Episode 5 Live at the Apollo

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome your host for tonight...

Are you all right?

Thank you, thank you very much.

Welcome to Live At The Apollo.

Lovely to be here, my name's Ed, I'll be your host for this evening.

We have some celebrities in the audience as well. Lembit Opik, how are you, sir?

Welcome.

BOOING

Oh, don't boo.

Be fair.

You just couldn't not be here, could you, sir?

You heard there'd be people, you heard there'd be cameras,

there might be a chance there'd be some celebrity spare kicking around. You couldn't not be here.

Lembit Opik, MP, or as I call him Lembit Opik, PM -

pussy magnet. I have nothing but admiration! You are an incredible man. How do you do it?

-I don't know.

-Don't give me that "women are attracted to power" bullshit.

You're a Lib Dem, how do you do it?

I'm jealous. Purely from a place of jealousy, sir.

Thank you for being here, anyway.

Claire Richards from Steps, let's just call you Claire from Steps, bit of fun.

-You just got married recently, did you not?

-A year ago, yeah.

-You did.

I just got married recently that's why I wanted to talk to you because I just got married recently

and the fact that I just wanted to hear what you sound like when you're not miming.

-When did you get married, how long ago?

-A year ago.

-A year ago, me too, just over a year.

-Is this your husband here?

-Yeah.

-What's your name, sir?

-Reece.

Reece, welcome, welcome.

-And are you enjoying being married?

-It's fantastic.

Fantastic, wasn't that beautiful Claire, wasn't that lovely?

It's great when you offer a man a chance to be romantic and he takes it with both hands.

It's also nice when he messes it up, though, it has to be said.

I was doing a gig in Wolverhampton and there was a guy in the audience and they'd just got married.

I asked him in front of his bride if he was enjoying being married.

It was wonderful. He was winning and then he arsed it.

You know, are you enjoying being married, he went "Yeah, it's all right." Oh!

You were doing so well.

I love it. I think, being married, it's great.

I don't know if you find this, guys, people confer more respect on your relationship when you're married.

People are like, "Your girlfriend seems nice,"

actually that's my wife. "Oh, sorry I won't look at her tits again."

You suddenly get treated like a grown up.

People are like, "Are you ready to order, sir?" Actually I'm still waiting for my wife.

"Perhaps you would like to see the wine list."

There's loads of things I love about being married - I love the ring,

I love the title of husband and wife, but I think my favourite thing is,

and I've only been married just over a year, but I think my favourite thing is,

since I've been married I haven't had to plan a poxy wedding. That's been great.

I wake up every morning and go, "Oh, no wedding planning to do today, ain't married life grand?"

Because Reece, sir, I don't know about you, but I basically spent a year of my life

arguing about shit I didn't give a shit about. Oh, yeah.

You have to deal with wedding people as well.

Wedding people, with the best will in the world, are arseholes.

People who work in the wedding industry. Also, did you find this?

Every one of them so determined their corner of the wedding is the most important part

and they can't all be that important.

We were being shown around a venue by a guy and he was already annoying me.

He was showing us around this venue, which we didn't end up at.

But he said this thing to us. first of all, he said, "Would you be wanting to hire our chandeliers?"

You're not throwing in the lights for free. Really?

You want us to pay for something that's going to cost you money to take down.

So, we are looking at each other, myself and my fiancee, you know we haven't even thought about it,

let's just say no. They say, "Well, you have to think about it."

You have to think about whether or not your wedding is adequately reflecting you as a couple.

I think you need to think about whether or not your face will adequate deflect a frying pan

because you're annoying us.

And Captain Violence is going to go down pretty soon.

It's not that difficult, it's not rocket science.

It's very simple, really, four simple rules - feed them,

water them, don't marry a bitch,

make sure the best man doesn't get his cock out during his speech.

And if it's an Irish wedding, two out of four will do, really.

We went to a wedding fair. Did you go to a wedding fair, Claire?

-You did. Reece, did you go with her? Lots of them. You went to a lot?

-Lots.

Well done, sir. I only went to the one. You have my greatest admiration.

You and I understand that, it's a bit like Vietnam.

You wouldn't understand, you weren't there, man.

You understand the pain of the wedding fair.

I went to a wedding fair. Obviously she went as well, I didn't go on my own.

Very rare you see a man on his own at a wedding fair.

What a shame she couldn't come she would have loved it here.

Look, at these mini wedding cakes, aren't they darling?

I give that marriage two weeks.

We met some invites people there, who we did not end up using.

For the simple fact of how much they want to charge us to invite 150 people to a wedding.

Did you do your own invites or did you have someone do them for you?

-Someone else did them.

-That's great, Reece, she didn't even know.

Claire... "I have no idea.

"I think people just read about it in the press and showed up."

We had someone do them as well and I don't know how much yours cost, but we were quoted for wedding

that 150 people were coming to, we got quoted for invites £1,700.

-Oh!

-I love that sound.

I love the sound you've just made. I wish the guy was here now to hear you all make that sound.

Tell them how much you wanted to charge us for invites.

Tell them.

Did you hear that, yeah? Did you feel how we nearly got sucked into the stalls by the intake of breath?

Now, piss off.

£1,700! Are you high?

Have you been drinking your own ink?

That's enough to catch a flight back to planet earth from wherever you live, invite man.

It's not just the cost either, it's not just the pounds value.

I can imagine the conversation, particularly between me and my single male friends.

Me on the phone going, "Yeah, the wedding's on the 5th June, it's in Derbyshire, can you make it?

"You can? Give us your address so I can send you an invite."

"Does this not count as an invite?" Yeah, you'd think, wouldn't you?

Here's the problem - the wedding's currently running under budget to the tune of £1,700.

Did the wedding list as well. That's a curious tradition, the wedding list, isn't it?

Buy us presents, but don't use your imagination, we'll have none of that.

We are spoilt children and these are the things we want. Buy us these, please.

At first I got into the wedding list, I thought it would be quite cool

having all your friends be Santa Claus.

You can't have anything you want on a wedding list. Certain things don't go.

Xbox 360 games don't go on a wedding list. Did you know that?

They can go on the list, but they'll have mysteriously disappeared from the list

next time you go to check the list,

replaced by something called a soup tureen.

Not 100% sure what a soup tureen even is, to be honest with you,

but I'm pretty sure it doesn't have a slayer mode.

We could have anything we wanted and all we asked for was knives, forks, cups, plates, saucers.

Shit we already had! We've been living together for two and a half years.

We haven't been eating out of our hands for two and a half years.

Have some more stew there, love, not too hot this time.

Seriously, baby, we have got to get married. This is bullshit.

We already had knives and forks, plates, cups and saucers,

but now we had to get fancy knives and forks, plates and cups and saucers

for all the entertaining of foreign dignitaries we are going to be doing now that we are married.

All of them bastards that didn't want to come to the house when we were living in sin

for fear it would besmirch their political reputation.

"Oh, they are married now. OK, break out the Ferrero Rocher."

Of course your other option in all this madness is to get yourself a wedding planner,

which is the wedding equivalent of debt consolidation.

Rather than dealing with various different arseholes with varying levels of arseholery,

you get yourself one 18 carat stone-cold wanker.

I'm being a bit mean, but what it comes down to is a wedding planner's job

is to make sure your wedding is the most expensive thing that ever happens to you.

Every time they try and juice you for another few hundred here or another couple of hundred there,

while they are getting kickbacks, every time they try and juice you

for that bit more, the clarion cry is always, "It's the happiest day of your life.

"Oh, you don't want to scrimp on the happiest day of your life.

"You don't want to look back, 'We should have done that differently,'"

"on the happiest day of your life. Give me your money! The happiest day of your life!"

All the details are all going to matter on the happiest day of your life.

And I am thinking, "Surely if there's one day

"where the little details don't matter, it's the happiest day of your life."

If there's ever going to be a day where you're just going to let shit slide,

it's the day you are distracted by how happy you are. It's the happiest day of my life. It's finally here!

But his tie doesn't match your shoes, right I'm going home.

It's the happiest day of my life. I've found her.

I've found the woman I love more than I ever even thought it possible to love another human being

and I'm standing up in front of the people she likes the best

and the people she likes the best of the people I know.

Reece really liked that, Claire. I just want to tell you.

But it's a happy day! Who cares if somebody had the bad taste

to put the wrong kind of flowers on the table centres?

On a really happy day, little details do not matter.

Case in point. I'm telling you this because it's fact. It helps my argument.

I am not trying to show off or brag, I'm just telling you this to prove a point.

13 years ago in Adelaide, Australia

I had sex with two women at the same time.

I know I don't strike you as the type, but it happened.

Here's the thing, though,

I can't tell you for the life of me what I had for dinner that day.

I think you get the point there.

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

Thank you very much.

Well, folks we have a fantastic show ahead of us.

We have two brilliant acts I am going to be bringing onto the stage here.

Are you ready for the first of those two acts?

AUDIENCE: Yes!

This guy he is a massive star in his native Australia

and he's not doing too shabbily over here. I'm sure you've seen him before.

He's an incredibly funny man and, I can tell you with some authority, one of the nicest men in comedy.

Will you please put your hands together to welcome on stage the fantastic Mr Adam Hills?

CHEERING

Hello, Apollo. I am going to start by saying something you've probably never heard a comedian say before.

I love Americans.

AUDIENCE: Boo.

Thanks for going with me on that.

I reckon the Americans are the most optimistic people on the planet.

Only Americans would name their children after personality traits

they hope they're going to grow up with.

You see Americans on the street with their kids going, "Oh, Faith,

"Faith have you seen Hope?'

"Yes, she's over there with Charity.

"They are waiting for Honor."

I'm Australian, can you imagine an Australian guy naming his kids

the way he hopes they're going to grow up?

'G'day this is my son Top Bloke.

"And there's my other son Opening Batsman.

"And there's my daughter, Big Tits."

I think only America could have given us an Olympic female swimmer a couple of years ago

by the name of Misty Hyman.

If your last name's Hyman, don't call your child an adjective.

Her parents must have been at the birth going "Our last name's Hyman what shall we call our daughter?"

"I don't know, how about Misty?" "Won't that be kind of embarrassing?"

"Well, her brother Rusty doesn't seem to mind."

"Good thinking, Dick."

I did a show once and this American woman came up to me afterwards

and she said, "You know that joke you did about Americans and their names?" Yeah.

"Well, I'm American."

Yeah. "And I'm diabetic."

Right.

"My name's Candy."

You know what's great about travelling, it doesn't matter where you go in the world

music will bond you with anyone. Only age will separate you. I'll give you an example.

You can tell people that grew up with music in the '70s by doing this, just by seeing who responds to this.

-# Oh, ohh, ohhh

-Oh, ohh, ohhh. #

Nice work, a bit of Kung Fu Fighting. There's usually four blokes up at the back at this point going "Ha!"

And occasionally a woman in the front will go, "De de de de dee dee dee."

How bad were those lyrics?

Everybody was kung fu fighting,

those cats were fast as lightning.

In fact, it was a little bit frightening.

They fought with expert timing.

The last one should have been, "I'm really shit at rhyming."

'80s people now, this is just for '80s people.

# Take on me

# Take on me. #

OK. Are there any '90s people in the room? Everyone put their hands in front of your face

as if you are about to clap. This will test '90s people.

# So no-one told you life was going to be this way

AUDIENCE CLAPS RHYTHMICALLY

There was no movement at all from down the front there!

Do you want me to go back a bit?

# There she was just a walking down the street singing...

# Do wah diddy diddy dum diddy do. #

Has that just been released here?

You know what scares me is I'm going to be on stage in about 20 years' time saying

"You can tell people who grew up in the year 2000 by singing...

-# Who let the dogs out?

-Woof, woof, woof. #

Amazing.

I am a child of the '80s, I grew up in the '80s.

I loved it because it was an era when you could take a positive musical message to the world.

I grew up in Australia wearing a shirt that said "Relax".

"Choose Life." "Don't Worry, Be Happy."

I grew up in an era when we were told you could not only feed the world,

but you could let them know it's Christmas time.

There's more obesity in America than in any country on the planet

and I reckon I've worked out why. I reckon it's cos in 1984

a group of British and Irish musicians put out a song that told us all to "feed the world".

And then a year later a group of American musicians put out a song which said, "We are the world."

The weirdest thing for me about growing up in the '80s is that everything that I grew up with

that I thought was cool, now a gay icon.

All of the good stuff - Abba, gay. Wonder Woman - gay.

The Village... Who would have thought the Village People were gay?

It's almost as if the gay community got divorced from the straight community 15 years ago

and went, "We're leaving and we're taking the good CDs with us."

We've got Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Kylie Minogue, Duran Duran. You can keep Europe.

Do you know what I've realised - I'm so gay.

I love everything that gay men love. You know, except...

You know, I can never understand why people object to gays in the army.

There's always someone objecting to gays in the army.

To me, I've got plenty of gay friends, I've seen them in arguments.

They should be in the army because when they get mad,

they can cut you down quicker than any machine gun ever invented.

You'd have 200 of the enemy coming over the barricades,

you wouldn't even need bullets, 20 gay guys with megaphones going "Bad shoes." "Who does your hair?"

"'80s shirt." "Look at you."

If there were gay guys in the army, Saving Private Ryan would have been a much shorter film.

There's no way a troop of gay men would have taken three hours to find Matt Damon.

Ladies and gentlemen it's been an absolute pleasure talking to you. Thanks for being amazing, goodnight.

Adam Hills, ladies and gentlemen!

# Adam Hills How I love him

# How I love him. #

I told you I'd do it.

Adam Hills there, fantastic. Did you like that?

Did you like that, Lembit, are you enjoying yourself, sir?

Just because you are going to be hanging around here for a couple of hours

you can't claim the Hammersmith Apollo as a second home.

-Well, folks we have one more fantastic act to close up the show. Are you ready for that?

-Yes!

She now lives in LA, where she is doing very, very well over there.

We are very lucky to have her here tonight on a rare British performance.

will you please put your hands together, give some love to the very funny Gina Yashere.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Hey!

How we doing, Apollo?

Good to be here, good to be. Yeah, Ed said I am living in America at the moment.

I have been there like last couple of years or so.

I like America, it's cool. Any Americans in?

-Wooh.

-Oh, there's a few, whoo! Yeah, I like America it's cool.

You're the clever Americans - you are the ones that have actually travelled outside of America,

because we know 75% of them have got absolutely no idea

that there are black people in England, people.

None, none.

I get on stage, I start talking and I see their brains explode.

I start speaking and they are like that, "Oh, my God, oh, my God, Oh, my God.

"I think it's an Aborigine.

"Oh, my God."

Its fun, though, because what I do, I play around with it.

I tell them any old crap just to see if they believe it, right.

I told this one woman that I was from an ancient African pygmy tribe...

..and that when I was 14 I was driven out of the tribe

because I grew too tall...

..and that my family sent me to America,

where I was adopted by Madonna.

She believed me, people. She believed me.

I like to play with them, I like to play with them,

because the accent confuses them and I like to play with the fact

that the accent confuses them so much.

For instance, I think I am the only black person...

In fact I am the only black person in America who is not afraid of the police.

In fact, I pull them over.

I did it recently. I was like, "Excuse me, officer,

"I can't help but notice

"that you have been following me for 12 miles."

And the accent confused him.

He was like that, "I'm sorry, m'am, I thought you were black."

It's fun. I like to play with their little brains.

So, the accent comes in handy, comes in very useful.

Not so useful in the hood, though, I found. Not so useful.

I'm in LA. I thought, "You know what, I'm going to go and hang with my homies in Compton."

I've seen Boyz n The Hood, I can do this.

I went down to Compton. I saw a guy standing on the street corner -

baggy pants, baseball cap - and I went up to him and I went, "Hey, what's popping, my Negro G unit?"

Yeah, he took my watch.

I am not cool in the hood.

So, I am in America, I am. I do like it. My mum is not going to be visiting me there in America.

Not because she doesn't want to come, she wants to.

But my mother has never flown in her life. My mother is Nigerian.

She came from Nigeria to England by boat.

Yeah, took her seven weeks to get here.

And I was like, "Wow, Mum, you went through all of that

"to live in Bethnal Green? What the hell were you thinking?"

I always wondered why she never flew because Nigeria did have an airline.

And then I went back to Nigeria, with Nigeria Airways

and realised why my mother took a boat.

Nigeria Airways is shit.

It makes Easyjet look like Concorde.

I swear to God this was an announcement on the airline.

'Ladies and gentlemen,

"this is your captain speaking.

"Will all passengers please leave the plane

"and help give it a push start?"

They didn't have food service on the plane, didn't have food service.

They just walked down the aisle with a buffalo.

Take a piece of the buffalo.

Take a piece of the buffalo if you want it.

The ass is juicy, the ass is juicy, take a piece of the ass.

Take a piece of the ass, the ass is juicy.

So, that's right, people, I went back to Nigeria,

went back to Africa to get in touch with my roots. My roots!

My African roots!

I discovered that my roots

are in Bethnal Green.

Nigeria scared the hell out of me.

I nearly got robbed there because I was doing the stupid tourist stuff, right.

I was in a taxi and there was lots of traffic in Lagos

and I thought, "Wow, look at this traffic, I want to film it."

So, I put my camcorder outside of the window...

..and was filming the traffic

and before I knew it, I was surrounded by area boys.

These are the local gangsters in Lagos.

"Give me your camera, we'll kill you. You cannot film us. Give us the camera! Give us the camera!"

And I was like, "Oi!

"I'm from Hackney. Get out of here!"

That's right don't mess with me.

I kept my camera. Well, they got the camera. I got the tape, though, I got the tape.

Nigeria, it's a hassle to live there. It's a hard place to live.

You commit a murder in Nigeria, you will get away with it.

You will, and I'll tell why -

because we ain't got no CSI in Nigeria.

The police turn up at a crime scene and they are like that,

"OK, there's a dead body, there's a dead body, somebody has been killed.

"Did you do it?

"No? Oh, shit.

"We will never catch the killer."

You've been fantastic. I'm Gina Yashere, thank you very much.

Gina Yashere!

Gina Yashere, ladies and gentlemen. That is our show. Have you had a good time tonight?

AUDIENCE: Yes!

Let's her it one more time for Adam Hills and Gina Yashere.

I've been Ed Byrne, this has been Live At The Apollo. Goodnight!