop. Vring, like that.

One of our recent, lovely three days we spent together was teaching my mum

how to use a laptop from scratch. Anyone else had that...

joyous experience, right? LAUGHTER

Most middle-aged ladies in this room, if you can use a computer, you've been taught by the...

Middle-aged men - "Wasn't invented when I was young, doesn't count.

"Clearly, it's not important if it didn't exist when I was in my prime."

Right? But women, "I want to learn it.

"Helena's on the internet, and Lynn. Helena and Lynn, Lynn and Helena!"

HE CHUCKLES I wanted her there, right? So I bought my mum a laptop.

She cried with happiness, cos it was main present, main, main present!

"I can't believe you got me a laptop."

Listen, I'm not a violent man at all. LAUGHTER

I'm a gentle, silly human being. It's why I've got into theatre.

However, those three days where I... LAUGHTER

..taught Mum laptop through on button, internet, Facebook, Twatter...

And she still calls it "Twatter"!

LAUGHTER

Is the closest I've ever come to closing my fists, right,

and unleashing a punch so powerful into the side of someone's head.

You know, so that it detaches without any blood, like in a kung fu movie?

Ding-ding! With the same expression on her face.

"What does a space-bar put into a document?" "Space, bitch!" Boof!

LAUGHTER

"What did you think it was, a semicolon?!"

Kicking the torso afterwards.

So I did it. I'm in first class, I'm fine, taught my mum how to use Skype.

She's on the old Skype and everything.

"Get me on Skype, Russ," or "Sky-pe" as she calls it. "Get me on the Sky-pe," right?

Open it up, and there's my mum with her eye right against the webcam.

"Russ, Russ!" LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE Like I'm in it.

Like I'm IN it! "Someone shrunk my son! He's in there and he's tiny!"

Like I was a little computer man. "Mommy, help me! "Mo-o-ommy!

"I've become data, Mommy!"

"Back up, Mum, back up!" She backed away from it.

You know, like, when a rainforest villager has seen...

LAUGHTER ..seen a tractor for the first time like that.

Right? My mum's like, "Russ, Russ, show us, what's first class like?"

This is the chavviest thing, almost endearing, depending on where you come from.

I didn't know how to put it into words, so with everyone else

from first class looking on at a table they barely noticed,

I just flipped my computer round and Skyped the entire buffet to my mum.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

"Go back, Russ. Go back! Go back, go back."

"Go back." She's like, "Go back, go back, go back!

"Elaine, Elaine, get over 'ere!

"The fucker has got unlimited salmon. Unlimited!"

Like I said before, I know I'm all lefty, it's all a bit cosy,

those of you who read the Daily Mail would like to beat me up with it outside after the gig.

Stand up for your rights. Could someone, please, explain to me,

someone who's quite right-wing, or racist as my dad is,

naturally disbelieves climate change?

There is no link whatsoever between hating brown and black people

and not being into recycling.

If you must be racist, be racist,

but put a bit of recycling out, we're all on the same...

You can literally be in the middle of a lynching with your white hood

and a crossbow, you go, "Do you mind if we delay the hanging, I've got to go down the bottle bank."

LAUGHTER

If anything, you would think that recycling appealed to the racist mind -

tin in one bag, paper in another bag, card in a separate bag.

Everything in its different groups.

APPLAUSE

Off to the incinerator.

Then there's the garage, there's a sociology of garages, isn't there?

What's it like in Westcliff and Southend -

parking is horrible, isn't it?

Bit of off-street, they've got off-street and a garage.

# Off-street and a ga-a-a-a-arage, boy. #

There's the middle-class garage, plenty of space, isn't it?

Look how wide it is, you can park the car,

you can come back past the lawnmower, close it with a button,

in though the hallway,

past achievements of son, achievements of daughter,

into the kitchen, relax by the Aga, you've got all afternoon.

Then there's the working-class garage,

you've got to lock yourself inside it, pull the bit of blue string down

that's been there for about ten years.

You're trapped inside your own garage.

Anyone had that garage where you're trapped inside?

You've got to do the Irish dance.

LAUGHTER

Remember, part of these men, they want you to scratch their car,

they fantasise about you scratching it.

"Please, let me find a rusty scratch that he's done on it, please, God."

So you've got to go past it in your jeans with your spiky bits on -

look, there's a patch of oil, why not tread into it, broken ankle, aah!

Past the spare freezer, the second freezer full of more meat.

Yeah, more meat frozen, in case the primary supply of meat runs out.

"But, Papa, I'm vegetarian."

"Move to Brighton, put me out of my suffering!"

LAUGHTER

Into the kitchen, it's my mum's domain,

there she is, moving around like me, got the same energy - meerkat.

Always awake, always up for duty, Mr Muscle, Dettol, scrub it,

scrub it, scrub it, nothing left.

Scrub it, there's still shit in it, there's still shit in it!

That's my mum with the Essex accent, same as me.

Quite precise, a lot of us will have it in this room,

it's an uncomfortable part of the show for us when we realise,

cos we think we speak a bit better than everyone else, an' that.

It's a castle accent. The way Essex words form...

The reason we're perceived as so unfriendly is it's quite

an unfriendly accent, there's words with walls around them.

Not like the London accent, which is open, quite rolling,

inviting everyone in, not finishing words,

very rarely get to the end of my sent... Right?

Essex people have moved out.

The London accent, different to the Essex accent,

the London accent is the only one in the United Kingdom

that becomes friendlier the more it's shouted, do you know what I mean?

Are there any Cockneys in, any proper Cockneys?

The louder it gets, the freaking friendlier I sound.

Any other accent, Welsh.

WELSH ACCENT: Rolling, mellifluous, honey-like,

friendly, musical, wonderful, fits with the speaker.

But the moment it's shouted...

WELSH ACCENT: Incredibly frightening!

LAUGHTER

Same with a Glaswegian accent.

Say what you like, it can be quite trustworthy,

like a mate when it's speaking.

When it gets angry, you don't want to fucking hear it!

Any accent, except the London accent,

which, when shouted, even with an aggressive face, is friendly.

You feel like I'm about to wheel on a tray of bargains, like that.

I will nick it back from you in the car park, though.

But the flip side is also true.

If an accent is friendly,

the London accent is friendly with an aggressive face while shouting,

the reverse is also true.

The moment it becomes polite, or a little bit friendly...

LAUGHTER

Isn't it fucking menacing, yeah?

APPLAUSE

But we can slag all of these accents off - at least they fit together,

unlike our accent.

Even the posh accent, I know most of us find it offensive,

its traces of privilege, it's very unfriendly,

the vowels are tight, the consonants are tight, my body language is tight,

"I don't know you, you don't know me, clean my house, go back to Poland."

LAUGHTER

Every vowel is in Essex, "Do you want a sambucaaaaa?"

"Do you want a sambuca, Kell-yyy?"

They're stolen from Wales, any Welsh people in?

We've got your vowels, we stole them in Essex, we're running out,

quickly, run across the bridge, take your £5.50, you prick.

Into Cardiff, see you late-e-er!

They're just left in Wales going, "ch, ch, ch!"

"Ch....!"

LAUGHTER

In my mum's domain, the kitchen.

With the Essex microwave.

The first generation of working people, we had the posh possessions.

My mum and dad... Why shouldn't we now that we've got cash in hand,

the '80s are finished, got a bit of dosh,

we'll get our black tarmac driveway

with a sprinkling of white pebble dash.

It's nearly the '90s, let's scatter white pebble dash.

I don't even understand these fashions.

Then into the dining room, oh, look, it's the dining room,

welcome to the dining room.

Who's got a dining room? Cheer if you've got a separate dining room.

CHEERING Loads of you have! It's a rarity.

These old properties round here, we've got them. My dad built one.

Some of you are cheering and you don't mean it,

cos you've caught knock-it-through disease from the generation before.

There used to be one, let's knock it through, it's an archway.

Why get together as a family and eat when we can knock it through?

Have one big space with a telly at the end

so we can watch it even when eating.

Knock it though.

You haven't still got bedrooms?

We knocked the floors off, the loft off, knocked the walls in,

I'm in the garden, knocked it, knocked it. The house is gone.

We knocked it down, knocked it, I can see Kent. Bit rainy, but I can see Kent.

Knocked the lot, knocked down.

And that's my mum's ideal home.

Why would you want an old house when you can have a new-build?

"Oh, Russ, a new-build, right?"

"Why would you want character? It smells."

That would be her ideal house, just a giant, magnolia cube

with her in the corner going like that.

LAUGHTER

With one Ikea halogen spotlight so powerful

that it burns your corneas out of your skull when you look at it.

Five Glade plug-ins in every wall, five.

Five, so if you so much as sniff their coniferous freshness

your nose bleeds.

"How clean it is, Russ, it hurts, how clean it is."

Blinking your eyes.

We've lost something though by not getting together once a day for dinner.

I know we can't with how busy we are,

but we have lost something, don't you think?

Getting together once a day for a verbal argument then food.

Even to this day, if I hear, "You're fucking useless!" I fancy a sandwich.

Who invented the equation of overly posh dining room table,

working class family, who? What a cruel...

Why couldn't we have had a piece of shit to eat our dinner off?

Why did we have to have solid mahogany, £300 worth,

oh, hunt for a scratch, hunt for a scratch.

# Hunt for a scratch Hunt for a scratch, hunt, hunt,

# Hunt for a scratch

# Hunt for a scratch so the son may break his hands. #

LAUGHTER

# Dreaming of a scratch in the mahogany table

# I'm dreaming of a scratch...#

I'm eight years old, I can't even use my limbs yet, what's for dinner, Dad?

"It's spaghetti, on a mechanical spoon." Drrrrr.

I'm surprised the face of Christ did not appear in the leaf of the table.

"Get the leaf out, Eileen and Ivan are coming over,

"get the leaf out, more table for you to scratch."

I wouldn't have been surprised if I came in

and the face of Jesus was going, # Ah-eh-eh-a-oh, I'm Dave's table. #

LAUGHTER

I would rather have eaten cat biscuits on the fricking floor.

With Albert the Burmese...

Albert the Burmese cat, by the way, for those of you, not a tiny...

Imagine that, "Thank you for freeing me from oppression, but..."

"May I eat at the table?"

"You may not, you will eat biscuits on the floor!

"You're lucky to be here."

For my nan, my nan's the head of that side of the family.

There's two types of family, isn't there?

And this is not class-related, for once.

There's castle family, with walls, keeping everything in,

and there's open family.

Open family, sometimes the poorer family, cos they don't care about the material.

That's my mum's side of the family - some of us are on disability benefit,

some of us don't have the same dad, but who cares?

When the shit hits the fan, we're there for each other. Love is the gel.

Then there's the castle family, my dad.

"Do not give in to anyone, make your own wealth.

"Even your own brother, if he asks you for anything, is a ponce.

"I'm sorry, I've done this on my own,

"close the walls, die alone, rule Britannia."

My dad's castle family and my mum's non-castle family, led by my nan.

That's my nan, my beautiful, glorious nan,

I wish, I wish. There's a few people I wish was here today to see this,

and she's one of them. She should be here -

my nan was only 39 years old when I was born, for Christ's sake.

Look at the maths going through the head of the posh people.

"39, that doesn't work out - how did she do her gap year?

"Why does he exaggerate, why?"

LAUGHTER

"Go on, Olivia, it's time for your gap year."

"I'll go to Africa. Brown person, photo, and home again."

LAUGHTER

"Poverty is so boring, I'm going to go to Oxbridge now, Mummy."

My nan was 39, we're a family of young breeders,

I've bucked the trend.

They are, my mum was a kid when she had me,

my nan was a kid when she had my mum, blah, blah, blah.

But my nan, of course, isn't here

because she had the Embassy filter, bottle of vodka disease.

Not Embassy, Embassy filter, you can get through 60 a day.

A much shorter, quicker route to cancer.

A bottle of vodka, drink it every day.

She did survive, amazingly,

I swear, she must have kicked death out the door about five times.

"It's Death." "You want to come in, do you?"

"Or do you want to get out, and take your scythe with you, you prick!"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry." "That's right, dickhead."

At the end, so hard, so hard these women, these working-class women.

Nothing left at the end, just a stick.

She weighed four stone at the end, I still wouldn't have crossed her.

Four stone, just a few cells, some egg eyes,

and then hair like a Latvian imported firework,

just coming out of her head.

Just anger. Like a Pepperami, that's what she was like at the end.

Swearing.

The wheelchair,

she got a wheelchair from the NHS which she left folded, scornfully...

Have you known anyone who can choose not to use a wheelchair out of anger?

"Fuck it."

She would pull herself along the street, one millimetre at a time.

On rage alone, "I hate life, but I really need biscuits."

My nan talked about everything as well, talk about sex,

talk about religion, talk about drugs.

Drugs weren't hidden at my nan's house, right,

so...I'm not going to go much further than that,

we've got some friends in the room, she was a cool nan's to hang out at.

But what it did was - some of you now looking judgementally -

is it took away the mystery of all that shit quicker.

Whereas the British model is a castle model, suppress, prevent, prevent, that will get rid of.

Of course it won't, that's not how the British mind works.

The more you push us at one end, up we come at the other,

the same with our young people.

That's my dad, "if I ever smell any of that Jamaican shit in my house..."

LAUGHTER

I just want to smoke the biggest joined ever rolled in humanity

just to piss him off, do you know what I mean?

My nan was like, "I don't want you to take it,

"but tell me what you've taken, we'll have a discussion, we'll have a cup of tea."

My beautiful nan, and my loving dad, all that love,

how can all that love be mixed up with all that sadness?

You men in the room, working hard jobs,

you will die ten to 15 years before the posh fuckers

cos you've worked so hard.

What a horrible statistical fact,

you lifting, nail-knocking, lagging -

That's what my dad does, puts lagging on the outside of pipes,

in boiler rooms, fibreglass, asbestos -

will peg it earlier. Why work, then?

Out of love, out of the need to provide,

some primal drive to provide love and material wealth for the offspring.

Brilliant.

Then why, as you hand over that plasticky piece of tat

I've been begging for since October, or the school shoes that I need,

why do you have to provide the little cancerous bit of sadness with it at the same time?

Oh, constantly reminding us how shit it was for you

at an equivalent stage.

I've got a visual imagination.

"There we are boy, take your toys,

"remember, I rocked back and forth with nothing."

LAUGHTER

"And in some way you can't understand, it's your fault."

Christmas, Christmas brings out the worst in these men, with their,

with their fucking, "I never even had a dad."

That's their favourite, isn't it?

# I never even had a dad

# I never even had a dad, dad

# Never had a dad, I never had a dad

# You don't know how lucky you are

# I never even had a dad. #

How many times I wanted to go, "You lucky bastard."

LAUGHTER

Coming into the bedroom one Christmas, there I am,

the reason this one, my poor old mum sticks in my head...

This is the nan on the other side

who died nice and young from a horrible disease just to add to the guilt and misery.

Always, you'd find me on Christmas, hat skew-whiff,

the sixth Stella is in the chamber,

time to find the son to put a tragic image of my childhood.

I'm surrounded by piles and piles of spoilt-bastard plastic,

I'm full of turkey and trifle, I'm in bliss.

I'm also cursed with a visual imagination

and can't bear to think of that little, blonde boy

in pain or alone when he was a kid.

I hate thinking of my dad as a boy being hurt.

It's a horrible thought. He'd always find me, and come and go,

"Got all the toys you want, have you, boy? Yeah?"

"Good, I'm glad you're happy."

This one sticks in my head, because it's so surreal, the image,

and the angle he delivered it at.

"I'm glad you're happy at Christmas."

He went out diagonally, like that.

As though to fully penetrate my inner emotional core

with an arrow, right?

And he was sort of like a phantom in the half-light of the hall.

I knew it was coming. I'm 10 years old. He went,

"I'm glad you're happy, boy, but I want you to know one thing.

"I was seven the first time I tried an egg."

And then went out. LAUGHTER

A powdered egg memory, out of nowhere! So poor, he never...

This was another one. "The first time I tried a fizzy drink...

"I fucking cried."

The one thing that made him happy... Was it football? Was it rugby?

Was it his son's surprising academic achievement,

given the brims down and level of... HE MIMICS HOUSE MUSIC

..MDMA Ibiza action? Right?

Was it any of that?

There's only one substance that drew together father and son. One event.

Curry. The Akash, Potter's Bar.

The only time I ever saw a smile on that man's face, yeah?

The only thing he's passionate about is Bangladeshi cuisine.

"Fucking curry, boy." I've got not a single Alton Towers story.

I don't have a football practice story.

I don't have a school play story,

I don't have a Disney World story.

I've got loads of brilliant stories about The Akash, though.

10th birthday, new job, band week - takeaway from The Akash.

He cried when it closed.

Cried full-fat tears.

Right down over his silver fur on his back

and down to his primordial fists.

Curry - different man. Different man!

Bad week, takeaway from The Akash.

Good week, into The Akash. Cried when it closed.

HE SOBS "The Akash is closed, boy!

"It's closed!"

More then he cried over anything I've ever done. How hurtful!

"The Akash is closed! That's real pain!

"That's real pain, boy!"

"My bone's hanging out!"

"Don't matter, The Akash..."

Every meal started with an argument.

We've got no religion.

It's very rare to find religious families these days.

You religious families, you're saying grace before dinner.

"Thank you, God, for this food we are about to receive."

But we don't.

What's replaced grace in a working-class family,

bit of a ROW before we eat, yeah?

Bit of a row, slag each other off,

damage your son's confidence, and eat.

My dad is a hero.

The whole story is an homage to him.

But this is a particular hero memory.

You've got different hero memories.

Maybe your dad's wealthy, maybe he's spiritual,

maybe he's intellectual. Whatever.

Hopefully, you all have a moment when you go,

"That's the day my dad came through for me."

And this is my one. The Akash.

We're there and a fight breaks out.

There had already been quite a lot of tension in the air,

because we'd had our traditional arguments.

My 10th birthday, I'm allowed to order shashlik for the first time.

My first time of being allowed to order a sizzler.

£12.95, five bits of meat, yeah? Fuckin' what?!

The sizzler. Who loves the sizzler when they're out for a curry?

You can hear it. It's the only dish where it's in the kitchen,

and you already know it's coming.

"Don't turn round. HE MIMICS SIZZLES

"It's definitely ours!"

Comes past all you other morons with your ordinary tikka

that doesn't sizzle, you fucking wankers!

LAUGHTER

My dad, "Look at them! They don't even know what we've got!"

Honestly, that's how he measured everything.

And I'm allowed to order my first shashlik.

I'm 10. Up it comes.

Chicken tikka shashlik. There it is.

"All right, boy, you know what to do. You know exactly what to do."

"Squeeze your lemon on your chicken tikka..."

And I didn't like lemons, and I'd been dreading this moment.

But it was part of the religious ceremony.

This is the argument. The most bizarre and ridiculous

verbal violence of my whole childhood.

"Squeeze your lemon on your tikka."

"Please, Dad. You know I don't like lemon."

HE SHOUTS "Squeeze your lemon

"on your fucking tik-ka!"

"Tik-ka!" Like that!

Everyone looking round.

And then we settled in.

I'm eating chicken tikka, I've got my poppadoms.

I associate it with complete safety and happiness.

It might seem pathetic to some of you, but I genuinely do.

And then this fight kicks off.

A fight in The Akash, right?

These kids..."kids," I say,

but 19-year-old, big, muscly fuckers.

Lighting serviettes and throwing them into the air and letting them

burn out till they fall down.

HE LAUGHS Up there, "That's what I fucking did when I was in my prime!"

Now, most of you are thinking,

"If it's not affecting your table,

"Let Abdul deal with it. et the manager..."

Make sure that the manager IS called Abdul. Don't just...

That can sound a bit racist if you just use that name for any man.

LAUGHTER "Abdul, over 'ere, mate!"

"Let Abdul deal with it. It's his restaurant,"

is the correct thing to do.

But, unfortunately, sitting next to these pissed-up,

Kronenbourg, 19-year-old hard bastards

was posh guy with a roll neck and beard,

who, when he sees injustice, must address the situation,

thereby causing more violence by being a dick.

LAUGHTER Is there anyone in this room

who would have the courage to address a restaurant of strangers

about their dining experience?

I'm a stand-up. Not even I have the cringe factor necessary to do that.

And he stood up, and he went, "Excuse me!

"Fellow diners of The Ay-kash."

LAUGHTER

Not Akash, Ay-kash.

Show knowledge of Latin! Show it!

"Fellow diners of the Ay-kash."

And he pointed,

so his finger was about as far from this 16-stone hard fucker.

He went,

"Does anyone else find THIS behaviour despic..."

And he was punched on that exact syllable of despicable.

That exact. Right in the side of the head, like that.

Have you ever seen someone punched in the side of the head

when they're not expecting it?

It's majestic!

Cos the head comes up and they make the effort at consciousness,

but they fail at the last minute.

"I'm fine! No...I'm gone. Sorry."

LAUGHTER

But, unfortunately for this kid,

the posh guy had fat posh sons with him. And they've stood up.

You can tell you're middle-class, cos you approach from the side.

"I'm sorry. You really are annoying me at the moment.

"There'll be trouble. I'll use my specialist attack.

"SIDE ATTACK! SIDE ATTACK!"

Working-class people attack from the front, like that.

"Look at my organs! Want to try and stab my organs, mate?"

And it's kicked off. Proper, violent fight.

Really quickly. Punches thrown.

My brother, my little brother James, there,

The smaller guy in the Wotsits box.

James has got out, along with my mum and my great-nan,

who was there for my 10th birthday.

Has anyone else, like me, got where the great-nan

became more like the nan,

due to the fact your nan was so young?

Great-nan is the grandmother.

She has the curly silver hair,

buggy-pushing, story-reading.

Dies when you're 19, 20. Normal gran behaviour.

Unlike my real nan, who's still at it down the nightclub,

getting done behind a skip. She's still partying.

LAUGHTER She partied till the end.

So Connie, great-gran, or grandma, as we called her,

she got out just before the door got blocked with the violence.

James is out, thank God. James is like, "Aargh!" from the violence.

I'm crying, terrified, and it's just me and dad left.

I will never forget the warmth of his bicep against my chest.

Sounds a bit of a sentimental memory, but it's amazing one for me.

Just there it is, across me.

The first time ever, some sort of affection,

some sort of primal connection between father and son.

"Just leave it. Let Abdul call the Old Bill.

"Don't watch, boy."

He used to be a doorman, so he knew. He's judging the fight.

Then, then, one of them, the smallest one,

a little shit, looked about 17, 18.

Has smashed a glass, and he's walking in

behind one of the posh kids.

He's going to glass him in the side of the neck.

And you know when a weapon comes out at a party or a fight,

a knife or a glass, the atmosphere sort of tightens, doesn't it?

It sort of zooms in. Everything's still.

He's walking towards him, and that's when my old man's kicked in.

The ex-bouncer, the bodybuilder.

He's just risen, just swollen.

LAUGHTER

Swollen out of the seat like a...

like a Wheat Crunchie left in a toilet.

LAUGHTER

What do you think? Truly hard men, by the way,

those of you vicious shits, they don't take weapons.

They don't need them.

But this is the man's faith in Bangladeshi cuisine.

He's picked up the only thing which could roughly be...

construed as a weapon.

Which is the still sizzling...

HE MIMICS SIZZLING

..set in wood, obviously, to protect their hands.

We know how hot those dishes are.

INDIAN ACCENT

"Please don't touch, very hot. Please."

We know how they are.

APPLAUSE

# Please don't touch my dish I'm very hot right now

# Don't touch my dish I'm so hot, baby. #

R&B, why not?!

By the way, I checked on Wikipedia.

That's the maximum time I can do that accent. Relax.

And he's gone in,

waving it like that.

Everyone stops, and it's just the little shit with the weapon

and my dad, 18 stone of pure man,

with a triple ripple. Walking in.

Waving it like that.

Think how hot that metal is.

Mediaeval Tudor peasant-branding black metal.

And the peppers and onions in there, like a little infantry.

Just showing you. "It's fucking hot in 'ere, mate.

"I used to be a pepper! I used to be a fucking pepper!"

"You want to look like this, do ya? I don't think so."

And this kid's just looking at him.

He's about as big as my old man's areola, at best.

And I'm crying,

but I'm at that...that terror crying.

When you're a kid, when you're crying, but scared,

so the tears are rolling, but you're not making any noise.

And he's got the smoke like that. And he went, "Now..."

"..put the glass back..."

"..and calm it. Yooueah?"

Three-syllable Essex "yeah".

Yoo-Uh-Eah Yoo-Uh-Eh.

Yooueah. Right?

If you're outside Essex and you want to do it at home, that's how you do it.

Yooueah. Bring it up from the chest and out.

"Put the glass back and calm it, yooueah?"

Now, I'd never seen anyone,

ANYONE, answer my old man back.

Not any of my friends, not my brother, not my mum.

In a car accident, two cars came out, my dad's fault, smashed in.

They took one look at my dad and went, "It's only my wing,

"I'll repair it in my garage!"

He's that type of man, right?

I just thought, well, this is a no-brainer.

And I couldn't believe what came out of the little shit's mouth.

He took one look at my dad...such is the POWER of Kronenbourg!

I don't know what the did in 1664,

but they got violence from it.

He looked my dad up and down, and he went,

"Put the chicken tikka down, old man."

LAUGHTER

Mouth open.

You could see my old man, it hit him, like that. The rudeness of it.

He was affronted as much by the offence to his masculinity,

as the slight inaccuracy of the description.

You could see it bothering him.

You could see it playing on his fucking mind.

Like, "This is a sizzler.

"This ain't no fucking tikka!"

You could see it bothering him.

These are the words, more or less, that came out of the man's mouth.

He even did a kung-fu look before he responded.

LAUGHTER

This is my Dirty Harry moment, it was just amazing!

He leant right in, so their lips were almost touching. He went,

"That ain't chicken tikka."

LAUGHTER

"That's a shashlik." LAUGHTER

"Let's see if you're laughing when I smash it in your face, mate."

He turned around to me, just sobbing,

shivering in my seat, and went,

"Now, squeeze your lemon!"

Straight across.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Who spotted that I kept correcting my tense when I talked about my dad?

Did anyone spot that? I kept going from was to is, did, does.

He should be sat up there, of course he should. But he's not there.

And why is he not there?

It doesn't take Columbo to work it out.

The sad truth of this fucking story, right,

is that he will never see this show. He'll never know this show.

That's it. I'm drifting into my dad's voice now.

What a sick, fucked-up way to close the show.

"That's it, boy. Keep them laughing,

"cos the next bit is not particularly funny.

"You can clear off your piss-taking driveway,

"turn off your plasma in the knock-it-through dining room,

"put the He-Man in its original packaging.

"You sell that on eBay in 2008 and get some money for it.

"When Mum's done grieving me, you move her to a new build in Cheshunt,

"with a carpenter from Woodford called Danny. That's who that is."

LAUGHTER

Happens to be a nice bloke, comes to see this show.

Mum begins a new life.

"After the funeral, where, bizarrely,

"I'm cremated to the music of Barry White,

"while your heart breaks in fucking two,

"and you don't cry a tear, cos you're trying to be strong for James.

"You take the white transit.

"You and Uncle Tony sell that in Auto Trader.

"You drive the black diesel automatic Mercedes

"back to the dealership. You trade it in.

"You can't believe you're driving your dad's car.

"You dismantle the gym in the garden

"that I worked out in right until the end.

"You give the tools away at a car boot sale. You give everything away.

"Everything gets filed.

"It disappears, like a concentric fucking ripple in a brook.

"You even, finally, in 2010,

"grow the balls to give the stories about me away

"and then tell the truth at the end.

"Well done, you. All I ask is one last thing.

"Now and again, have a little knock on those castle bricks, yeah?

"And know that even if you think you're lying to yourself,

"there's something very good worth looking at in there.

"For about an hour.

"Now, good luck without me, and good night."

"Good night." Good night.

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd