Episode 2 Live at the Apollo

This programme contains some strong language.

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome your host for tonight,

Josh Widdicombe.

APPLAUSE

All right?

WHOOPING

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

It's lovely having a night out. I enjoy it. I do like drinking.

It's slightly being ruined for me now by, um,

a lot of my friends have started drinking real ale.

So that I know that they are better than me.

You get in a round with them, you go, "I'll have a lager,"

and they have to go, "Lager! Oh, really! I'm having a pint of this.

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

"You know why that is, don't you? Cos no-one wants to drink it, mate."

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

"Oh, 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.

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

Going, "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 cos 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."

"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'll throw out some political opinions,

if you want them.

Here we go.

I would give a life prison sentence...

Oh, you're 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.

Cos 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!"

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,

he turned round, 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 tell you, right, to cut a long story short...

What I'm trying 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 Petit Filous, yeah."

There's no panic like it on a train, the only panic close

on the 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.

There'll be rumours flying around the carriage.

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

"I can't get the angle."

One guy in 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 others 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.

I was going, "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.

If you got 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!

"Cos I'm not a psychopath."

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 brought 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.

"Wow, 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 going on holiday?" "Yeah."

"Could you get me a large bottle of vodka?" "No.

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

"Oh, can you do me a little favour?" "Yeah, yeah, OK."

"Can you get me 4,000 Lambert & Butler?" "No! I'm not a mule."

They might as well go, "Are you all right to put this cocaine

"in a condiment and shove it up your arse?"

I always say yes to the things... Not that...not that! But I always...

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

I leave it to the last day.

My last day is just me running around the city looking for items.

It's like I'm in an episode of The Apprentice,

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

Tell you what I hated, 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.

"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 cos 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. If you get a bad T-shirt for Christmas,

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

You can't do that with a flat cap.

Walking around town, going,

"No-one's spotted my flat cap underneath my top hat."

Or you can wear a T-shirt to the gym.

You can't do that in a flat cap.

On the treadmill, girls 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, though.

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 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 through till death now, yeah."

They're just going on Moonpig, going, "I'll tell you what I want.

"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 I'll ever have.

I don't do cards cos I'm in a relationship.

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

It should be simple, should be fine.

We should just send one from both of us,

instead what happens is my girlfriend will get the card,

then will write, "Dear Steve, Happy birthday,"

and then what she'll do is she writes 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 not just put a handprint 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 that 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'.

"Cos that implies he's been trying to do it for ages."

"There's no taps, this is going to be much 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, "Well, 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, "Well, oh, no, I was a bit tired halfway through

"so I just had a lie-down."

"Sorry, how tiring is your showering technique?"

In my showering role, I've never got to the end of my face

and thought, "Fucking hell, I'm knackered.

"I need to have 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, right? I was getting over a break-up,

and it's the worst in the world, isn't it -

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

Actually, breaking up with someone

is the second hardest thing in the world.

We all know the hardest thing in the world,

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

Bloody hell. Drop 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."

Live At The Apollo, you're a lovely audience.

Are you ready for your first act of the evening?

CHEERING

She is absolutely brilliant.

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

Please welcome the wonderful Celia Pacquola!

Good evening. Hello.

Thank you very much for having me here this evening.

-I have come from Australia, so...

-WHOOPING

Whoo!

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, "Jeez, 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 generally 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.

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

And it's brutal.

Like, if you're not dating, be smug, cos this isn't even a joke.

Like, on paper, dating - fact - is

going up to someone that you don't know

and going, "Ah! 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, like,

pretend to be a person and stuff, I hate it.

I hate it. I don't know what to wear.

I wore jeggings. Help.

Help me. What do I do?

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

APPLAUSE

But, to me, they're the second worst fashion, by far,

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're 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 got to be nude.

It's humiliating.

Don't make them be nude, just...

Give them a poo flap or something, help them out!

LAUGHTER

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.

LAUGHTER

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 was 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."

LAUGHTER

Stop it.

So I was trying to have less hate in my life, so I'm 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 behind 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, bellybutton rings...

But these ones,

rings.

Because if these ones

were called "finger rings"...

LAUGHTER

Make weddings pretty awkward.

LAUGHTER

With this finger ring, I...

SHE GASPS LOUDLY

LAUGHTER

Damn!

Make proposal stories REALLY awkward.

"Oh, my God, so last night, John came over, and out of nowhere,

"just gave me the most incredible finger ring. I know!"

LAUGHTER

"I'm so happy!

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

LAUGHTER

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

" 'you give her that finger ring,' and he came over...

"He got down on one knee, and he said,

" 'Darling, I want to give you this finger ring,

" 'it's the same finger ring

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

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

Also make Lord Of The Finger Rings a very different film. OK.

LAUGHTER

There is no-one hearing that. Just keep learning.

Life's about learning, guys.

I will share with you another big thing I learnt this year.

Very exciting.

I learnt showering with a partner

is not sexy.

LAUGHTER

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.

LAUGHTER

Oh, yeah.

Lot of do-si-do action, a lot of,

"Oh, hm, let's move around this way."

"Why?"

"Cos I'm goddamn freezing. I'm freezing."

And a lot of kissing like this.

SHE SPLUTTERS

LAUGHTER

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 time 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, "Whaysh."

Now.

I was sure

I knew how to lock those.

LAUGHTER

Nah.

Turns out I know how to shut them, yeah.

And, uh, 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...

LAUGHTER

Look, it's everything you dream it will be...

LAUGHTER

..and a little 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...

LAUGHTER

..with an understandably horrified 12-year-old boy

as his face was being very slowly covered.

It was kind of like this.

LAUGHTER

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

"I am never wearing a jumpsuit again!"

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

Thank you so much for having me.

Goodnight!

CHEERING

Celia Pacquola!

CHEERING

Now, are we ready for our next act?

CHEERING

He is absolutely astonishing,

you're going to absolutely love him.

Please welcome to the stage the wonderful Nathan Caton!

CHEERING

RAP MUSIC

How you doing, Apollo? You guys all right?

CHEERING

Cool, man. Good to be here. Let's find out who's in the house.

Give me a cheer if you're from the UK!

CHEERING

Give me a cheer if you're from overseas!

CHEERING

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

That's cool, I like that.

The reason why I'm asking, like, is I was...

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.

SCATTERED CHEERING

Yeah, bloody right.

LAUGHTER

But no, it said, according to the 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?

LAUGHTER

"Hey, yo, blud, give me your phone."

"What's the magic word?"

LAUGHTER

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

LAUGHTER

"Watch how you talk to people."

I don't think we're polite.

I think we are very rude as a nation.

We just... We 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 that's public transport.

LAUGHTER

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

And the train stopped in the middle of nowhere, right,

like, between stations.

We were there for, like, maybe five to ten minutes, right.

And then, like, people are starting panicking, like,

looking out the window, "What's going on, man?"

"We're not moving, right?"

And then an announcement came from the driver.

He went, "Ladies and gentlemen,

"I apologise for this delay to the service,

"caused by a person under a train at a station ahead."

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

people would give a shit.

LAUGHTER

They would. They'd be like,

"Oh, my gosh, under a train, that's horrific!

"I...I hope they're OK. Hope they're not hurt too bad."

But in Britain...

LAUGHTER

..the typical British response is, "Ugh, selfish prick."

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

You know, "Driver, man, just carry on, I've got shit to do today, man."

LAUGHTER

"Prick. Hope he dies, leave him."

LAUGHTER

That's selfish. Very selfish people.

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

I am, I'm very selfish.

In fact, I had probably...

Probably the most disgustingly selfish thought

I have ever had in my life this year, right.

I'm...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.

Um, earlier this year, there was a...

Some people got arrested at Heathrow Airport.

They were Black Lives Matter protesters, right.

If you didn't see what happened, basically,

there were people protesting on behalf on 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 pick up my mum.

She was on her way back from her holiday, right.

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

That'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 have been, like,

targeted by the police.

Obviously, black lives do matter.

CHEERING

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, right."

LAUGHTER

Obviously, black lives do matter.

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

LAUGHTER

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

I'd rather it weren't me.

Sorry.

Selfish. I'm sorry.

Mums are quality.

When I saw this story, I was pissing myself.

You know, there's been a thing in the news

about young British kids who've been going off to Syria, right?

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

LAUGHTER

-Jihad!

-HE LAUGHS EXAGGERATEDLY

Oh, jokers, man!

Lads, lads, lads, lads!

LAUGHTER

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

Lads, lads! Muhammad, oi, oi! Lads, lads, lads!

LAUGHTER

But, yeah, you know this recent thing with, like,

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 is going downhill.

LAUGHTER

It's changed, hasn't it? But I saw the 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", whatever they call themselves.

Right.

It 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.

So, yes, there was a mum.

And her 18-year-old kid, he went off to Syria to join,

let's just call them Islamic State for now. Right?

Here's the cool bit.

The mum went to Syria and dragged her son back home.

LAUGHTER

I think that is bloody quality.

Like, 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...

Unh! Unh!

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

-CARIBBEAN ACCENT:

-"Nathan."

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

"Where you?"

LAUGHTER

"Me know you're in there, boy."

LAUGHTER

"Unless you want me to come inside there

"and embarrass you in front of your friend?"

LAUGHTER

"Bring yourself home, now."

LAUGHTER

CHEERING

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?"

LAUGHTER

"When we get home, me gonna show you terror. Come."

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

Solution for terrorism. You're welcome.

LAUGHTER

Anyway. Listen, you guys have been lovely, man.

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

CHEERING

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!

CHEERING