Episode 2 Live at the Apollo

This programme contains some strong language

Ladies and gentlemen,

please welcome your host for tonight,

Josh Widdicombe.

CHEERING

All right? CHEERING

Yes, it's a pleasure to be here, thank you.

It's lovely having a night out.

I enjoy it. I do like drinking.

It is slightly being ruined for me now by...

A lot of my friends have started drinking real ale.

So that I know that they are better than me.

LAUGHTER

They'll do this... You get in a round with them and you go,

I'll have a lager and they have to go...

"A lager? Really?

"Wouldn't you prefer a pint of this?

"They brew it locally and they only make six pints a month."

You know why that is, don't you?

Because no-one wants to drink it, mate.

LAUGHTER

They're always going on about how much better it tastes.

"It tastes so much better."

No-one is drinking alcohol for the taste.

Otherwise you wouldn't keep drinking it.

I like the taste of milk.

I tend to stop after one glass.

LAUGHTER

You never find me at 2am, eight pints of milk down.

Come on, there's got to be another dairy open somewhere, hasn't there?

All back to mine, I've got some UHT in the fridge.

We'll party through till dawn.

They act like they're so much cooler than you.

You're not cooler than me because you drink real ale.

James Bond wouldn't be as cool if when he was in the casino,

the woman came over, "Get you another drink, 007?"

"Yeah, just a pint of Otter's Cock please, yeah."

LAUGHTER

"Do you want it shaken or stirred?"

"No, flat and at room temperature."

As you can tell,

I am going to be dealing with the big issues tonight in my set.

Yeah, no, I will...

I'll throw out some political opinions if you want them.

Here we go.

I would give a life prison sentence...

Oh, you are on board now, aren't you?

I would give a life prison sentence to anyone who works in Pret a Manger

and when I order an individual yoghurt,

fails to remind me to get a spoon.

LAUGHTER

Because they know in half an hour,

I'll be sat on the train with a yoghurt, head in my hands, thinking,

"Why do bad things happen to good people?"

Can I make my lid into a spoon?

I don't have the origami skills.

LAUGHTER

I just think if you do a job, you should do the whole thing.

Like, I got in a taxi the other day,

told him my destination and he turned round and he said,

"Have you got a preferred route?"

Surely that is your job.

Might as well get in and him go, "Are you all right to do the gears?"

Cos I'm eating a Yorkie, I haven't got my hands free.

What I'm trying to tell you... To cut a long story short,

what I'm try to tell you,

I don't know if you've ever bumped into someone

you haven't seen in six months, while you're on a train,

drinking a yoghurt.

It's a low moment.

You know they're going to report to mutual friends.

"I bumped into Josh." "How was he?"

"Having a breakdown."

He was mixing the two sections of a Fruit Corner with his own tongue.

"Has he got a girlfriend?"

"Well, he was getting off with a Petits Filous, yeah."

There's no panic like it on a train.

The only panic close on a train is when out of nowhere,

the announcement will come at the next station,

this train will be splitting in two.

I've never known if I'm in the front or the back four carriages.

They'll be rumours flying around the carriage.

"Stick your head out the window and count backwards."

I can't get the angle.

One guy on headphones who hasn't heard, "Well, I'm not telling him.

"Unlucky, mate."

Families being split up like it's East and West Berlin.

You two go one way, we'll go the other, two of us will live on,

the other two will end up in Littlehampton.

I like the train.

The train is my preferred method of transport.

I don't like flying. Scares me.

I don't know how people aren't scared of flying.

How are you OK with turbulence?

The first time I heard about that, I couldn't believe my ears.

What was that? "Oh. Sorry, did we not tell you?

"Sometimes when you're five miles in the air,

"the plane will go up and down uncontrollably

"and there's nothing the pilot can do about it."

That's not an acceptable feature.

You go on a bus and they went,

"Just so you know, sometimes halfway down the motorway,

"we might just zigzag in and out of the lanes.

"There's nothing the driver can do about it.

"You're all right with that, aren't you?" No!

Because I'm not a psychopath!

And the entertainment's not enough to distract you.

The films, fine. The other options...

Who are these people on planes

watching these single episodes of serial dramas?

"Oh, series five, episode 16 of Dexter!

LAUGHTER

"Brilliant, that's exactly where I've got to my box set."

"Well, I missed the first five series and 15 episodes,

"I'm sure I'll catch up."

I got on a plane recently... You will not believe this.

Genuinely, one of the options, series one, episode one

of Lost.

There's a plane-crash drama.

What are the other options? The Buddy Holly Story?!

I'm not an expert, I will admit this, on aviation.

Someone asked me the other day, they said,

"What do you think about this debate

"over whether Heathrow needs a third runway?"

My first reaction was,

has Heathrow only got two runways?

I assumed they had loads of them. It's a massive airport.

That means they've got more WH Smiths than they've got runways.

I mean, that's not an airport,

that's just a newsagent with excellent transport links.

We never went on good holidays as a child.

We didn't. My parents, they now... They go on pretty rubbish holidays.

What they do is, they go on holiday and then they bring me back gifts of

their holiday that I haven't been on.

I've got a Morocco key ring,

so that every time I get my keys out, I can go,

"Oh, yeah, I haven't been to Morocco."

My parents came back from York, they bought me a collectable teaspoon.

Who is collecting teaspoons

from places around the UK?

"Oh! Finally, I can combine my twin interests,

"of English Heritage and doing heroin."

LAUGHTER

"I haven't felt this high since I went to Hever Castle.

"Pass me my Wookey Hole tourniquet

"and I'll get on with taking these drugs, yeah."

Tell you the one I hate, when you're going on holiday

and other people ask you to get them things.

"You're on holiday, yeah, can you get me a large bottle of vodka?"

No.

No, cos I'm going on holiday, not doing a big shop.

"Oh. Could you do me a little favour?

"Yeah, yeah. Can you get me 4,000 Lambert and Butler?"

No! I'm not a mule.

They might as well go,

"Are you all right to put this cocaine in a condom

"and shove it up your arse?"

But I always say yes to the things...

Not that. Not that...

I always say yes. I've got this list of things,

I leave it to the last day.

My last day is just me running around a city

looking for items.

It's like I'm in that episode of The Apprentice.

Just running around Milan, going, "I don't know what a pashmina is."

Tell you what I hated is when I used to work in an office and you'd come

back from holiday and people would go, "Oh, did you get us anything?"

No.

Cos the reason I went on holiday is to forget that you existed.

LAUGHING AND CHEERING

I'm not going to lie to you,

I didn't think about you once in the last two weeks.

Except when I got here and then I felt depressed.

I don't think people should buy presents for people

they don't know that well.

My aunt last Christmas, she didn't need to get me a present.

Instead, what I opened

was a flat cap.

A flat cap.

Oh, that's a great present because it is my new year's resolution

to deliver bread on a bicycle.

I looked at this flat cap, disbelieving, she looked at me,

she said, "Oh, have you already got one?" No!

And I'm not going to have one again once I hit the charity shop.

It was unbelievable. Look, if you get a bad T-shirt for Christmas,

you can do something, you can wear it and do something else.

You can't do that with a flat cap.

Walking around town, I hope no-one's spotted my flat cap,

underneath my top hat.

Or you could wear a T-shirt to the gym,

you can't do that in a flat cap.

On the treadmill, girl goes past.

"'Ey up."

She said, well, I thought they were fashionable.

Then she said, perhaps you could wear it backwards.

Backwards?!

I'm not Samuel L Jackson.

She... Oh, this was the worst.

Last birthday, she sent me a birthday card.

Right, fine.

Then my mum told me that I had to send her a thank you card.

For the birthday card.

Then she sent me a thank you card

for my thank you card for her birthday card.

I have been tricked into becoming my auntie's pen pal.

Also, what are these cards that aunties are sending?

Always from the same range, isn't it?

Always something like a gentle watercolour of two footballers

going in for a tackle.

Where are they getting them? I've never seen them on sale.

Did they buy a big box in the '70s?

Well, that's me probably till death now, yeah.

Are they going on Moon Pig, going, "I'll tell you what I want, right,

"could I get the words birthday boy and then could I get a gentle

"watercolour of a racing car going past a chequered flag?

"Also, could I get another one

"with a gentle watercolour of a golfer

"teeing off in tartan trousers?

"Yeah. And could you sellotape a pound coin inside? Yeah.

"That would be perfect.

"Best 32nd birthday he'll ever have."

I don't do cards.

I'm in a relationship.

It's difficult giving cards when you're in a relationship.

It should be simple, it should be fine,

we should just send one from both of us.

Instead, what happens, my girlfriend will get the card then will write,

"Dear Steve, happy birthday."

And then what she'll do, she'll write her name, then the word and...

And then she'll hand me the card to write my name

in a different handwriting

so they know I took no part in the rest of the process.

"It shows it's from both of us."

It shows it's from you. Why do I need to write my own name?

I'm not four.

"Look at Josh, he can write his own name.

"Isn't he doing well?"

Why don't we put a hand print and we'll be done with it?

I used to have a flatmate.

That was more annoying. That was who I lived with before.

The kind of person, he couldn't handle the simplest of adult tasks.

This reached a point the day I knew I had to move out was the day he

phoned me and he said,

"Josh, I've had a bit of an accident."

I said, "What happened?"

He said, "I've managed to flood the landing."

And initially I thought, that is an interesting use of the word managed.

That implies he's been trying to do it for ages.

There's no taps,

this is going to be a lot more of a challenge than I thought.

I said, how did you do it?

And this is what he said, he said,

"What happened, right, I managed to flood the landing...

"What happened was I fell asleep in the shower...

"Covering the plughole with my arse."

I said, "You can't just say that like that is a thing.

"I mean, no-one has ever done that."

I mean, first phone the plumber, second,

phone the Guinness Book of Records.

I said, "Well, didn't you wake up when you fell asleep?"

And he said, "Oh, no, I was a bit tired halfway through,

"so I just had a lie down."

Sorry, how tiring is your showering technique?

Am I showering wrong? I've never got to the end of my face and thought,

"Fucking hell, I'm knackered.

"I'm going to need 40 winks before I move onto my balls."

I mean, he's not got a big face.

I'm not living with David Coulthard.

I mean, we've got that Radox relaxing shower gel...

Unless he's drinking it, what is going on?

I was living with him...

I was getting over a break-up and it's the worst thing in the world...

The hardest thing in the world, getting over a break-up.

Actually, breaking up with someone second hardest thing...

We all know the hardest thing in the world

and that is picking a CD up off a laminate floor.

Bloody hell. Dropped one of them, that's four hours of my life gone, isn't it?

Chasing it around like it's air hockey.

I'm never going to pick this up.

If we sell the house, I'm going to have to make this a feature.

Come in, I've got a microwave, a fridge freezer,

that's Urban Hymns by The Verve, that's going nowhere.

How am I meant to pick it up? A plunger?

I don't own a plunger. I'm not going to call out a plumber.

"You all right, mate? What's the job?"

Pick that up, will you?

Why do you recognise me? I flooded my landing just two weeks ago.

I'm from Devon. Anyone here from Devon?

A FEW CHEERS

Not many.

But that is the population of Devon.

I grew up in Dartmoor, middle of nowhere.

To give you an idea of it, nothing had ever happened.

If you haven't seen Dartmoor recently on the news,

because a lynx got on the loose.

I was worried about this because my parents still live there.

I texted my mum. I was going to phone her, but I was worried,

what if she was hiding from the lynx at that moment?

I wouldn't want to give away her position.

Nothing had happened on Dartmoor when I was growing up.

That's why there was no history. They had to make up these kind of myths and legends.

I don't know if you are aware of them, the myth of the Hairy Hand.

What this was, right, was a ghost hand that would appear if you were

driving across Dartmoor late at night and steer you off the road.

We learnt about this in history.

I was reading all the witness statements, genuinely.

My favourite was one of the people it happened to described the hand

as invisible.

I mean, if he wasn't breathalysed at the scene,

what the hell are Devon and Cornwall Police doing?

Grew up in the middle of nowhere. To give you an idea, right...

I don't know how many kids you had in your year at primary school.

I had, in my year in primary school, four children.

There was a five-a-side football tournament,

we weren't allowed to enter.

We genuinely, this is not a lie,

had a lesson once a week where we listened to the radio.

Like evacuees, waiting for news from the front.

I mean, I don't know if it was educational, I don't remember.

It might have been the teacher going, "Oh, sod this, I'm off for a fag.

"Here's Steve Wright. Enjoy yourselves."

We didn't even learn anything good.

Art class, I wanted to learn how to draw...

We didn't... The only tip I remember from art class, when drawing a face,

always remember the eyes are exactly halfway down.

No, they're not.

Have you seen a face...?

Oh, yeah. Of course, my eyes are halfway down,

that's why I wear my glasses under my ears.

What did he look like? Normal bloke. 50% forehead, yeah.

The only way that tip is of any use is if the question in the exam is,

draw Ant from Ant and Dec.

Science class, the only thing I learned in science class,

how to use a Bunsen burner.

Not a skill I've needed in later life.

Never had someone come around, do you want a cup of tea?

I'll just pop on the Bunsen burner.

Blue flame, I'm not an idiot.

Only one use for orange flame, wasn't there...

IMITATES BUNSEN BURNER

Oh, that just happened, your eyes aren't deceiving you.

You never see one... Never outside a pub, have you got a light, mate?

Have you got a gas tap?

Also, what is going on with the health and safety in schools?

I'm not allowed a conker outside, in here, I'm allowed a flame-thrower?!

The only other item we ever had in science class was once a week,

we'd be sent outside with a wheel on a stick.

A trundle wheel, and we'd just walk around for hours.

Just clicking.

I don't know what I'm learning here.

Is this going to come up in the exam?

Question one, explain photosynthesis.

Question two, how big's the car park?

To the nearest ten clicks.

That's why the best day in all of science,

the best day all year was when they would go,

"Today, we are going to watch the television." You go, "Brilliant, just like at home."

No, not like at home. Cos this TV show will be shit.

But then they'd build up the excitement, wouldn't they, by leaving the room

and then slowly wheeling the TV back in.

Like it was Queen Elizabeth II.

All hail the television.

And then they'd fail to make it work for 20 minutes.

And wheel it back out.

And bring out the trundle wheels.

Live at the Apollo, you are a lovely audience.

Are you ready for your first act of the evening?

CHEERING

Good, good. She is absolutely brilliant.

She is one of my favourite acts on the whole circuit.

Please welcome the wonderful Celia Pacquola.

CHEERING

Good evening!

Hello. Thank you very much for having me here this evening.

I have come from Australia, so I am...

CHEERING

Oh, I am... Really, I'm a bit jet-lagged

because I flew in tomorrow.

So...

My friend admitted to me, right,

that she likes to masturbate by candlelight.

And I was like geez, that must make birthdays awkward.

Wow!

Particularly around the office.

OK. Hi.

I am 33 years old.

I know. And I am single, but I'm fine.

I can do what I want because I'm single, answer to myself, right?

It's just me. I make the rules.

And I don't have any kids, that I know of, hey...?

LAUGHING AND CHEERING

You know...

I genuinely thought I was fine and then the other night I got drunk

and I signed myself up for eHarmony,

which is an online-dating website.

Don't remember doing it, looked at it the next day,

turns out I'm looking for someone who can bring me a pizza.

Because here's the thing, guys.

I get drunk on my own and then I get on the internet

and then bad things happen.

What?

I do. I drink alone.

I like it. I know you're not supposed to do it.

I know it's like sad and it's like a bit of a red flag,

but you know red's always been my colour.

I like it. I like it.

My bed's there, I'm not going to say anything embarrassing.

I like it. I've been known to leave parties where I'm having fun

and I go, "I've got to go."

And they go, "Do you have to get up early?"

And I go, "No, no. I just like to continue this without you guys."

And I drink beer. Beer is my drink of choice.

And I'm not saying this to be cool, by the way.

I wish I did not love beer as much as I...

It makes me mad at it, how much I love it.

Goddamn! I love it. I'm going to get it. I love it.

And I met a new person in a bar and they said,

"Oh, Celia, I'm going to the bar, I'll get you a beer.

"Oh, sorry, do you drink beer? Do you like beer?"

And I said, "Do I like beer?"

"Do hip-hop dance crews like finishing on a sound effect

"of glass breaking?"

LAUGHTER

"All right, I reckon about 14% of you know what that was about."

See, the thing is, you're trying to figure me, out but I'm trying to figure you guys out as well.

All right, let's see who else we've got in the room.

How about this one? Do I like beer?

Do people wearing lanyards

think they're better than people who aren't wearing lanyards?

LAUGHTER

OK. OK. Welcome, welcome.

As I say, 33,

you get a bit of pity at my age being single,

but like we've got some perks.

Like, if you've got love, you've get love, sweet,

but if you're single, we've got some sweet perks.

Like, single stories are way better than relationship stories.

Every time. They are just better stories.

Like, if you are in a relationship

and you think something funny happened to you, it didn't.

LAUGHTER

I am sorry.

It is not... Oh, what?

Really? You were in IKEA for how long? No!

And you ended up coming home with the wrong...?

Excuse me, I'm going to kill myself.

No, no, you keep telling that fantastic story.

This is a single story.

Oh, my God, so that guy from the internet,

turns out he did think he was a Viking.

Horns, helmet, whole thing.

We kissed in a Pizza Express and he brought popcorn from home.

And it's brutal. Like, if you're not dating,

be smug because this isn't even a joke.

On paper, dating, fact, is,

going up to someone that you don't know and going,

"What do you think of this?"

And they go, "Nah."

And you go, "OK. Cool.

"Oi, what do you think of this?"

Just that. And on and on and on.

And if you go on dates and they don't go anywhere,

like you don't hear from them, you don't know why.

Like, you don't know why.

And then you get to go home and play a fun game that I like to call,

was it my face or my opinions?

Could be both. Yahtzee, oh, my God.

And it's just shit. I hate it.

Like, you go on dates, you've got to pretend to be a person and stuff.

I hate it.

I don't know what to wear. I wore jeggings.

Help. Help me. I don't know what I'm doing.

If you don't know, jeggings are leggings

that look like jeans that make you look skinny.

Except that they aren't and they don't.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

But to me, they are the second-worst fashion faux pas

than the jumpsuit on women. Do you remember the jumpsuit?

The one-piece outfit with the zip up the back?

I think they look good but if you are wearing one of them,

if you want to go to the toilet in one of those things,

you've got to be nude. The whole thing has to come off.

You've got to be nude. It's humiliating.

Don't make it be nude, just give them a poo flap or something.

Help them out.

Don't know what to say on dates because aside from doing this,

I have nothing to talk about.

I am really scraping the bottom of the small-talk barrel.

Genuinely, I'm like,

"Erm...

"My jaw clicks.

"It doesn't hurt. No.

"Yep.

"Getting a blowjob from me

"is like having sex with a grandfather clock.

"Ha-ha-ha.

"So are we getting entrees, or...? OK, goodbye."

It's just emotions are complicated.

Like, love and hate are supposed to be two ends of the spectrum,

but they get mingled.

Like, love can come from hate.

How is that possible? It is.

I love peanut butter

because an ex of mine is allergic to nuts

and every time I eat peanut butter, I imagine him dying.

Yep. Like, yum, yum, yum.

Oh, his throat would be closing up right about now.

Yum, yum, yum, yum.

This is an aside and I wasn't going to tell you this, but I like you.

OK, I think nut allergies is going to be the thing that wipes us out.

Like, you know when your friends and you are talking about it.

Like, "Oh, is it going to be climate change, is it going to be meteorite?"

No. My money's on nut allergies. Cos we weren't allergic to nuts and now we are.

Right? And every year, it gets worse and worse.

More and more kids allergic to nuts. And over time everyone's going to be allergic to nuts.

And then, at some point, everyone on the planet will be allergic to nuts and when nuts figure that out,

we are fucked.

Do you think it is a coincidence that satay

is one letter away from Satan?

What?!

That is the dumbest thing ever.

And I spend quite a lot of time thinking about trying to have less hate in my life.

It's a very scary time to be alive, but there's some stuff, no matter how hard I try, I can't...

Like, I will always hate getting up early.

Always, forever. Right?

Every morning when I have to get up early, this is how I do it.

I still have an alarm clock, right?

Retro. And my alarm goes off and I go, "What?"

Snooze! Because alarm and snooze

are like good cop, bad cop in the mornings.

Cos alarm is like, "Get out of bed! Now!"

And snooze is like, "Don't worry about him.

-"I'm on your side."

-SHE IMITATES KISS

"You're going to have a great day!

"I mean, you'll be late,

"but take another eight minutes, you deserve it.

"You're so pretty when you're sleeping!"

And hate actually led me to unlock a secret of the universe.

Genuinely, hate led me to the best thought

I'm ever going to have in my whole life. From hate...

And the thing I was hating, a very simple thing, it was toe rings.

Simple thing, I hate them.

I hate them more than I should hate... OK. I hate them.

I think it's because I hate feet.

I think feet are disgusting and whenever I see a toe ring,

I think, OK, what you're doing there

is you are taking an already gross toe

and you're trying to make it look like a tiny, faceless man

with a hairy chest, wearing a belt. Stop it.

Stop it! So, I was trying to have less hate in my life, so I was like,

"Right, I'm going to figure this out," so I sat in my flat, I'm like,

"Let's break it down. Why do we have toe rings?

"Who invented them? Who's buying them?

"What's the point of them?" And then I thought, "Oh, shit."

Guys...

You know toe rings?

They are rings that we wear on our toes,

then we have rings, earrings, rings people wear in their ears. Yeah?

Eyebrow rings, nose rings, belly-button rings.

But these ones,

rings.

Because if these ones were called finger rings...

LAUGHTER

Make weddings pretty awkward.

-With this fingering, I...

-SHE GASPS

Make proposal stories really awkward.

"Oh, my God! So, last night,

"John came over and out of nowhere just gave me the most incredible fingering.

"I know! I'm so happy!

"I mean, he asked my dad's permission first, obviously,

"and my dad was like, 'You go for it, son.

"'You give her that fingering.'

"And he came over and got down on one knee and

"he said, 'Darling, I want to give you this fingering.

"'It's the same fingering

"'that my grandfather gave to my grandmother...'"

Also make the Lord of the Fingerings a very different film. OK.

There is no-one hearing that.

Just keep learning. Life's about learning, guys.

I will share with you another big thing I learned.

This year, very exciting,

I learned showering with a partner is not sexy.

That does not seem like a big deal, but the world tells you it is sexy.

But you try that shit once and you very quickly discover that showering

with a partner is not sexy.

Showering with a partner is taking turns being cold.

Oh, yeah.

Lot of dosy-doe action, a lot of, "Ooh, let's move around this way."

"Why?"

"Cos I'm goddamn freezing! I'm freezing!"

"And a lot of kissing like this."

SHE SPUTTERS

But mainly, as I get older,

I just keep finding out shit that I'm wrong about.

Like, you grow up and you go, "I know these things, I'm sure."

And then, wrong.

The last thing I was in your lovely country,

I was on one of your lovely overland trains.

You know, the ones that have the toilets with the electronic

science-fiction doors that go,

"Waysh. Waysh."

Now, I was sure I knew how to lock those...

Nah. Turns out, I know how to shut them, yeah,

and 12-year-old boys on the other side

know how to push the open button and I don't know if you've ever been

sat on the toilet when the door opens, but look,

it's everything you dream it will be.

And a little bit more.

Now, the thing with those doors is they take quite a long time

to open. So I was desperately trying to find the close button.

Eventually found the close button, but the thing is,

as they take quite a long time to open, similarly,

take quite a long time to close.

So I got to maintain eye contact with an understandably horrified

12-year-old boy as his face was being very slowly covered.

It was kind of like this.

And it finally shut, I sat back down and went, Oh, my God!

I am never wearing a jumpsuit again!

No!

Thank you so much for having me. Enjoy your night. Goodnight.

Celia Pacquola!

Now, are we ready for our next act?

CHEERING

He is absolutely astonishing.

You are going to absolutely love him.

Please welcome on to the stage the wonderful Nathan Caton.

MUSIC: Pow by Lethal Bizzle

CHEERING

Hey. What's happening, Apollo? You guys all right?

-CHEERING

-Cool, man. Good to be here.

Let's find out who is in the house.

Give me a cheer if you are from the UK.

CHEERING

Give me a cheer if you are from overseas.

CHEERING

OK. Cool, man. Nice little mix we've got going on.

That's cool. I like that. The reason why asking, right,

it is I was reading an article in the paper just the other day

and it was saying, according to an American survey,

Britain is the most polite nation on the planet.

Yeah, bloody right.

It said, according to this survey, in Britain,

we are so polite as a nation,

we get more offended over bad manners than we do over crime.

No, we bloody don't.

I don't know about you, but if I'm getting mugged,

I don't give a shit about manners. You know?

"Yo, blood. Give me your phone."

What's the magic word?

I was going to give it to you. Piss off now, man.

Watch how you talk to people.

I don't think we're polite.

I think we are very rude as a nation.

We just know how to hide it well.

Right? But there is one instance when our rudeness comes out.

One instance when you can see how rude we really are.

And it's public transport.

I was on the train not too long ago, I was going to a gig,

and the train had stopped in the middle of nowhere, right,

like between stations and we were there for maybe like five to ten minutes, right.

And people start panicking, like looking out the window.

"What's going on, man? We're not moving."

And then the announcement came from the driver.

He went, "Ladies and gentlemen,

"apologise for this delay to the service caused by a

"person under a train at a station ahead."

Now, I guarantee you, if that was anywhere else in the world,

people would give a shit.

They would. They'd be like, "Oh, my gosh! Under a train? That's horrific! I hope they're OK.

"Hope they're not hurt too bad."

-But in Britain...

-LAUGHTER

The typical British response is, "Oh, selfish prick!"

Driver, man, just carry on. I got shit to do today, man.

Prick. Hope he dies. Leave him there.

Selfish. Very selfish people.

I'm selfish, I'm not going to lie. I am. I'm very selfish.

In fact, I had probably the most disgustingly selfish thought

I've ever had in my life this year, right?

I'm not proud, I'm ashamed of it, but at the time, it was how I felt.

I'll share it with you guys.

Earlier this year, there was...

Some people got arrested at Heathrow Airport.

They were Black Lives Matter protestors, right?

If you didn't see what happened, basically,

people protesting on behalf of Black Lives Matter

and they were lying down in the street and in doing so,

they were causing traffic on the approach to Heathrow.

Now, I got stuck in that traffic. I had to go and pick up my mum.

She was on her way back from a holiday, right?

Now, I'm not knocking the whole Black Lives Matter movement, no.

It's something I support, as a black person.

I appreciate it. It's a very noble, very worthy cause.

I think it's disgusting how black people are being

like targeted by the police.

Obviously, black lives do matter.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

-However...

-LAUGHTER

As I was sat in my car in that long queue of non-moving traffic,

I'm not going to lie, there was a selfish part of me that was thinking,

if the police were to take out these black guys right now...

LAUGHTER

..they would be doing me a huge favour.

Obviously, black lives do matter.

Just not as much as my own, innit. Right?

I mean, I can't be late for my mum.

If I'm late, she's going to kill me, so either way,

someone black is going to die.

LAUGHTER

Rather it weren't me. Sorry.

Selfish, I'm sorry.

I know. I know a lot of people are pretty angry that we've been having,

you know, Black Lives Matter protests in the UK.

I was talking to one person at a gig and she was like,

"I don't see whey we're having the protests here in the UK.

"It's an American problem.

"Here in the UK, we don't have racism."

Piss off!

Yes, we do. We just don't have guns.

LAUGHTER

That's what I think the big issue is.

The whole Black Lives Matter thing, obviously race is an issue,

but for me, personally, I do think the bigger issue

is the American gun culture.

Right? Americans, they love their guns too much.

Americans shoot the same way British people drink.

At any given opportunity.

LAUGHTER

I think instead of tackling race, tackle the gun problem.

Take away all guns in America, replace them with water pistols.

Still a gun. Just a lot more fun.

Like, how much more fun would drive-by shootings be?

And also, if they had water pistols,

I guarantee there'd be no violence in the black communities.

Cos no-one's getting their hair wet.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Got to think about these things, innit.

Yeah. I did actually see one of the funniest videos I've seen from the

whole Black Lives Matter movement.

It was last year.

You guys might have seen it. It went viral, this video.

There were riots in Baltimore, right?

And this video came out of this young kid

who was rioting in the street

and his mum turned up and slapped the shit out of him.

I'm not joking. If you don't believe me, go on YouTube,

type in the words "Baltimore riots mum."

Right? There's a young kid, maybe about, what? 15?

He's in the street, looting, rioting,

just being a dick basically.

And his mum pops out of nowhere like a ninja

and just twats the shit out of him, man.

"Get in from the street, boy!"

And the mum, she's like a proper big-momma, scary-type black woman.

Like she's so scary, there's one point in the video where she goes,

"Get your ass outta here!"

And I logged off cos I thought she was talking to me.

LAUGHTER

How does she know, bruv?

How does she know? I don't get it.

She was good, man. I like that video.

Mums are quality.

I saw this other story. Again, shows how good mums are.

When I saw this story, I was pissing myself.

You know there's been a thing in the news about young British kids who

have been going off to Syria?

That's not what made me piss myself, obviously.

-Jihad!

-HE LAUGHS

Oh, jokers, man! Lads, lads, lads, lads!

LAUGHTER

I'm pretty sure they don't say that.

Lads, lads. Mohammed, oi, oi! Lads, lads, lads.

Yeah, you know there's been this thing about young British kids,

you know, going off to Syria, which has been stupid.

I mean, I don't see the fascination, myself.

You know? Young British kids, desperate to go to Syria.

I tell you what, man, that Duke of Edinburgh Award has gone downhill.

Changed, innit. But I saw this story, right?

It was about a woman... She was a mum and her 18-year-old son,

he went off to Syria to join IS or

is, or whatever they call themselves, right?

Could be is, you never know.

It sounds cooler, doesn't it? "We is. And we out." Right?

LAUGHTER

I'm guessing PR isn't top of their agenda at the moment, but you know.

There was a mum of an 18-year-old kid, he went off to Syria to join,

let's just call them Islamic State for now.

Here's the cool bit. The mum went to Syria and dragged her son back home.

I think that is bloody quality.

Forget bombings and invasions,

I think we've found a new solution to terrorism.

Just get pissed off parents to go to the Middle East

and take their kids back home. I think that'll work, you know.

For example, if I was a terrorist,

and my mum or my grandma came to get me...

-..that would work, trust me.

-LAUGHTER

I'd be in a cave in Syria, posing with my gun...

And then, all of a sudden, I hear...

IMITATES KNOCK ON DOOR

"Nathan!

LAUGHTER

"Where you?

IMITATES KNOCK ON DOOR

"Me know you're in there, boy!

"Unless you want me to come inside there

"and embarrass you in front of your friends, bring yourself home.

"Now!"

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Next thing you know,

I'm being dragged by the ear to the local airport.

My grandma screaming in my face,

"Terrorist? You want to be a terrorist?

"When we get home, me gon' show you terror!

-"Come!"

-LAUGHTER

Solution for terrorism. You're welcome.

Yeah.

I know you shouldn't really make jokes about terrorism

cos it's a very sensitive subject,

but sod it.

No, seriously, I think it's better to laugh, you know?

I've done jokes about terrorism at gigs before and people go,

"Why do you make jokes about terrorism?"

I think it's better just to laugh than be scared

cos that's what these guys want, innit?

They want to disrupt our way of life,

they want us to be scared,

so instead of being scared, let's just laugh at them,

like the bellends that they are, you know?

Just don't give them the satisfaction of taking away our joy.

CHEERING

I mean, of course, I'd never say that to their face.

I ain't stupid, guys, come on.

Any terrorists in the house tonight?

I know how much you guys love comedy.

Just laugh, don't be scared.

Cos I've been scared before in the past and trust me,

it's not funny, right?

Happened about three years ago.

I got a bit too caught up in the news

and one story made me really paranoid, right?

There was the terrorist attack in a shopping centre in Kenya.

Right?

I'm not laughing at it, cos obviously it was horrific, what happened.

But what scared me was after it happened,

the Kenyan government put out a worldwide wanted alert for who they

thought was the ringleader.

I don't know if anyone here remembers who it was.

It was a white woman called Samantha Lewthwaite.

Her nickname was the White Widow.

And that scared the crap out of me.

Like when the most dangerous and wanted person on the planet is a white woman,

something is terribly wrong with the world. Right?

Is there no-one we can trust any more?

Even white women are now a threat to security?

And I'll be honest, for a few months after it happened,

white women were petrifying me.

I remember one incident in particular.

It was late one evening, me and my little brother,

we were on our way home from watching a football game

and we were walking down a particularly dark street

and then I noticed there was a white woman walking towards us.

I bloody shit myself, man!

What sort of backwards, twisted world are we now living in

when two 6ft black guys

and a white woman by herself

are walking towards each other down a dark street

and the two black guys cross the road, man.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

There's something wrong with that.

Anyway, listen, you guys were lovely, man.

I've been Nathan Caton. Take care. Cheers.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Nathan Caton!

Thank you so much for coming to Live at the Apollo.

Can we have one more round of applause for Celia Pacquola?

CHEERING

And Nathan Caton. CHEERING

I'm Josh Widdicombe. Thank you very much.

Cheers, goodnight.