Lou Insert Name Here

Well, hello to 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 bringing their own unique names. Please welcome Hugh Dennis,

Suzannah Lipscomb, and their team captain, Josh Widdicombe.

And, on the other side, Phil Wang, Rebecca Front

and their captain, Richard Osman.

APPLAUSE

-Phil, hello there. Welcome to the show.

-Hi, Sue.

-Thanks for having me.

-You're always welcome.

How did your parents choose the name Philip?

My mum's side is of French and English and they wanted to call me

Nathanial, but the French side of the family

couldn't pronounce Nathanial, so being French, they gave up.

And so they decided to choose another name

by throwing a bunch of names in a hat...

It's not a great idea, doing that. Especially if a label comes off.

My sister's called Stetson.

LAUGHTER

And so my grandfather pulled out a name, and it was Philip,

and so I became Philip Nathanial Wang,

and then my Chinese name starts, Sin Goi.

Philip Nathanial Wang Sin Hoi.

-Goi.

-Goi.

Yeah, you just swore at me, actually.

LAUGHTER

Now to the all-important question of the day -

which name is going to be featuring tonight?

Well, they can be French kings or pop queens.

You can skip to them or sit on them.

Tonight's name is Lou.

APPLAUSE

So, as you may have guessed,

we're going to be talking all kinds of Lous, including Louies,

Lewises, Louises, and maybe even the odd Lulu along the way.

Teams will be collecting as many Lous as they can.

End of the show, the winning team will have the honour of deciding

who is officially the greatest Lou of all time, and that person

will be enrolled into our Insert Name Here Hall Of Fame.

Now, Josh, any thoughts who your best Lou might be?

I think...

You know if someone defines a name when they don't need a surname?

-Yeah.

-Madonna, Cher, Beyonce.

So I would just go with Lewis,

who is Inspector Morse's assistant.

That's a very good opening gambit. CROWD MURMUR AND LAUGH

-Can I just say...?

-That was a very excited, "Ooh," wasn't it?

Except that was his surname.

Do you know what? I've never watched it.

-You should! Cos I was in it.

-You were in it?!

-RICHARD:

-You were in Lewis?

-How did you not know this?!

-Oh, my God.

-Why am I on?

Why am I on here if you've never watched Lewis?

-That's basically all I've done.

-You're in every episode?

I was in every episode, and you failed to watch a single one.

I'm not going to lie to you,

when I chose Lewis I didn't think it would backfire.

so spectacularly in showing my lack of knowledge of one of the guests.

Richard, how about you? Best Lou?

Well, I'll go slightly classier, I'll go more historical,

and I will say Louis of France.

Which one do you want to pick? There's quite a few Louis.

Well, funny you should ask that, cos there's 17 of them.

So I've ranked them in order.

Louis I is fifth, Louis II is eighth,

Louis III is second, Louis IV is 11th,

Louis V is third. I can go on if you'd like me to.

What you don't realise, the joke's on you.

Hugh was actually in the French royal family.

I was in every episode!

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

It's time to pick a Lou, any Lou you like.

Our panellists choose a category, and behind each one lurks

a famous Lou which our teams must then attempt to win.

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

Richard, we're going to start with you first.

-Which one draws your eye there?

-Let's go for Musical Lou.

It's Irish pop impresario, the man behind Boyzone,

West Life and Girls Aloud, but also Jedward, Louis Walsh.

There he is, looking like a happy baked potato.

Let's have a look at some of those stats.

So, we know his success, Louis' success with Boyzone,

but then he headed in a completely different direction with Westlife.

Completely different. Completely different.

2014 - what did Louis strongly advise Boyzone to do?

What was his recommendation?

Fill in a tax return.

State clearly the perimeters of the zone.

What's the opposite of paying them loads of money and

-keeping them in the business?

-Sacking them.

-He sued them.

-He told them to quit.

Rather lovingly! He said, yeah, his

exact words were...

Louis then popped his sailor hat back on,

and headed straight back to The X Factor!

Louis' big break, of course, in the UK was as a judge

on Popstars The Rivals, but before that he was a judge

on the Irish version of Popstars.

The first series was won by the group Six. There they are.

Why are they all wearing white? All of these bands wear white.

-What is that?

-It's cos he owns a dry cleaner in Dublin.

-Cos it's a nightmare for laundry, white, isn't it?

-Yeah.

One pink sock, and his whole empire could come crumbling down.

Six's line-up was supposed to include Girls Aloud's Nadine Coyle,

but why didn't she make the final cut?

She would only wear black?

Cos she was going through a Goth phase.

-She was too young, is the simple answer.

-Oh.

Here she is, cleverly covering her true age.

Nadine Coyle, I'm from Larkhill in Derry.

Erm, date of birth, 15th of the 6th, '85, making me a Gemini.

And, erm...

What date of birth did I say now? 15th of the 6th...?

First rule of showbiz - lie about your age,

as I was just saying at my 30th birthday the other day.

Nadine realised she was two years out, tried to give the date

another go. Needless to say, she was rumbled,

and then kicked off the show.

Well, luckily Nadine didn't have to wait too long before getting

another chance with Girls Aloud. What are they wearing?

-There you are!

-There we go.

-Perfect.

Is it the same white outfits, but they're just slowly wearing away?

I could lie about my age, but I can't actually see that picture.

Yeah. No, I see what you mean now. Yeah.

Time now to play for the Lou.

So, Louis Walsh has launched many musical careers.

Which non-musician did he produce a single with in the '90s?

-Non-musician?

-A non-musician.

Was it Westlife?

-This guy's a sportsman.

-Is it Jack Charlton?

Footballer turned manager.

-Mick McCarthy.

-Yes, Mick McCarthy!

Ah, yeah. Mick McCarthy released a single?!

Yes, he did!

Don't know why I suddenly went really high-pitched then.

In 1991, McCarthy recorded a duet with Irish singer Linda Martin,

Did You Ever?

You can see what's wrong there - he's not wearing white.

Does anybody want to have a listen to Mick McCarthy in full flow?

-Yes, please.

-Yes.

-Then let's do it.

-# Did you ever?

-# Not so much that you could notice

-# Could you estimate how many?

-# Eight or nine

# Will you do it any more?

# I will do it as you walk out the door

# Well, I just wonder, did you ever?

# All the time. #

It's the sort of thing they'd play at a cult induction, isn't it?

Marvellous. Well done, Richard. You win the Lou.

-Lovely.

-APPLAUSE

-Josh, it's your turn.

-OK.

You know what you've got left, you've got a royal Lou,

-a fast Lou or a Victorian Lou.

-So...

My theory, you're a historian. It's going to be Royal Lou.

-Louis XIV. I don't have to do anything then.

-Sounds good to me.

All right. You have picked Royal Lou.

It's the Sun King himself, Louis XIV.

Let's have a look at his stats.

Louis lived from 1638 to 1715.

He became king at the tender age of four. There he is.

His first act of course was famously to knight Bob the Builder.

Are you certain he's four?

Because that T-shirt he's wearing says that he's five.

What was unusual about Louis as a baby?

He became king?

He's a kid at the Burger King party whose crown is real.

-Yeah!

-Yeah.

-Sorry, he became king at four?

-He did, yeah.

Could we have a four-year-old...? Say the Queen, Prince Charles

and Prince William decided to abdicate -

-could we have a four-year-old king?

-Yeah.

-It would be fun watching

Theresa May ask a four-year-old if she can form a Government.

What was unusual about him as a baby?

-Three feet.

-No.

-Four feet.

He was born with two front teeth. Straight off the bat, he had...

-What, like a rabbit?

-Yeah.

Exactly. His first words were, "What's up, Doc?"

And interestingly, suddenly, royal wet nurse - not such a popular job.

You kind of side saddle it, like he's smoking a cigar, couldn't you?

APPLAUSE

Lou was famous for making Versailles the most opulent palace in Europe.

He was short - 5' 4. How did he try and overcome this?

There's nothing... That's not short!

Let's retake that.

Louis was tall, Josh - 5' 4.

Well, he probably was quite tall for the time, wasn't he?

What was the average height of a French...?

He was still a little underpowered for the time.

Can I just say? I have realised that I'm the only one

who's been given a cushion to sit on.

I'm in a trench.

So, Lou was short - 5' 4. How did he try and overcome this?

Wanted to be taller and more regal and more imposing.

Did he get an extra long robe and stand on a box?

-He stood on... Think Tom Cruise.

-Built-up shoes.

Not that I'm saying Tom Cruise wears built-up shoes,

-cos I don't know.

-He does. I'm going to say that.

There's far more libellous things you could say about Tom Cruise.

Here's a typical example of one of the built-up shoes

that Louis used to wear. That's either elaborate decoration

or a fungal problem gone way out of control.

What was one of Louis' favourite pastimes?

-He did like to eat.

-Did he?

-Yeah.

-He was gluttonous, wasn't he?

-For a small man,

-he ate an awful lot.

-Presumably quite gouty, as well.

They're all quite gouty, weren't they?

Yeah. I mean, he suffered all sorts of terrible illnesses. He had a...

He had a fistula on his bottom for quite a period of time.

You actually smiled when you said fistula.

-But it's very, it's very funny...

-What's a fistula?

I don't think I know what a fistula is. It doesn't sound good...

If I went to a doctor, and he said "You have a fistula",

I would not be thinking, "This sounds like good news."

-So he had a pussy bottom.

-He had a pussy bottom,

and he had an operation to have it taken off,

and everybody else walked round, lots and lots of courtiers

walked round with bandaged bottoms in order to look like

they were in fashion with the king.

Is that what that band were wearing?

And they not only bandaged the bottom, but they bandaged the boobs

out of respect for his nursemaids, who'd suffered a lot.

Why did French nobles have a long left fingernail?

Oh, was it for playing an instrument?

-You'd think so. RICHARD:

-But no.

-It's not for picking your teeth or something hideous, is it?

-No.

-Ew!

-Isn't it for...?

-Rather than knocking, they scratched?

-Is absolutely right!

Absolutely right. It was considered bad manners to knock on the door.

As in the old joke, "Scratch, scratch". "Who's there?"

"King Louis. Open the door or I'll cut your head off."

So you'd scratch, scratch, scratch, and only then once you'd been let in

would you be allowed to go to the corner of the room and take a dump.

Which of course is what happened, isn't it?

They used to just wee and poo everywhere.

It was like a student house?

Did you wee on the floor in your student house?

No!

At the age of 22, Louis married Maria Theresa of Spain.

What did he do the night before his wedding?

-Got on the lash.

-Probably cut his fingernail, I should think.

Well, he didn't go on the lash,

he went on a sort of gastronomic bender.

-Can we think...? It's an aphrodisiac.

-Oysters.

Indeed.

-You got to that very, very quickly.

-Yes.

Well, it's the only aphrodisiac I've ever heard of.

Oh, "heard of"?

All right, time to play for the Lou now.

OK, lots of fads at their side, but what health craze

became particularly popular in Louis' court?

Zumba.

Colonic irrigation.

-You're not far off, you know. It was enemas.

-Oh, OK.

So the sort of more downscaled version of a colonic.

Presumably, as you say,

once he'd had an enema, they all had to have enemas.

Yeah, there's... I think there's a story about a duchess having...

I don't... I can't believe this is true, but there is the legend

about a duchess having an enema whilst talking to the King,

but her maid has just snuck up underneath her massive skirts

and was giving her an enema at the time, cos it was so fashionable.

Your Majesty, I've COME to talk to you about the...

It wasn't the surprise enema. She'd asked for it.

I imagine she'd asked for it, yeah.

Oh, surprise enemas are the best, Josh.

That's my new Saturday night TV show - Surprise Enema.

-Josh Widdicombe's Surprise Enemas.

-Surprise Surprise Enema.

-Surprise Surprise Enema!

-RICHARD:

-And the theme tune is

"Surprise, surprise, the unexpected hits you between..."

Oh, no, hold on.

He had so many enemas, Louis,

that satirical engravings appeared, making fun of his obsession.

-Wow.

-Oh, wow.

Extraordinary, that.

Did they use that rolling pin for making croissants?

I'm also not convinced that isn't a bicycle pump.

Well done, Josh's team. You win the Lou.

APPLAUSE

OK, Richard's team, time to pick a Lou.

We have...

We'll go Fast Lou, please, Sue.

All right, Fast Lou it is. You have chosen

speed freak and motor racing megastar, Lewis Hamilton.

Let's take a look at his stats.

Born in Stevenage in 1985,

does anybody know who Lewis is named after?

-Lewis... Lennox Lewis.

-Named after that famous detective, Lewis?

Yeah. Oh, have you watched that? I love that show.

Yeah, it's a great show, and there was seven series of it!

-Do you know what? I don't buy that boss character.

-No.

He's actually named after the American athlete, Carl Lewis.

-Oh.

-Ah.

Lewis's full name is Lewis Carl Davidson Hamilton.

Davidson after Jim Davidson, the well-known promoter of civil rights.

It's as a racing driver we know Lewis best.

In 2015, Lewis's team-mate Nico Rosberg

developed a trick for keeping cool during the Malaysian Grand Prix.

-What was it?

-Did he wind his window down?

Think of a sanitary product, a female sanitary product.

Oh, has he got a cold soaked tampon up there?

-Up where?!

-Up his, erm...

Up his...? He doesn't have a cold anus.

Oh, no, I see the flaw in this plan now, yeah.

He had a sanitary pad, sanitary towel,

and just sort of stuck it on his forehead. Like you do.

What? During the race?

-Yes.

-But you can get cool pack things.

-Yes, of course you can, I know that.

-That's absurd.

I know it's absurd, but that's what he did.

Apparently, he said it soaked up the sweat and stopped it

-trickling down his eyes.

-Wow!

As a Formula 1 driver, Lewis has to be fearless

when driving at 200mph, but he does have

one long-standing fear. Does anybody know what it is?

Is it champagne? Is that why he always shoots it away?

It's animal-based.

-Spiders?

-Bigger than spiders.

-Snakes?

-No.

-Sharks.

-Yes.

-That's not really a fear.

-It's not a fear that's going to

stop him being an effective Formula 1 driver, is it?

In fact, it helps, because that's all they say in his ear.

"There's a shark behind you".

"Lewis, there's a shark right behind you".

Lewis thankfully doesn't have the same fear of

other big predators. Here he is with a tiger.

She's coming for me. She thinks I haven't seen...

Just looking at that makes me want to sweat enough to put

a sanitary towel on my head!

But why is he not afraid of it?!

What's his problem?

Those sharks are now looking at each other, going...

All right, it's time to play for the Lou now. Here's your question.

Lewis has two bulldogs, named Roscoe and Coco.

And that is some lazy ass dog walking right there.

They've even got their own Instagram account, these dogs,

with 140,000 followers.

How many Instagram followers have you got, Josh?

-50,000?

-No, you've got more. You've got 80,000.

-Ooh!

-So what have they got?

-140,000.

Oh, crying out loud.

-RICHARD:

-About three or four times as much as you.

But, you know, there's two of them, so...

-Your maths isn't so good, is it?

-Mm?

-Three or four times as much.

How many have you got? 80,000.

Oh, 80,000. No, forgive me. It's my hearing, not my maths.

Not so clever when you haven't got that laptop in front of you.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

So, in 2016, what rare honour did Lewis bestow on Roscoe?

Did he let him hang his head out of the back of the racing car?

Can you imagine?

-JOSH:

-That would be brilliant! Just for the final lap.

You don't know he's in there for the whole race,

and then he just pops out.

The G-Force on that face!

He... Well, this is for the Lou, so I'm going to...

He preserved his lineage, let me say.

-Did he freeze his semen?

-He did indeed freeze his semen, yeah.

Roscoe was getting snipped, but Lewis stated,

"he's the best-looking dog," and because of that...

LAUGHTER

Well, listen, well done - you win the Lou, Josh. Well done.

APPLAUSE

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

Each time I spin, up pop three of my favourite Lous.

Our teams must match the extraordinary fact

to the extraordinary Lou.

Also a chance to unearth more candidates for the greatest Lou

of all time, and so let's spin.

We have a South American camelid Louie the llama,

African pachyderm Lulu the elephant,

and Scottish hominid, Lulu the singer.

Now, the question is which Lou stopped a collaboration

between Michael Jackson and Freddie Mercury?

Bit of a kick in the teeth for Lulu, isn't it?

Watches the whole show hoping to be on it, and then it's one

where she is compared to an elephant,

-and I can't remember what the first animal was.

-A llama.

-Llama, yeah.

-RICHARD:

-Could have been worse, it could have been,

"Which one of these did a poo on live TV?"

-Yeah, it's a close run thing.

-So...

A llama... Well, Michael Jackson had a zoo...

SUE AND RICHARD: # Ee-i-ee-i-o! #

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

And on that zoo, he had what, Josh?

I think Lulu...

If she ruined a song with Freddie Mercury and Michael Jackson,

meh, who cares?

Elephants never forget, but they very rarely tell.

Exactly. So if they were recording it

at Neverland, which I imagine he had a studio at, then maybe

one of the animals got loose and got into the recording studio?

-Which animal?

-The elephant.

You're going to go for the elephant. How about you, Richard?

-What do you think, Rebecca?

-I think llama.

I don't know why, but I'm thinking...

I'm sure Jacko's got a llama, right?

Yeah, it sort of feels right, doesn't it?

There is a llama solo in Billie Jean. That would explain that.

Also, the llama's wearing white, so Louis Walsh would

-definitely sign him up.

-Oh, yes.

There we go, Louis Walsh signed the llama,

made him sing alongside Freddie Mercury and Michael Jackson,

and he didn't get off his stool during the chord change,

ruined the whole thing.

Well, the answer is...

-the llama. Well done!

-Yes!

APPLAUSE Congratulations, Richard.

Freddie made friends with Jacko in the early '80s,

but plans to work together fell apart when Jackson insisted

on showing up to work with Louis the llama.

Freddie called his manager saying, "I'm recording with a llama,

"I've had enough. I want to get out."

Used to be black, that llama.

Congratulations, because, Richard, you win Louis the llama, well done.

APPLAUSE

Let's spin again. You have got French bump feeler Louis Braille,

Eternal singer, Louise Redknapp,

And 15th century French King, Louis XI.

Question is, which Lou invented a musical instrument?

-Richard's team, who do you think?

-What do you think?

I think it might be Louis Braille, cos I wonder if maybe

he invented an instrument that was easier to play...

But also, all the great piano tuners are blind, all of them.

-Right.

-All the great ones in history, and that's...

So I think it was possible he was around music or things like that.

-Who are the great piano tuners?

-Yeah.

Stevie Wonder...

So, do we think Louis Braille?

Let's go with Louis Braille.

-We are going to go Louis Braille, please, Sue.

-All right.

-Josh.

-I can't imagine that Louise Redknapp

has invented an instrument, otherwise I think I'd know about it.

I've followed her career pretty closely.

-And then Louis XI...

-What do we know about Louis XI?

He had very, very cold ears.

I think it's probably Louis XI,

because it's more likely that we'd never have heard of it.

It feels like a sensible guess.

We'll go with Louis XI.

The answer is...

-..Louis XI.

-Oh, man!

-APPLAUSE

Now, Louis commissioned an extraordinary musical instrument

called the Piganino, or the Swineway.

The different notes were made by spikes poking a series

of differently sized pigs, as shown by this evocative illustration.

So can I just point out this is a prototype?

We don't think it was ever - thank God - actually made.

That's why we still fork our sausages, even now.

Well done, guys. Well done, Josh's team, you win the Lou. Well done.

-APPLAUSE

-Back in it.

-Back in.

Right, everybody, let's play Finish The Fact.

I'm going to start by reading out a Lou-based gem.

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

First up, jazz legend Louis Armstrong.

BUZZER

Did he have a stash of those little plastic bags?

I've always got a stash of those little plastic bags.

-Oh, he hadn't done his 100ml...

-That would be so useful.

-Yeah.

You want to travel with me, I've always got a stash.

-No way.

-Always got a stash.

Just a little tip, Rebecca, when you are going through customs,

don't say, "I've got a stash."

That's where I've been going wrong!

Did he help him by saying, "I know you think I'm

"a terrible president, but you wait 40 years"?

BUZZER

..that Dizzy Gillespie was in it.

BELL

Did he not know that the bag contained cocaine?

I'll give you that. It contained 3lb of marijuana.

So it was drug-related, he didn't know.

No wonder Armstrong's world was so wonderful!

For a bonus Lou, what product did Louis Armstrong like so much,

he advertised it for free?

-BUZZER

-Was it cocaine?

If you think you're perhaps slightly tighter of bowel

than you need to be, what would you take?

BUZZER

-Laxatives.

-Laxatives, indeed, yes.

He promoted a natural laxative called Swiss Kriss.

Here he is, classily posed on the toilet.

They should have called it, "Pooey Armstrong".

Well, congratulations,

because, Josh's team, you win the Louis Armstrong,

but for a bonus, you got that right, obviously, about the laxatives,

so Richard, you get King Louie from The Jungle Book.

APPLAUSE

Next up it's One Direction megastar turned solo performer,

Louis Tomlinson.

BUZZER

"Sorry, we lied, there are other directions."

BUZZER

"Does anybody know why we're not wearing white?"

BELL

Is it, "Which one am I? I've only heard of Harry Styles"?

He actually tweeted the words...

BELL

"Well, that's one direction."

Someone who possibly doesn't know what relegation means.

Oh. "Well done!"

I'll give you that. She literally said...

Well done, you have won the Lou. Well done.

-Get in!

-APPLAUSE

Bit tight, this, isn't it? It's going to be close.

Could go either way.

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

that tonight's winners with the most Lous...

Josh's team! Well done.

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

So, a very, very big moment.

Josh and team, who are you going to nominate

as the greatest Lou of all time?

Do know what? The person I found most interesting and most fun

has actually, surprisingly,

been Louis XIV.

Because he's the only person we've talked about tonight

who makes me feel tall.

-APPLAUSE

-Yeah.

I don't want it any more!

Feels good.

Has anybody seen Josh?

-Josh, a very worthy choice.

-Thank you.

So let's put Louis XIV in the Insert Name Here Hall Of Fame.

APPLAUSE

There he is.

And congratulations of course, but you, best of all,

get to take home a prize. Louis Walsh's best work, this...

The Mick McCarthy... It's very rare.

-Oh, yes!

-RICHARD:

-No way!

It's super, super rare.

Have you got anything you can play it on?

-And that's yours, well done.

-Oh, wow!

APPLAUSE

My thanks to all of our guests,

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

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

Good night.

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING