Jane Insert Name Here

APPLAUSE

Hello you!

And welcome to Insert Name Here.

The show where we discover surprising facts about people

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

Joining me, six of my favourite people.

Each differently named, but all equally loved.

Please welcome Suzannah Lipscomb, Adrian Chiles,

and their team captain Josh Widdicombe.

And on the other side, Sara Pascoe, Anita Rani,

and their captain, Richard Osman.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Anita, welcome.

-Thank you.

-Now, you're our first Anita.

-Yes!

-Very first.

How did you get your name? Does it have any meaning?

-Any special reasons?

-Well, I love my name,

because it's an international name.

I go to lots of countries and everyone's like, oh, Anita!

Is it Spanish? Is it Italian? Oh, it's Indian.

But it was my dad's brother that called me Anita,

which seems quite radical, great name, uncle,

except I've got two aunts called Sita and Rita.

-So...

-LAUGHTER

-Easy!

-I know!

And an uncle called Ryvita.

You're right though, it is an international name.

-Yes.

-Whereas Sara and Susan, we're stuck with...

We're not very international, our names.

-We're not jetset, are we?

-Sara's Arabic.

-Is it?

-Yeah, so you're on your own.

-Any history behind your name, Adrian?

-Well, my mum's Croatian.

And she married my dad, now living in Birmingham.

And she wanted something that reminded her of Croatia.

And it was the Adriatic Sea I was named after.

Although it was actually the second choice name.

She wanted to call me Igor.

Oh, I wish!

-What could've been.

-That would have been amazing.

-Wouldn't it?!

-Igor Chiles!

I don't know whether it would have affected your career.

-Well, I don't know.

-Have you seen Working Lunch with Igor Chiles?

To the all-important question, now.

And that's which name's going to be featuring tonight?

Well, they hang out with Peter, or swing with Tarzan.

But contrary to popular belief, never plain.

Tonight's name is Jane.

APPLAUSE

So we'll be talking all kinds of Janes.

We've thrown in a few Janets, Janettes, just for good measure.

Along the way, our teams will collect as many Janes as they can.

And at the end of the show the winning team will have the honour of

deciding who is officially the greatest Jane of all time.

Richard, any ideas to who that might be?

Best ever Jane? Well, I was thinking,

when you announced the name,

that Jane Austen would be sitting at home, watching this with a pint.

Just going, "Best Jane?

"Well, I've got this absolutely, I've absolutely got this sorted."

And then, when you said we'll throw in some Janets and Janettes,

she's gone...

Oh, Janette Krankie!

-Suddenly...

-She's not on the £10 note though, is she?

I think in Scotland, she is.

Josh, any early thoughts for you?

Well, I like to look for a pattern.

Jane is a good detective name.

-Yes, as in Tennison?

-Jane Tennison.

Miss Marple's real name is Jane.

Yes, well remembered, yeah.

-Very good.

-That's it.

Thanks for that, Josh. Let's get on with the show.

Time to pick a Jane, any Jane.

Our panellists are going to choose a category.

Behind each one lurks a famous Jane,

which our teams must then attempt to win.

So what have we got? We've got...

So Josh, you're up first.

What are you going to pick out of that one?

I think we'll go with a Classic-y Jane.

It is literary giant and social commentator, Jane Austen.

Let's have a look at the stats.

Jane is one of the literary figures of the 19th century.

Her books have been translated into over 40 languages,

and total sales in the hundreds of millions.

Now Sara, you've adapted an Austen novel for the stage, have you not?

Yes! Pride and Prejudice, I adapted.

-Good experience?

-I love it!

Because now I'm never ever writing anything original ever again.

It's so hard to think up stuff.

If you get someone else's really great book,

you just get a thesaurus, change a couple of words and get paid.

My next Edinburgh, I'm going to adapt a Michael McIntyre show.

Jane was born in Steventon, Hampshire,

where her father was Rector.

What did her mother do to Jane when she was just a few months old?

She must've sent her away.

She did indeed send her away, yeah.

And why would they be sent away?

They would send babies away to be breast-fed,

because the aristocracy thought it was a bit disgusting,

a bit unfashionable to breast-feed.

So they'd send them to a poor woman to be a wet nurse.

And they had to choose very carefully,

because a wet nurse was thought to pass on her moral character

to the baby through the milk.

Did Jane Austen's wet nurse ever claim any credit in later life?

Josh, you're a new father, are you tempted?

-Every night.

-Yeah, I thought so.

A large part of Jane Austen's education came

from her father's extensive library.

And Jane showed an early flair for language.

As well as being extremely well-read,

she was also talented at Bilbo Catch.

Now, what's Bilbo Catch?

Nothing to do with hobbits.

I was going to say it must be something to do with Josh.

Ha, ha. Is it a game?

-It is a game.

-Is Bilbo going to be something to do with books,

because of biblio-?

RICHARD GASPS

-No, but that would be very clever.

-That's good.

-That's very good.

That's sort of overwhelmingly clever, Josh.

-I know.

-What's happened to you?!

-I know!

You know what I could have done without

is Richard doing an intake of breath when I said something clever.

I'm just very proud, it's very...

That 18 months we sent you away have really worked.

Basically, it's an old-fashioned version game of cup and ball.

-So that's essentially, let's have a look...

-Oh, I'd love that.

By the way, it is one of the few sports still available on the BBC,

so let's keep it free to air. Keep it free to air.

Famously, she never married,

although she was engaged to a young man called Harris Bigg-Wither.

There he is. How long did that engagement last?

Until he died of strangulation from his own collar?

-A day.

-Exactly right, a day.

Oh!

Intake of breath please, Richard.

No, that's guessing, I know you can do that.

One Austen biography describes him as...

But, on the plus side...

There wasn't a plus side, sadly.

Needless to say,

manners and etiquette play a hugely important part in Austen's work,

and she was an expert in all areas of social behaviour,

so I'm going to test both teams on their ability

to understand the manners of the Regency period.

We're going to play our very own calling card etiquette.

DELICATE PIANO JINGLE

Welcome. LAUGHTER

What was the ideal length in the Regency period of a morning visit?

45 minutes?

-Less than that.

-20 minutes.

Between 20 and 30 minutes, yeah.

You know, part of the reason is because if you drank tea,

you'd need to go to the toilet,

but you couldn't go to the toilet in their house.

So much of it is about urinating.

And if you're out of the house as a woman,

there's nowhere for you to go,

-because there weren't any public toilets for women.

-No.

So you always, if you were drinking something, you had to get home.

But also, Homes Under The Hammer's about to start, so...

So much of this is like living within an Indian world now, though.

There's so much formal etiquette

that when people come round to your house,

you've just got to be ever ready.

Like, my mum packed me off to university, saying,

always have potato and onion and garlic in the house,

in case someone turns up and you need to cook something.

So if I'd gone to uni with you, I'd come round,

you'd have made me garlicky, oniony potatoes?

I actually made all my friends by cooking at university,

because all students were like, we want to be your mate,

because you've got the garlicky potato thing going on.

All right, when would a morning visit take place?

When someone died.

In the afternoon?

Yes. Morning visits took place in the afternoon,

and then they could go back, in time for a stultifying evening at home.

If you're paying a morning visit, and someone else appears,

a second caller, what should you do?

-Leave.

-Immediately.

-Immediately, yeah.

-Who, the second person?

No, the first person needs to skedaddle ASAP.

Only because the second person's Steve, and, oh...

I can't bear Steve.

-Life was shit before the smartphone, wasn't it?

-Really shit.

They were mental in the olden times, weren't they?

When did the olden times start, and when did they end, as an historian?

Well, we have the Olden Times,

going from about 500 BC up until 600 AD,

and then we move into the Olden Days...

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Time to play for the Jane.

Now clearly we couldn't discuss Jane Austen without touching on Mr Darcy,

and the 1995 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice.

It starred the wonderful Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth,

and, most notably, that scene.

After the success of the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice,

there was an increase in what Jane Austen-related activity?

Arranged marriages.

Nope. A bit fruity, a little bit fruity.

Pineapple.

-That's very fruity.

-Oh, so something less fruity than pineapple,

so like a pineapple... Oh, Lilt!

You know, role-play, dressing up as Darcy. Corsets.

You're very, very close, not role-play, but...

Sexy writing?

-"Sexy writing."

-Sexy writing!

I couldn't think what it was called.

-Sexy writing.

-Do you call pornography sexy pictures?

Sexy writing, it was.

According to the New York Times, all sorts of fan-written erotica

was published, with titles such as, "Spank Me, Mr Darcy",

"Seducing Mr Darcy", along with "Sense and Sexuality".

Oh, dear. Here's an extract

from "Pride and Penetration" by Virginia Wade...

-Virginia Wade?!

-Not the tennis player.

But then another visitor arrived, and I had to leave immediately.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Well done, Josh's team, you get the Jane.

All right, Richard, it's now your turn to pick a Jane.

Could we have an Icy Jane, please?

Well, you've picked champion ice skater,

and one half of Torvill and Dean,

Jane Torvill.

Let's have a look at her stats.

So Jane was born in 1957,

found success initially with another dance partner,

Michael Hutchinson,

and then as an individual skater.

There she is. Not quite as amazing as it looks.

Her dad ran a key-cutting stall.

So that is one hell of a trophy haul.

Now, has anybody else been given a surprise gift or prize?

I actually got the best present ever

at the wrap party for a show I was doing, where the producer,

she'd noticed that I've got a slight obsession with descaling kettles.

I love descaling kettles.

This came out of nowhere.

The kettle in the dressing room...

..I bought some descaler, and I just love watching things descale,

then they're all shiny.

And, honestly, for the wrap party, she found,

she sourced, you know, a big urn for boiling water,

an ancient one,

incredibly scaled.

Bought me 12 bottles of descaler.

I'm not kidding, it was a Saturday night, I think West Brom had lost,

and I thought, "Oh, no, I don't care, I'm going home,"

I've put the urn on the side, filled it with boiling water.

It was filthy, this urn, it was so scaled, it was that thick.

I put 12 bottles of scaler in when it boiled,

and just literally watched it sizzle for two hours,

and it was gleaming.

I wasn't expecting that, I won't lie.

So the main thing we all know about Jane

is that she and Christopher Dean stormed to Olympic gold in Sarajevo

in 1984 with a record number of perfect scores from the judges.

What unexpected side-effect is their win thought to have had?

Babies, more babies?

-I don't know.

-It wasn't more babies, but...

Oh, were they called Torvill or Dean?

No, they'd have been called, sorry, Jane or Christopher.

There were lots of Christophers born,

so Christopher became the most popular name for boys

born in England and Wales that year, which was '84.

Jane, meanwhile, came in at number 86,

beaten by Bolero, which came in at 85.

Why will their scoring record never be beaten?

Well, I presume they've changed the scoring system.

They have changed the scoring system, absolutely.

In 2002, there were claims of fixing,

and as a result they changed it.

Here's the official line on the new system.

So I hope that's cleared that up.

To me, that's honestly interesting.

-I love all that sort of thing.

-Do you?

-Yeah, yeah.

You see, for me it's just reminded me I need to trim my mean.

Torvill and Dean, known for their passionate performances.

Obviously there's been a lot of rumour about the two of them,

did they, didn't they?

The general public couldn't believe that two people

who danced so intimately with each other weren't having sex.

It's what's known as Strictly's Law.

On Valentine's Day 1984,

Torvill and Dean took the world by storm

with their iconic Bolero routine at the Winter Olympics.

24 million people in the UK tuned in to watch,

as the couple received a standing ovation from the audience,

and every judge gave them full marks for artistic impression.

That's a big TV audience, Suzannah,

is that up there with the greats?

I think the biggest ever was for 1966, the World Cup,

England defeating West Germany.

It was something like 32 million.

No, it was 4-2.

But in terms of TV broadcasts,

so you've got 1966 in the '60s,

in the '70s, it was Apollo 13.

What did Den and Angie, wasn't that one of the big ones?

I think it was 28 million, Den and Ange.

The biggest ever terrestrial TV audience.

-Was it?

-Mm.

-Oh, you're such a nerd, I love it.

-What did they do?

-Well, they were dancing on ice...

It was when Den gave Angie the divorce papers on EastEnders.

-That was it?

-Yeah, I don't want to give it...

Listen, if you haven't got that far through the series,

I'm sorry to have spoiled it for you...

In 2006, they joined the line-up of Dancing on Ice,

and once more took the world by storm.

Their main job on Dancing on Ice was to train celebrities,

with, let's be honest, mixed results.

Now I'm sure you've seen this clip, but...

-Is it Todd Carty?

-I'm going to play it again.

-Oh, yes.

I think we all need to see it. Enjoy.

# Help me get my feet back on the ground

# Won't you please, please help me

# Help me, help me! #

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Oh, my goodness, that is, honestly, if I'm ever on Dancing on Ice,

then you will not believe the size of my tax bill.

All right, time to play for the Jane.

Torvill and Dean have been commemorated in many ways,

but how are they commemorated in their hometown of Nottingham?

They've got trams named after them.

-Not trams.

-Buses.

-No.

-Trains.

-No.

-A mode of transport.

Not a mode of transport. LAUGHTER

Is it a building of some sort?

Not a building, it's even more expansive than that.

-Roads?

-I'll give you that, yes,

it's got an estate with road names in it such as Dean Close,

Christopher Close, Torvill Drive,

Jane Close and Bolero Close.

And there it is on the map.

And there's They Were Definitely Doing It Crescent.

Congratulations, Richard's team, you win the Jane.

-Oh, great. Well done, Richard.

-APPLAUSE

-All right, Joshy, your turn.

-Please can we have a Wild West-y Jane?

It's Wild West legend, hard-living, hard-drinking,

hard-as-nails frontiers woman, Calamity Jane,

portrayed here by Doris Day.

Let's look at her stats.

Calamity Jane was a self-proclaimed legend of the American West

at the end of the 19th century,

of course best-known thanks to the eponymous 1953 musical.

Now, Doris Day's depiction wasn't particularly true to life.

Here's Doris Day,

and here's the real Calamity Jane.

-Oh, wow...

-LAUGHTER

1876, Jane wound up in the town of Deadwood, South Dakota.

-Why do people go there?

-Gold.

Yes, there was a gold rush.

People will do anything for gold.

Apart from go to Channel 4.

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

It's a pyrrhic victory, lads, don't applaud it, pyrrhic victory.

The land belonged to the Native American people until 1874,

when gold was found in Deadwood Gulch,

and a frenzy for gold digging started.

The year Jane arrived, 1.5 million worth of gold was mined.

So presumably the population just swelled in these towns?

Yeah, but the thing is, actually, it was all a hype.

Most of the people who got rich during the gold rush

didn't get rich from digging at all.

Basically, there's a guy called Sam Brannan,

who was a good example.

He owned the only mining supply shop between San Francisco

and some mining fields, so in the late 1840s,

he went out into the streets of San Francisco,

and said that gold had been discovered,

and he bought a sort of bottle of gold dust along,

but what he'd done is he bought up every pickaxe and pan and shovel

in the local vicinity,

and so everybody rushed to try and find gold,

and he'd bought, you know, the pan for, sort of, 20 cents or something,

and he sold it for 15,

so he made an absolute killing.

He was the first millionaire of the gold rush.

But it's people like that who were making the money,

-not the actual gold-diggers.

-Enterprising, smart.

-Love that.

-Good.

-And around 1899,

Calamity Jane started performing

in the increasingly popular Wild West shows,

the biggest of which was Buffalo Bill's.

Now does anybody know what her act entailed?

I think I know something about her, but it might not be right.

So did she shoot things off people?

-Mainly, she would just tell fabricated stories.

-OK...

She was just sort of a boozy raconteur...

Imagine, I suppose, like a female Gyles Brandreth on horseback.

All right, listen, it is time to play for the Jane.

Now obviously the most recent depiction of Calamity Jane

is on the television series, Deadwood.

The programme was known for its huge amount of swearing,

the F-word was uttered 43 times in the first hour.

Now in fact that would not have been a typical swearword of the time,

they used words which have now largely disappeared from use,

so your question is,

which of these is not a Wild Western swearword?

Well, Crempog, that was a signature bake, wasn't it, one week, on...

You're looking for the ones that sounds slightly biblical,

and the rest of them, they're all, for me...

We're going to say that Crempog is not a real swearword.

You're saying that Crempog is not a real swearword?

-Josh's team, what do you reckon?

-I think you're onto something there,

I think it's ones where they've taken, like, Jesus, or damn,

or whatever, and they've made it, like, dang,

and tried to make it more acceptable.

What are you going to plump for?

I think we're going to go with Blam-Jam.

Let's have a look.

Absolutely right, Richard. Well done. Bravo.

APPLAUSE

I'll tell you what,

even better, you were on the money,

it is something that could potentially have featured

in the technical challenge of Bake Off, it's a Welsh pancake.

-No!

-It's a kind of Welsh pancake.

-Wow.

Well done, and dang my melt, because Richard's team,

you win the dodgasted, blam-jam Jane.

Well done.

APPLAUSE

Time now to fire up our Jane-flavoured fruit machine,

so each time I spin, up are going to pop three of my favourite Janes.

Our teams must match

the extraordinary fact to the extraordinary Jane,

and a chance to unearth more candidates

for the greatest Jane of all time.

So, let's spin.

First up we've got Frasier star, Jane Leeves,

work-out wonder, Jane Fonda,

and Little Voice star, Jane Horrocks.

The question is:

which Jane was wrongly arrested for drug smuggling?

That implies that two of them were rightly...

What do you think? Maybe Jane Fonda, maybe, because, you know, she was,

the authorities didn't like her at all in the States, as well,

-so maybe...

-Oh, OK, so that would be a reason to...

So I wonder if maybe she was fitted up...

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

-Possible, shall we try that?

-Yeah, let's do it.

OK. We'll go with Jane Fonda, please.

You're going to go with Jane Fonda. Josh's team?

Jane Horrocks, who is amazing,

-absolutely brilliant...

-Absolutely Fabulous, I'd say.

Absolutely Fabulous!

I don't think it's going to be Jane Horrocks.

Jane Leeves was, for a number of years,

the best paid British actress in the world, wasn't she?

-Oh, was she?

-Yeah.

-Yeah. Did you know she used to be

-a Benny Hill girl?

-Oh, but if Jane Leeves was a Benny Hill girl,

-maybe she has, like...

-What, she went running through, going...

HUMS BENNY HILL THEME

Let's go with when she was a Benny Hill girl,

she ran through customs to a comedy tune, and got caught.

-Jane Leeves.

-Jane Leeves, it is.

All right, let's see the answer.

-Oh...

-Well done, Richard's team, Jane Fonda,

arrested at Cleveland airport in 1970.

Customs officers thought the pills she was carrying,

which were labelled B, L and D, were drugs.

But in fact they were vitamins,

and the labels stood simply for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

But well done, Richard, you win the Jane.

APPLAUSE

So let's spin again. We've got:

actor, and Je T'Aime singer, Jane Birkin,

cruise ship singer, Jane McDonald,

and one half of the Krankies...

LAUGHTER

-There's my girl, Janette Krankie.

-Finally!

Who was once swept across the English Channel

while having sex?

My initial thought is Janette Krankie.

They released an autobiography, and there was lots of, kind of,

sexual confessions, wasn't there?

-The Krankies.

-Why are you looking at everyone like we've read it?

LAUGHTER

You're on your own here, Josh.

"Hey, I'm not the only one that's fascinated with the sex life

"of the Krankies, am I? Guys, guys?!"

Who is the first one, the singer, because I don't know her.

Jane Birkin, who sang Je T'Aime.

Get them to answer, because I have some information about Jane Birkin,

which might become apposite.

Oh, did she like doing it at sea?

Maybe she does, maybe she doesn't.

OK, let's go for Jane Birkin.

We're not falling for that, that's the oldest trick in the book.

We definitely have to go with the Krankie.

I think Jane McDonald is too obvious, because she works on boats.

Jane Birkin...

Sings about sex, and is French...

-Krankie.

-Krankie, it is.

OK, Richard's team, now you've got some pertinent information on...

Oh, well, no, only the information we had here, which is,

you know, she had a career which was between England and France.

Oh, you acted like you had gossip.

I genuinely love the thought, because,

honestly, the Krankies, growing up, were a huge deal.

It is so amazing to think of this life

that they had behind the scenes.

It's like when you hear behind-the-scenes stories

of Swap Shop. They blow your mind.

Why don't you guys try and make the backstage a bit livelier here?

Well, if I tell you now,

we have a kettle, and we have...

Come round to mine, ladies.

But Jane McDonald, well, the sort of person who would be working...

Yes, or maybe met up with someone on a yacht.

-Or a P&O ferry.

-Or a li-lo. Oh...

-A li-lo!

-So shall we say Jane McDonald?

-I think so, yes.

-Yep. We're going to go Jane McDonald, Sue.

You're going to go for Jane McDonald,

-let's see the right answer.

-Oh...

-It's wee Janette.

Janette said...

Talk about being blown across the Channel.

Well done, Josh's team, you win the Jane.

APPLAUSE

Right everybody, let's play Finish The Fact.

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

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

First up, we've got actor and former Bond girl, Jane Seymour.

He was a method actor.

He wanted to see more?

Oh!

I loved you in Doctor Quinn, Medicine Woman.

Did he tell her the Arsenal score even though he knew she was...

LAUGHTER

Go easy on my golden balls.

Sorry, I don't have an answer

but she is the only actor to play a Bond girl

whose name actually sounds like a Bond girl.

-Oh, yeah.

-Yes.

Jane Seymour. You could have that as a Bond girl...

-You certainly could, yeah.

-Only James Bond who sounds like...

Oh, yeah, he had the same name all the time.

He could also be a Bond girl, Roger Moore.

Yeah, Roger Moore, yeah, it's perfect.

-He could be a Bond girl.

-Roger Moore and Jane Seymour!

Just from experience, put on Lynx Africa.

Was it eat a bag of pickled onion Monster Munch?

I'm going to give it to you cos you said it. It's liver and onions.

Liver and onions.

But well done, Josh's team,

you win the Jane.

APPLAUSE

Right, next we've got third wife of Henry VIII, Jane Seymour.

According to legend...

Tower of London gift shop.

Santander 123 savings account.

No, something she wore, wore around her neck.

-A locket?

-A locket, indeed.

Containing a portrait of Henry VIII...

..did what?

Took it to Cash For Gold.

Sucked the locket until she got to the sweet.

The nice honey bit.

-Lost her head.

-GROANS

Too soon.

I think this was an apocryphal story,

-is that right, Suzannah?

-Yeah...

I'd say it's bollocks, yeah.

It takes a historian to give the proper context.

That's your book, isn't it? Bollocks In The Olden Days.

It should sell really well.

I think this is something that was written down about 100 years later

and even the person who writes it down, says,

oh, it's a traditional story, so it's hearsay.

But things that are true about Jane is that she was described by

the Spanish ambassador as being a woman who was not of great wit

and not of great beauty, and haughty and rather proud, so...

He still tweets me as well.

Sadly no-one wins the Jane,

and we've come to the end of the show,

and I can tell you that tonight's winners,

with the most Janes,

Richard's team.

APPLAUSE

Listen, big moment for you, Richard.

Who are you going to name as the greatest Jane of all time?

Well, I think that there'd be three different opinions

amongst the three members of my team so I would go Janette Krankie,

even more so after everything we've heard.

I would assume Jane Austen, I think.

Bear in mind, no, no, bear in mind everything I've heard this evening,

I had not really heard of the Krankies before tonight,

and the more I hear, the more I like them.

I thought I was going to be the only one supporting the Krankies

-in this thing.

-You thought we were going to help you out of it.

-I...

No, I have to make an executive decision

and say that history would judge us if we say Janette Krankie

over Jane Austen. Listen, I love Fan Dabi Dozi,

but you know, I think Pride And Prejudice in some ways

will endure further.

I think, maybe, so I think we should put Jane Austen into

-the Hall Of Fame.

-Well, a very worthy choice.

Up she goes.

I hereby declare Jane Austin is the best Jane of all time.

APPLAUSE

Thanks to all of our guests,

special thanks to all the Janes here, there, and everywhere,

but most of all, thanks to you at home for watching us.

Good night.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE