Ben Insert Name Here

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Hello and welcome to Insert Name Here,

the show where we discover surprising facts about people

with just one thing in common - they all have the same name.

And joining me, six of my favourite people.

They have names, not afraid to use them.

So, please welcome Hollywood director Paul Feig,

historian Kate Williams and their team captain, Josh Widdicombe.

And on the other side, comedian Jon Richardson,

naturalist Chris Packham and their team captain, Richard Osman.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Now, Paul, you're the man behind Bridesmaids,

which sounds worse than I meant it to sound.

This whole show tonight is essentially all of us

-auditioning for a Hollywood movie.

-Yeah.

Never felt more powerful in my life.

The ideal way this could work is the next episode is just five

empty seats and we've all gone to Hollywood.

But Paul's still here.

Now, your name is Paul. Do you feel like a Paul, Paul?

Um, I do feel like a Paul,

though I've been informed that I should actually feel more like

a Michael because apparently I bear a striking resemblance to

a man named Michael Gove.

No!

Oh, you do! I wondered why I felt like I'd taken against you.

You're not the only one to have observed that likeness,

we did spot it. Here's the two...

Oh, it's close!

-Who's the handsome fellow on the left?

-I don't know.

Jon, you recently had a baby. Congratulations, my love.

Thanks, it was... Yeah.

APPLAUSE

Did you find naming an issue?

Did you go through reams of names or did you always know?

Well, we sort of went down the dead relative route.

It seemed fairest. One each, one dead nanna each.

Were they dead before you named the baby?

Yeah, the shock!

-Yeah.

-Jon has had sex!

-I know.

LAUGHTER

Well, they were there.

She's called Elsie, after my nan.

Which was lovely until someone said to me,

"Oh, is that because of the princess from Frozen?"

Oh, no!

Which really, really upset me, to the point of considering adoption.

So now they've changed the name to Simba.

Chris, do you name pets? Do you name any of your pets?

I do, the domestic animals.

Not wild animals that I've had, yeah.

I've always had poodles, small black miniature poodles,

and we had one and I was desperate to call it Help.

I had this fantastic vision in my mind that someone would

genuinely need help and they'd be shouting for it and

a small black poodle would turn up.

All right, to the all-important question -

so, which name will be featuring tonight?

Well, they could be a Hill or a Mountain, a Miller or a Stiller.

Tonight's name is Ben.

So, as you may have guessed,

we're going to be talking about people called Ben, and that includes

Benny, Benjamin and Benedict, or a welcome "come on, thither."

Along the way, teams will be collecting as many Bens as they can.

At the end of the show, the team with the most will have

the honour of deciding who is officially

the greatest Ben of all time.

That person will then be inducted into our

Insert Name Here Hall of Fame.

Any early thoughts about who that might be, Josh?

-Well, I've got some favourite Bens.

-Yeah?

-Big.

-Yeah.

Mr. Yes.

And Uncle.

Richard, your team,

any early thoughts as to who the greatest Ben of all time might be?

I've a soft spot for Ben Miller,

only because I used to like the Miller And Armstrong Show

and I've worked with Armstrong for many years.

-And, God, he takes some carrying.

-Yes.

-He really does, doesn't he?

All right, let's get on with the show.

It's time to pick a Ben, any Ben.

Our panellists are going to choose a category.

Behind each category lurks a famous Ben,

which our teams must attempt to secure.

And so, first of all we have a Swedish Ben, an Italian Ben,

an English Ben or an American Ben.

Josh, your team is going to pick first.

-Oh...

-Which one does Deliveroo bring?

Swedish Ben.

All right, well, you have chosen musical superstar Benny from ABBA.

Let's have a look at the stats.

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

Listen, it's fair to say everybody loves ABBA. Anyone here disagree?

-Everyone loves ABBA, right?

-Yeah.

Chris and Jon don't like ABBA!

It's the noise of it, isn't it, really?

If six-year-olds could make music, they would make ABBA.

LAUGHTER AND BOOS Oh, that's divided the crowd.

If you could now do the Swedish for "Money, Money, Money,

"it must be funny," then you can take the mick out of ABBA.

-SWEDISH ACCENT:

-Money, money, money.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

All right, I'll take it.

Here they are in their prime.

I think that's at the opening of the Large Hadron Collider.

He's really struggling to hold up the left end of that guitar,

isn't he?

-You see how they're dressed in the most ridiculous fashion?

-Yes.

There's a reason for that.

It's one of the few things I do know about ABBA,

because I know nothing about any of the songs, the music,

I've not seen Mamma Mia, I don't own ABBA Gold...

That is such bullshit.

We know you, you're in that hide at night, going,

# Money, money, money... #

Someone goes, "Chris, a badger!"

# Must be funny... #

The reason they wore those outrageous garments is

so that they could claim tax on them,

because in Sweden at that time,

you could only claim tax on clothes that you wouldn't wear elsewhere.

So they made a point of this.

It was the one political stand they probably took.

-That is absolutely true.

-It's true, isn't it?

So if you're listening, Gary Barlow, check it out.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

The first single was released in America by Playboy Records.

Lots of demand for the 12 inch.

But what was the problem with the name ABBA?

It's also the name of a herring company or

a fish canning company or something like that, isn't it?

Absolutely is. Well done, yeah, Richard.

Very similar situation to the Uruguayan death metal band

Fray Bentos.

Chris, as a man at one with nature, where do you stand on fish canning?

Well, 80% of our fisheries are now overfished.

What should we be eating?

If we're going to eat protein we should be eating insects

because they reproduce far more quickly and...

I've eaten cricket and maggot and mealworm.

I'm very concerned about the afterparty for this show.

I read this article saying that cockroach milk

is the best possible milk you can drink.

-Oh, my word.

-It's so protein-heavy.

How do they milk them?

LAUGHTER

It's literally, finally the perfect job for you, Josh.

There's now an ABBA museum in Stockholm filled with memorabilia,

including the helicopter used on the cover of Arrival,

plus a recreation of the ABBA recording studio.

But what is special about the museum's upright piano?

I've actually been to the ABBA museum.

What? The actual?

I've been to the ABBA museum.

You should have dropped this one earlier in the round, surely!

And, you know, actually,

it's a piano and it's connected to the piano in Benny's house.

-So when Benny sits down and plays on the piano...

-No!

-..this piano plays itself.

-Whoa!

-So whenever he practises, you hear too.

-That's quite cool.

-But the trouble is, he's got seven cats.

-Yeah.

And they've also got this phone in the middle of the museum

and the phone is a special phone,

and the only people who know the number is the members of ABBA.

So if it rings and you pick it up, you'll be speaking to Benny or...

Or there's the possibility that all of this is bullshit

to make people go to a shit museum.

LAUGHTER

Agnetha had a number of relationship issues, but what was unusual

about her relationship with a Dutch forklift driver?

Didn't he pick her up in a warehouse?

LAUGHTER

I think he was her stalker.

Is absolutely right.

He basically was an obsessed fan who moved house in order to meet her.

When the relationship broke down, police raided his wooden cabin

and found a shrine to Agnetha,

including thousands of mementos, a dead turtle,

with a bucket of faeces, which were rumoured to be hers.

Worst ever episode of Through The Keyhole. Worst.

OK, we've reached the business end of the round.

It's time to play for the Ben.

Benny has produced a number of solo albums over the years

and collaborated with famous singers including Elaine Paige,

Barbara Dickson and Sarah Brightman.

But who sang on Benny's 1991 album,

Fagelsang i Sverige?

-The Queen of Sweden.

-No.

-Stefan Edberg.

I'm going to give you a clue - it's more in your line of work, Chris.

Oh, was it a badger?

-Was it an animal?

-It's an animal.

-Birds.

-Exactly, birds.

-Well done.

It's wild birds, a collection of Swedish birdsong.

The album features 90 different birds native to Sweden.

They're not so bad after all, ABBA, actually, are they?

They're all right!

Would you like to hear a track from the album?

More than anything in the world.

Chris, do you want to pick a number from track 1-90?

-90?!

-There's 90! There's 90 tracks.

Oh, someone needs to get himself a proper producer.

Pick a number and we'll play the track.

-17.

-17, let's hear 17.

TRILLING

I'm really into this, I genuinely am really into it.

-Do you know what that is?

-No, do you know what that is?

-I think I do, yeah.

-It's a bird.

But it's not song, it's actually the drumming of a snipe.

And what they do is they fly up into the air and when they fly down

in a very steep descending flight,

they stick out their outer tail feathers and they vibrate

in the wind and they produce that sort of "vwoom",

wobbling, drumming sound.

Do you know what? We never ever thought in a million years,

when presenting you with Swedish wild birds, 90 of them,

one picked at random, you'd get it right,

and Chris got it right.

APPLAUSE

Unbelievable stuff. Congratulations to Richard's team, you get the Ben.

Now, Richard's team, your go to pick a Ben, please.

I think we'll go for an Italian Ben.

Italian Ben, and you've chosen Italian dictator

and punctual train enthusiast Benito Mussolini.

Let's look at his stats.

LAUGHTER

Benito, the Prime Minister of Italy from 1922-1943.

He went to a boarding school ran by catholic priests,

but what unusual punishment did they give him at school?

Did they pass Il Duce by the left-hand side?

LAUGHTER

-JOSH:

-Superb.

Superb.

Well, his punishment was actually to sleep outside,

made to sleep outside with the dogs.

Even Mussolini admitted he was not a good boy.

When he got together with his girlfriend Rachele,

her mother objected.

So, how did he make her change her mind?

Did he pull a gun on her?

He absolutely did pull a gun on her, yeah. Yeah, absolutely, yeah.

He went to her house with a revolver and threatened to shoot

Rachele and himself if she opposed the match.

Although, being the old romantic, he did get down on one knee first.

He was a womanising psychopath,

basically a cross between Russell Brand and...

another Russell Brand.

Indeed, Mussolini's voracious sexual appetite led him to be known

as Italy's Phallus in Chief.

Until I moved there.

Hey-hey!

APPLAUSE

What was unusual about Mussolini's relationship with Bella Italia?

Oh, he had a loyalty card, didn't he?

LAUGHTER

Bella Italia was his pet lion.

Here's Italia going for a drive...

with Chuckles Mussolini.

According to the Daily Telegraph, at one point

Mussolini's Roman villa contained a pair of lions,

two gazelles, a monkey, parrots, two ponies and two tortoises.

And shortly afterwards, just two very fat lions.

Fancy an entourage like that?

I had a lion in the front of a Volvo once, actually, and...

The casual way you deliver that, Chris!

-Unfortunately, it vomited and defecated at the same time.

-Wow.

It did the mythical double header?

-In a Volvo!

-I've been close on a hangover, but...

So, what was it doing on your lap?

I was bottle-feeding it. I had it on my lap.

We were driving to Devon, and I'd just given it way too much

and it shifted and I looked into its little

sort of bluey eyes and I knew exactly what was going to happen.

It vomited and shat all over me.

God, where was Michaela Strachan during all of this?

Was she with you at the time?

No, she wasn't, but Terry Nutkins was driving.

Terry Nutkins was driving!

That is my favourite end line to any anecdote.

The punchline to this is that we had a penguin in the boot.

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

There's somebody watching this programme who's had

a family member institutionalised in the '80s.

"My God, Uncle Phil was telling the truth."

LAUGHTER

Well, on that note, time to play for the Ben. This is the big one, OK?

In 1945, Mussolini was executed and his body strung up from

the lamppost of an Esso garage, but which of Mussolini's possessions

did the US give to his widow in March of 1966?

It was his Bella Italia loyalty card.

-They didn't cut something off him and then...

-Yes, they did.

-Was it his willy?

-Not his willy.

-Head.

-Head is close.

-What's in his head?

-Brain!

-Brain.

His brains.

I slightly fed that to you. Yeah, the remnants of his brain.

Yeah, during his autopsy,

a piece of Mussolini's brain was removed to test for syphilis.

21 years later,

it was returned to his widow in the form of six test tubes in

a wooden box, with the compliments of the US ambassador in Rome.

"These Ferrero Rocher are disgusting!"

Congratulations, you win the Ben, Josh. Well done.

APPLAUSE

Right, Josh, your turn.

I think we're going to go with an American Ben.

You've chosen old school American hero Benjamin Franklin.

AUDIENCE OOHS

Let's have a look at his stats.

Franklin was a bit of a polymath, scientist, politician,

inventor, most famous for a scientific experiment in which

he flew kites in the middle of a lightning storm.

And if you're going to do that at home,

do make sure you use a small child to earth your experiment.

I love the fact he's got an urn there, pre-emptively.

Yeah, straight in. Straight in there.

As you can see, a metal door key was attached to the kite string,

which charged a battery,

thus proving the electrical nature of lightning.

There's doubt, isn't there, Kate, that this actually happened?

There is doubt, because we think that if

he actually did succeed in conducting electricity down

from that actual lightning strike to the battery,

then in fact he would have been electrocuted himself and would die.

What we think actually happened is he's getting electrical charge

from the cloud and gathering that down, and that's what makes

the bits of the string of the kite stand on end, which he observes,

but he hasn't actually hit the lightning

because that would be too excessive.

So this means that the only thing I really knew about

Benjamin Franklin is not true, so I really know nothing about the man.

Yeah, welcome to this show!

Franklin started out as a publisher,

first big success was Poor Richard's Almanack.

It contained recipes, weather forecasts, astronomical charts,

poetry and witty maxims, many of which are still in use today.

But which of these sayings was not devised by Franklin?

LAUGHTER

What do you think?

I would say if you fly kites in thunderstorms,

then life insurance is probably the best policy.

LAUGHTER

I think the first one might be Washington, but again, this is...

-George Washington, but I could be wrong.

-Yes.

We'll go with honesty, then.

Well, the last one's Homer Simpson, isn't it?

All right, so, you're going to go for beer and you are going

to go for honesty is the best policy.

Let's have a look at the right answer.

So, the only one he didn't say is...

Now, which august American said that?

Tiger Woods?

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

You know what? It was Homer Simpson.

So you were right about Homer Simpson, but wrong quote, yes.

In January 1737, Franklin's newspaper,

The Pennsylvania Gazette, published The Drinker's Dictionary.

What was The Drinker's Dictionary for?

Well, it was so you knew what you were drinking, presumably.

-No.

-Is it so that you could speak when you were drunk?

It's actually an almanac full of euphemisms for being drunk.

So, whereas we might say "battered", his examples include...

That was a euphemism for being drunk.

Let me tell you now, you cannot be too free with Sir Richard.

LAUGHTER

My personal favourite...

Any favourite euphemism you've got for being drunk?

-Armitage Shanks.

-Armitage Shanks.

-If you've been drinking a lot...

-Yeah.

-..you're constantly urinating...

-You are.

..and the only time you ever read what's on the urinal

is when you've got to focus on something.

It's a shame that is rhymes with something else, though, Chris.

It's Cockney rhyming slang, really, isn't it?

I mean, he's been for an Armitage Shanks eight times this evening!

Jon, how about you? Do you have a favourite euphemism for drinking?

Erm... Postponing the misery of life for another evening.

LAUGHTER

Something like that.

Franklin, a prolific inventor, although he refused to patent

anything because he wanted the widest possible benefit for mankind.

He invented a mechanical arm for reaching books on high shelves,

and a pulley system that allowed him to lock and unlock his

bedroom door from the comfort of his bed.

Taken together, rather suspect-sounding.

-Is that when he was having an Armitage Shanks?

-Yeah!

All right, now, time to play for the Ben.

In 1750, December 1750, he nearly killed himself. What happened?

Did he strangle himself with his own mechanical hand?

So it felt like someone else's, Josh, is that what you're saying?

LAUGHTER

It involves an animal.

I believe that he was trying to cook a turkey with his new-found

electricity toy and he electrocuted himself when he was trying

to use his key to conduct electricity to bake the turkey.

Is absolutely the right answer, well done. Correct.

APPLAUSE

Was Franklin the first person to experiment with electricity, Kate?

Well, my favourite electrical experimenter is a bit earlier,

and he is the chief electrician to King Louis XV.

And what he did, Jean-Antoine Nollet,

was he got 700 monks to form a human chain,

holding hands, and then he electrocuted one monk

at the end and made them all jump at the same time.

Those were the days, weren't they?

When you could just get 700 monks in a circle.

You couldn't get 700 monks in the Large Hadron Collider these days.

You've got state-of-the-art equipment,

-but you can't get the monks.

-You can't get the monks.

You can't get the monks these days.

Congratulations, you win the Ben.

APPLAUSE

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

Each time I spin, up will pop three of my favourite Bens,

and our teams have to match the extraordinary fact

to the extraordinary Ben.

Also a chance to unearth more candidates for the greatest

Ben of all time, so let's spin.

So, we've got Blackadder and Young Ones writer Ben Elton,

porn star Ben Dover,

and a man who's probably delighted to be next to him,

Gandhi actor Sir Ben Kingsley.

That's a porn star called Ben Dover, that guy?

No, it's not his real name!

His real name is Ian Givemeone.

LAUGHTER

-I've met Ben Dover.

-Have you?

Yeah, he did a show at the Edinburgh Fringe a few years ago.

What do you mean by a show?

And what do you mean by meet?

The question is, OK, so, which Ben appeared on a list of

suggestions to become General Secretary of the Labour Party?

Josh's team gets to choose this one first.

Well, I think Ben Kingsley.

-I'm sure I've heard...

-He's a Labour Supporter?

Yeah, he's a big Labour man.

Would it possibly be Ben Dover as a protest vote?

Hey, we've got Trump, you can have Ben Dover.

LAUGHTER

Who are you going to go for, my love?

I know that the obvious thing is Ben Elton,

but I've just got a feeling that he's the kind of red herring.

-You're feeling in your bones.

-Probably, yeah.

-Kingsley, please.

You're going for Kingsley? Richard's team.

It feels to me, if Ben Dover did stand for

Labour General Secretary, the MPs wouldn't vote for him,

the unions wouldn't vote for him, but the members would.

Do you know, I think he's probably a Tory.

That was the impression I got from his show.

-So are you saying that he was swinging to the right?

-Erm, yes.

-So, who are you going to go for?

-I think we'll go for Ben Dover.

All right, you're going to go for Ben Dover. The correct answer is...

-JOSH:

-No!

APPLAUSE

Indeed.

According to the News of the Word,

in 2008 he was on a shortlist of potential candidates to

become the new General Secretary of the Labour Party.

Richard, congratulations, you win the Ben.

APPLAUSE

OK, onwards.

We've got American R&B legend Ben E King,

iconic Pakistani politician Benazir Bhutto,

and saucy '70s funnyman Benny Hill.

OK, so, the question is,

which Ben did Snoop Dogg reveal he would like to play in a movie?

Richard, you get to go first on this one.

Well, you know what?

He is genuinely famously, Snoop Dogg,

a big fan of British comedy,

and genuinely a lot of the rappers like Benny Hill.

It's the truth.

Sorry, a lot of American rappers are into Benny Hill?

-Yeah.

-It was very, very popular when I was growing up.

My father and I bonded over that.

And Paul's father is Dr Dre, so...

LAUGHTER

Benny's actually a stage name - his real name was Cypress Hill.

LAUGHTER

-So you're going to go for Benny Hill?

-Yeah.

All right, you've locked in with Benny Hill.

What do you reckon, guys?

I have briefly met Snoop Dogg in LA, briefly...

-Whoa, whoa, whoa!

-Whoa!

Rewind. Now the crowd say Bo Selecta.

LAUGHTER

So, go on.

When I was 22 I was travelling and I stayed in this hostel in LA.

And in the hostel there was a couple of girls

who wanted to be Playboy models,

and Snoop Dogg had met a couple of them in a club

and he came down to our hostel to see them.

-Snoop Dogg came to your hostel?

-Yeah, yeah!

I'm guessing you're someone that doesn't really know

that much about Snoop Dogg.

That was a man going, "Yeah, of course I'm Snoop Dogg."

No...

"Yeah, Snoop Dogg, ain't I?"

LAUGHTER

All right, so, Josh's team, what are you going to go for?

-We're going to go with...

-It sounds crazy, but I feel like Bhutto...

-We're going Bhutto.

-I don't know why else she's up there.

So you're saying that you think that Snoop Dogg wants to play

Benazir Bhutto in a film.

-All right.

-No!

-So, let's see what the right answer is.

Oh!

APPLAUSE

Yeah. Snoop said, "I love Benny Hill.

"He's one of my favourite comics of all time..."

"And, hey, where's that beautiful redhead I saw in the hostel?"

LAUGHTER

I love the fact you thought it was Benazir Bhutto.

I'm going to get that point back for us, though,

because my next movie will now be Snoop Dogg as...

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

For that...

For that, Paul, I'm going to give you a bonus Benny,

my favourite Benny - Benny from Crossroads.

APPLAUSE

Our big Ben goes to Richard's team. Well done.

OK, well, let's play Finish The Fact.

I'm going to start out by reading a Ben-based gem,

you buzz in when you think you know how it ends.

So, first up, disgraced Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson.

BUZZER

And 4.6 seconds later, he finished.

LAUGHTER

He started what? BELL

-Paul.

-Buying urine from schoolchildren.

LAUGHTER

He started giving football lessons to...

-BELL

-Is it who made Sam Allardyce look above board?

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

No, who made one appearance for an Italian club before...

But sadly, no-one wins the Ben.

Next up, we've got 19th-century Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli.

-BUZZER

-More time to do the things he enjoyed.

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

BUZZER Yes, Richard.

Did he find she was the only one who knew their Wi-Fi password?

He actually found that she had kept 33 years' worth of...

BELL Paul.

Old Sainsbury bags.

BUZZER

Toenail clippings.

It's from the body.

-BUZZER

-Is it hair?

It is hair! Well done, congratulations, it's hair.

Yeah, in no way creepy.

Well done, Richard, you win the Ben. Well done.

APPLAUSE

So, we've come to the end of the show and I can tell you

that tonight's winners with the most Bens are...

Josh's team!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Big moment now.

Josh, who are you going to name as the greatest Ben of all time?

I think it's very simple.

I've annoyed Richard with the victory, and now I'm going to annoy

Chris and Jon by choosing, purely out of spite,

Benny from ABBA.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

A worthy choice.

So, let's put Benny up on the Insert Name Here Hall of Fame. Up he goes.

He's going to join there Alexander Graham Bell, Mary Berry.

That's a hell of a party right there.

Best game of shag, marry or avoid of all time.

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

Now, just for you, Chris, I'm going to give you Fagelsang I Sverige.

Oh, the birds! The birds!

-Thank you very much.

-You're very welcome.

A very big thanks to all my guests, special thanks to all the Bens

here there and everywhere,

but mainly thanks to you at home for watching. Goodnight.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE