Music and Fashion John Bishop's Britain

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening and welcome to John Bishop's Britain.

This is the first in a new series,

and we're very optimistic that this series is going to go well.

This is the first programme, so there's a lot riding on it.

Obviously there is competition in television, so if Family Fortunes on the other side

have booked the Giggs family, to be honest, I think we're bollocksed.

So, this is how the show works.

Each week I'm going to be talking about a different topic,

which affects everyone in Britain, such as food.

I have also interviewed hundreds of people around the country.

This is what they look like -

some of them you'll recognise, some of them you won't.

I know, scary, isn't it?

And this is a taster of what they had to say.

Yellow and brown.

-Like a sausage.

-I had it all shaved once.

-Halfway down their arse.

-You're not really human.

-Stuff like this.

-Bad!

Give it, give it large.

THEY SCREECH AND HONK

Freak!

APPLAUSE

You'll be hearing more from them later on.

There will also be the odd sketch

to explain what I'm talking about.

The first topic in the series is music and fashion.

I know a lot of people, when I say that, and you hear it coming

from a Scouse accent, you think it's all going to be about

shell suits and the Beatles - it's not.

But a lot of the time, your fashion is dictated by your first record.

I've just said that and already I've looked around this audience,

and some people here under 25 went, what?

Because that's what we had to do,

we had to go and get our first record.

Youse have no idea what that was like.

We had to go to a place called Woolly's.

We did, it was an adventure, everyone in

this room remembers that adventure, if you're of a certain age.

You used to go in with your 50p, to buy a record.

You had to make a choice on your way in, because 50p was a lot of money,

and you'd see the sweets and think...

Then you'd go in and you'd buy

your record and you'd take it home, in its sleeve.

And you'd hold it like it was the egg of a phoenix,

so it would never drop. And then you'd put it on the thing and

then you'd listen...to some shite.

Because I'm of the generation where we didn't download music.

-The most exciting innovation for

-us

-was the stack system.

Who remembers the stack system? ALL: Yes!

I remember going to my mate's house.

He had this music system the size of a bungalow.

He had the record player on top, and then it had double tapes.

The magic was that you could put a record on, and you could tape the

record...

whilst you listened to it.

And then when you'd taped it, you

could tape that tape.

And you could even tape straight from the radio.

Because that's what used to happen.

There will be lads in here who've never experienced the joy

of making a tape for a girl.

Trying to cop off to the sounds of Shalamar.

You used to sit there, we used to have this show

when I was growing up, on the radio,

called Peaceful Hour, and it was all the love songs.

We used to sit there and people used to write in and go,

"I'm writing this letter because I love Gary.

"Gary doesn't know that I love Gary.

"I see Gary at school, I want to tell Gary that I love Gary,

"but Gary will never know that I love Gary.

"Please can you play a record for Gary and tell him,

"it's off Frank... Debbie."

And then he'd play the record and the whole school used to sit there

and have your fingers poised,

so then you could record the record without the disc jockey's voice.

There's a whole generation of people who listened to music

that all began with, vi...

But of course, we all remember what our first record was.

The first record that I remember buying was Swan Lake.

YMCA.

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

The first album I bought

was Meatloaf's Bat Out of Hell which is still ace.

# Karma karma karma karma chameleon #

# The Vengaboys are coming #

Blockbuster by The Sweet, do you remember that?

The Specials aka Ghost Town.

# This town, coming like a ghost town #

Mmm Bop by Hanson.

# Mmm bop, ba duba dop

# Dee-bee-ah-pa... # Don't show that.

Save the Last Dance For Me by the Drifters.

The Highland Pipers.

Smurfs Go Pop.

Do the Bartman.

Mr Smurftastic...

# Really fantastic

# I can take a metal bar and bend it like plastic. #

Too Good to be Forgotten By Amazulu.

Right Said Fred, I'm Too Sexy.

It's a good song!

APPLAUSE

The whole thing is, to be honest with you, you get into music

like that, and you get into your records and you get into

that first stage of it and then the next stage you get to

is going to concerts.

I went to watch U2 on their Vertigo tour at Man City's ground.

It was brilliant.

but it was just when, if you recall,

all that End Poverty was happening and I went to watch it,

I don't know if you've ever seen U2 in concert, Bono is mesmerising.

He was on the stage singing and his mate, the Edge was praying

and their other two mates who turn up and whatever they do.

Bono was singing, I've never seen anything like this in my life,

and he was sort of singing The Streets Have No Name,

and all that stuff, And he just dropped on his knees.

And 45,000 people all went...

LAUGHTER

"Something Wrong with Bono?" LAUGHTER

He stayed like that for a while and then he just went...

"Do you want to end poverty?"

LAUGHTER

45,000 people went...

"To be honest with you Bono, we've come to a gig."

LAUGHTER

"Not really thought about it to be honest with you."

And he just, he just stayed there with his dark sunglasses,

and just went, "Do you want to end poverty?" We all went...

"Well, if it'll make you start singing, yeah."

LAUGHTER

So he's there and he said, "If you want to end poverty,

"get your phones out now."

And it was like a sea of stars getting created

over Man City's ground.

Everyone got their phone out.

He just said, "Text your name to this number."

And everyone went...

LAUGHTER

We're all stood there thinking,

"I didn't know it was that easy. I'd've done it ages ago!"

LAUGHTER

And then Bono just got up. And started singing.

We all went, that was easy, wasn't it?

LAUGHTER

He carried on singing. We were at the gig and he carried on singing,

"The streets have no name..." and The Edge was doing his stuff,

the other lads did whatever they do

and all of a sudden he just stopped again and he went...

we were like, "Jesus, Bono, come on!"

LAUGHTER

He just went, "Did you want to end poverty?"

And we went, "Yeah."

He said, "Have you sent your text? Look now."

We looked and all the people who'd sent their name to the number,

all the names came up on a big screen

and everyone went...

.."Billy is a wanker".

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

So, you can end poverty and have a laugh.

LAUGHTER

U2 are a brilliant band. I think they're a brilliant band.

Some people don't like them.

We all have different taste in music

and everyone's got some type of music that you just think, "That's awful."

There's only one genre that I find very difficult to get my head round

and that's heavy metal.

Headbanging stuff. I don't like that. I don't think,

I think it's pointless.

I cannot understand why that is called music.

I'm really into heavy metal actually.

It's not really my scene.

No, seriously, I really am.

I just really dig it.

I don't understand that weird...

HE MAKES DANCE MUSIC SOUND

..ultra high BPM...

# I like it hot, do-do-do-do #

..European dance stuff.

# Giving it, give it, giving it large #

HE MAKES DANCE MUSIC SOUND

Oh sweet lord. Bring it to an end.

The music there I absolutely hate is sort of lift music like Enya,

dippy-hippie, whale music with premenstrual wailings over the top.

I'd rather drive a screwdriver through my ears.

I don't like rap.

Rap music with a capital C? What a waste of money.

I cannot cook with that...

HE MAKES ANNOYING DANCE MUSIC SOUND

Rap is not a good form of music.

I can't stand all that gangster rapper, innit...

The lyrics don't make any sense because I don't live on the block.

Rap? Not bad. I like a wrap

when it's got cheese and onion in it.

LAUGHTER

Or tuna.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

I'm going to be honest with you, rap music just does my head in.

There's no other music

where you look at the fashion and think that's ridiculous.

If you look a rapper,

they always have their hats on the wrong way.

Their trousers down here with their underpants.

They look like a three-year-old learning how to dress.

And what does me most about rap music is the way they started doing this thing called sampling,

you know, where they take some music and then they put their music on.

So you sit in the car and think this is a good record.

This is really nice. I remember hearing 10cc years ago.

This is lovely and then half-way you get,

"I'm going to pop this cap in your ass, bitch!"

LAUGHTER

It just kills it.

It does. It's like seeing a chocolate bar

and finding out it's a sprout covered in chocolate. Ridiculous.

LAUGHTER

Dancing's changed as well.

There's a whole generation of people in this room

who have never had the joy of the slowy.

Slowies used to end every nightclub,

every disco, there used to be slowies.

There's lads here who's just looked at me going...

I don't know how you lot cop off

because what we used to do, you used to wait for the end,

and there'd always be somebody you know who was there teetering.

You'd think, "All I've got to do is get her...

"when the slowy comes on."

It was unbelievable.

And in school discos, even in school discos,

they used to call it the erection section,

LAUGHTER

which when you went to an all boys Catholic school

that wasn't a nice thing to hear.

It's that and weddings, that's when you see men dancing.

That's when you see that moment in a man's eyes at a wedding,

where his Mrs has been on the dance floor all night loving it

and enjoying herself and there's something in her man's eyes

when you think, "It's time to now put the tie on me head."

LAUGHTER

There's also that thing when you get to weddings

there's always the uncle and auntie

who can dance like they used always used to be able to dance.

In our family, it's me uncle Alfie and me Auntie Betty,

and they'll go on and every wedding they'll get up and they'll jive

because that was the music of their youth and everyone waits for the moment

when Alfie and Betty will jive because they're brilliant at it.

Our youth haven't got that.

When I grow up, I don't know what I'm going to do.

When we're in our 60s going to weddings,

I can see me turning to me Mrs and saying, "Listen love,

"get your whistle out, get your glow-stick, we've got Fatboy Slim on!"

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

Music has gone on a completely different level now because you've got all these obsessive fans.

If somebody likes you, they go to see your gigs and all the rest of it. There was a time with Tom Jones,

if people liked you, they used to throw their knickers at the stage.

I never got me head around some woman saying, "I love him,

"I'm going to throw me knickers at him."

Because, to be fair, you've got to be close enough for the knickers to reach.

LAUGHTER

I find it a very odd situation to be at a gig and someone say,

"Do us a favour, can you pass them on?

LAUGHTER

That's obviously where the G-string got developed so they could go...

LAUGHTER

The thing is some people embrace what their musical past is,

but some people are embarrassed about the music that they like.

In fact, they call it their guilty pleasure.

I've always been a massive fan of...

-Westlife.

-Blue.

Justin Bieber, Baby.

That's really bad.

But let me just say something, that's a good track.

-Kylie Minogue.

-Love The Corrs.

-MC Hammer.

-Queen.

-You Can't Touch This.

-# Thunderbolts and lightening, very, very frightening me! #

-It's classic.

I think the "me" was a bit off key.

-My guiltiest pleasure is The Sound of Music.

-Gilbert and Sullivan, operettas. I love them.

-The songs actually mean something.

-They're good because it's a story.

# Edelweiss, edelweiss... #

Have you watched any that are really depressing?

It makes me think how it must have been to be a Nazi officer.

-No, I did not.

-I love booty-ass shaking songs.

SHE SINGS THE CHICKEN DANCE

# My humps, my humps, my humps, my humps, my humps.

-Yes.

-It's because I feel my gillies shaking. It seems right with what I'm doing.

I like Eminem.

I have a guilty pleasure with Cliff Richard.

I think their music is quite catchy and it's got a good beat to it.

I do.

That singer, is he a white rapper? I can't really understand everything that he says.

# Come on pretty baby, let's move and groove it #

You know, something quite catchy about it all, isn't there?

-You wouldn't admit that on TV.

-You just have.

-Have I? You sure?

-But no one watches this, do they?

-(No).

APPLAUSE

For me, my guilty pleasure has always been Take That.

I've always liked Take That. I have.

I went to see them do a fantastic, but for me what brought it

all home to me, I got asked last year to do a thing called Fake That.

Don't know if anyone saw Fake That.

In February I got a phone call, it was off Comic Relief.

They said, "Would you like to raise some money for Comic Relief?"

I said, "To be honest, I ended poverty with Bono, but..."#

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

If there's still work to do, course, I'll do it.

Comic Relief, fantastic charity. I said, "What do I have to do?"

They said, "We're going to do Fake That."

I said, "What do I have to do to be in Fake That?"

They said, "What you've got to do, we're going to film a video of Take That's new single

"and all we need you to do is to pretend that you're a member of Take That."

I went, "Are you joking?"

I said, "I live with a woman in her 40s,

"I've been married for 18 years so in our relationship

"I have pretended to be every single member of Take That.

"At least with this video I can keep me cock in."

LAUGHTER

The thing is I got asked to do it and it was in February

and I was out with me mates a couple of weeks later.

We were catching up - I was on tour on at the time and hadn't seen them.

They said, "What's going on?" "You won't believe this."

I said, "I've been asked to be in the Take That video. They said, "No."

At first they were like, "Ugh, Take That."

I said no, I've always liked Take That. And then they all started saying, "To be honest,

"I know what you mean."

I said, yeah, everyone's got a guilty pleasure

and they started saying, "Yeah." Big Steve said, "My guilty pleasure is Barry Manilow."

You're among friends, Steve.

You can say it's Barry Manilow.

That's all right. And then we all went round the table.

Everybody was exchanging what their guilty pleasures were.

And then me mate came from the bar with all the drinks.

As he came over, we were all laughing,

happy in the fact that we'd all admitted to Barry Manilow, S Club 7...

LAUGHTER

..a little bit of Abba had been thrown in, everybody felt comfortable.

He put the drinks down and asked what's everyone laughing at?

I said, "We're talking about guilty pleasures. He said, "Really?" I said, what's yours?"

He said, "I like getting a bath with me mum."

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

The thing is, music's one thing that influences your life,

but it's the music that then feeds on to the other side of your life

which is being fashionable, which is a difficult thing for a man

of my age to talk about because when you're a bloke,

there comes a point in your life where fashion's like conkers.

It's not for you anymore.

You shouldn't really be messing with it.

LAUGHTER

We all have a view on whether we're fashionable or not.

As a man with a large handle bar moustache,

I think I am fashionable, but most probably in the 1920s.

I would describe myself as highly fashionable.

I get a lot of interesting questions from teenagers about my style.

Setting trends rather than following them.

"Nice moustache, why did you grow it?"

I usually replay, "I modelled it on your mum's."

LAUGHTER

-I'm not very fashion conscious.

-I have no fashion sense whatsoever.

Most of my clothes come from Tesco's.

All my clothes come from George in Asda.

I describe my look with four letters,

S-E-X-Y.

Believe it or not, I once won best dressed man.

No matter what it is, if you wear it well, wear it.

I twice won tie wearer of the year.

I like to think I would still be considered fashionable.

People still think I haven't got any fashion.

But I'm at that age, that 50 something age, where you do worry.

I think I'm all right for me age.

You go, is this a bit mutton.

Pleading guilty! Mutton dressed as lamb.

If you can pull off looking younger than you are,

dressing younger than you are, why not go for it?

Absolutely, I go for it.

There are people that will maybe wear cropped tops,

don't do that when you're older.

I don't wear mini skirts anymore.

But probably not because I'm older,

probably my legs don't look as good any more.

As I said at the beginning, there will be some people on here that you recognise, some you don't.

Every lad in this room who's been on a stag-do recognises her.

Also, now kids have an interest in fashion that didn't happen when I was a kid.

You had all these kids who decided to be Goths

because they want to be individuals.

So they dress as Goths and make friends with other Goths.

One of my kids went through a Goths phase.

We had 35 Goths come to our house for a Goth birthday party.

They're all stood there being individual, looking exactly the same.

I was dressed as a normal bloke on the corner

and everyone's going, "Who's that weirdo?"

That's what you do - find people who are like you

and then follow the fashion with them and sometimes it goes the odd way.

I was in the States about six months ago, I saw the most beautiful thing

I think I've ever seen when it comes to fashion.

I saw a Goth on roller-skates.

That is just brilliant, isn't it?

You look at the Goth face and you think that's misery,

that's depression, that's almost suicidal,

but then you see the roller skates and you think "happy feet".

It was like a Bodyform advert for nemos.

And obviously there's loads of fashion disasters that we've all had.

I did a programme a couple of years ago called Skins.

I don't know if anyone has seen it. WHOOPING

I played a dad in Skins and I was married to an actress

called Ronni Ancona who's a very good-looking woman

and I had to do this scene where my character had gone bankrupt, had lost everything.

Me wife had left me.

I had to do this scene at the end of my time in Skins where she comes back to me.

I'm stood in a house that we used to live in, that had been repossessed.

I'm stood in the kitchen reading the script

and my character says, "I thought you left me forever."

Hers says, "How could I leave you forever? I love you."

That's when you know it's fiction.

Every married man knows if you go bankrupt,

she's already coming back to stab you in the eye.

But it said in the script, "How could I leave you forever? I love you."

Underneath it said "kiss vigorously".

I went, "Oh, shit."

So I went up to Ronni who's done loads of acting,

I said, "We've got to do this scene," and she went, "Yeah."

I said, "There's that bit."

She said, "Oh, the kiss vigorously."

I said, "I'm not sure what that means."

She said, "I think it means just go for it."

I said, "OK."

This is a word of warning to anyone else in this room,

or anyone at home who might find themselves in a similar position.

The RADA Acting Academy version of "just go for it"

is not the same as the Scouse version.

APPLAUSE

Apparently tongues aren't normally involved.

I didn't know. I thought, "This is great."

Any man in a similar position to me,

married as long as I've been, if someone says to you,

"Hey, mate, you see that good-looking woman over there? You can snog the face off her."

"Your wife can't complain and you don't even have to pay her," you're going to make the most of it

for definite.

I was stood in the kitchen waiting for the scene to happen.

I'm stood there like...

I was like a 14-year-old after a bottle of alcopops at a party

for that episode.

Action!

Go on, say your bit, say your bit.

How can I leave you forever? I love you.

I went boom, boom!

The director shouted, "Cut," and I went...

I said, "Breathe, love.

"Give yourself a chance, just breathe."

"Is that OK? Everyone got that, yeah?

"Got that, lights? Sound? Yeah, yeah. Camera?"

I'm stood there like that.

The only problem was...

..my character was a gym instructor

which meant that I was wearing tracksuit bottoms.

There's nothing more embarrassing on this planet

than to be the last person in the room to know that you have an erection.

I'm stood there like that, pleased with myself.

Ronni just looked at me and went, "It's all right,

"I'll take it as a compliment."

But track suits aren't the only clothes that you should avoid.

A fashion I consider unpalatable today

is youngsters who wear their jeans half-way down their arse.

I'm not adverse to people wearing jeans around their bum.

I don't want to see what you had for breakfast.

A belt was invented to hold your damn trousers up.

A low-slung jean can look quite hot, can't it?

I don't think the crack should show, but it happens, innit?

-I like it best when they start to slip.

-Pull your bloody trousers up.

Then they have to shuffle them up. I like that a lot.

There's a fashion that girls show their bra straps.

I'm very happy to see a lady's underwear, that's always a treat.

I don't think it looks very nice.

Larger women in leggings on nightclub doors is not a good look.

Some people aren't meant to wear leggings.

You see these big mommas pouring themselves into these things

and it overflows, it's horrific.

Like a sausage bursting out of its skin.

It shouldn't be allowed.

All the dimples are showing. Come on, girls.

People should be allowed to wear what they want.

Good for them.

As a parent I view fashion in a completely different way.

I sent me youngest lad, he would have been just about 11,

I sent him to the barbers by himself. I gave him the money, he went to the barbers.

He come back with all these tramlines down his head.

His hair looked a frigging mess. I said, "What happened?"

He said, "I just got them."

I walked steaming into the barbers, "Hey, dick head, look at that.

"What happened there?"

I just looked and everyone had tramlines in their head.

"Good job."

So tonight's Britain has taught me

that you can end poverty just by texting Bono.

You should never try snogging in a tracksuit

and a wrap is only acceptable when it's full of cheese and onion or tuna.

Thank you, good night, God bless.