Episode 2 Live at the Apollo

This programme contains adult humour.

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome your host for tonight - Lee Mack!

MUSIC: "Take Your Mama" by SCISSOR SISTERS

Hello, Hammersmith Apollo!

YES! Here we are.

Welcome to the Apollo for Live At The Apollo,

and tonight we've got two fantastic comedians for you.

I must warn you in advance that I'm the host, so my job tonight

is to throw as many jokes as possible at you and hope that some of them work.

Like my old mum used to say, "If you throw enough shit, some of it will stick."

I used to say, "Come on, Mum, can't we get a PlayStation?"

There'll be different types of comedy tonight.

There'll be a little bit of observational.

I don't do much observational. I find it hard to write.

You're supposed to talk about stuff you've noticed.

And my problem is I don't notice anything.

See, cos I don't do anything.

A lot of comedians will talk about going to the supermarket.

I do all my stuff online.

A lot of comedians will talk about their sex lives. Same problem.

But...

It is nice to be here. Everyone's out here. All the celebs.

Everyone's drinking. You can drink in here, can you?

That's brilliant, mate. Well done, you.

I like a drink, actually.

I joined a wine club, recently.

We meet every morning at nine o'clock in the park.

I'm obsessed with drinking. I was in the Queen's Head the other day...

Prince Philip wasn't happy.

And we were talking about the phrase "pissed as newts".

Cos you don't get that any more now. Pissed as newts.

People used to say it all the time.

I've come to the conclusion that what happened was

all the newts got together and said, "Right, lads...

"..we're going to sort ourselves out

"cos we are getting a terrible reputation."

And the other one's gone,

"Well, what are we going to do with all this booze?"

And the other one's gone, "Oh, I don't know.

"Pour it down that rat's arse."

You see, I like the Government's attitude.

They have decided they're going to stop binge drinking.

What they're going to do is, they're going to increase the tax on alcopops.

Cos that's going to work, isn't it? Two fat women lying in the gutter at 2am.

-GEORDIE ACCENT:

-"Are yous all right, love?" "Aye, I'm really fine.

"Just go and get us another bottle of Hooch, you daft bitch!"

"Are you sure yous want one?" "Aye, why not?"

"I'll tell yous why.

"You know the Government have raised duty on alcopops by 12.5%?"

"It's what? That is totally disproportionate to the rate of inflation,

"especially when you consider the current fiscal quarter!

"12.5% increase on the average unit price of £2.70 a bottle?

"That's an increase of almost 33.1 pence

"on every unit price, and that sort of inflatory rise

"is not just steep, it's totally unsustainable

"in a modern western democratic economy."

"No, forget it! Get us a bottle of water instead.

"I'm going to go home and have a long, hard look at me life."

Sorry, before people complain and write in,

yes, I didn't need to use a Newcastle accent. I'm sorry.

Have we got any Geordies in tonight?

I'm not going to take the mickey. I love the Geordies, right?

Do you know what I read about Newcastle?

If you took all the chips that were eaten in Newcastle on a Friday night

and put them in a pile, they would reach out

and grab those chips back. It's a fact.

So we've got a plethora, a plethora of stars in tonight.

And Jim Rosenthal. We've got them all in. Right.

Adam Woodyatt. Adam Woodyatt's in. Where's Adam? Where are you, Adam?

Ian Beale from EastEnders, ladies and gentlemen.

CHEERING AND BOOING

Wow, he's been in that show longer than Pat Butcher's beard.

Hasn't he? He's been in it for ages.

And you're a Twitter fan, Adam. Is that true?

I'm not going to take the mick.

I don't do Twitter.

I hate computers.

I hate all the little terminology they use.

I rung up for some help for my website the other day.

I said, "I'm having troubles getting onto my website,"

and this bloke said, "Have you tried disabling cookies?"

I said, "I once bit the legs off a gingerbread man."

It's great... And Donal MacIntyre.

Donal MacIntyre's here! Donal MacIntyre!

Where are you, Donal MacIntyre? Put your hand up.

Donal MacIntyre with his hand up, and that's why you were

so rubbish at being undercover.

"I'm here! Oh, they broke me again."

I'll tell you what we have started doing, which is weird, me and my wife.

It's wrong to row in front of kids, isn't it?

No-one likes to do that, right? We've started doing this weird thing,

where instead of actually rowing, we started singing the row.

This started when we went to France. We broke down on the Eurostar, didn't move for three hours,

and my wife turned round to me and went,

# Told you we should've got the plane. #

All right. Oh, no, you don't.

# You said get the plane

# Don't tell me what you said

# Don't tell me you can't remember because of...

# Don't tell me about my bloody drinking

# I don't get drunk

# Don't tell me in front of the kids. #

We think the kids can't notice. I look in the aisle,

they've got top hats and canes going,

# Oh, Dad's such a twat he's such a bloody twat is

# Dad, he's a twat! #

So such stars. Sarah Beeny?

I believe Sarah Beeny's in. Hello, Sarah Beeny!

You know about property, don't you? Where do you live, then?

-Streatham.

-Streatham.

Nice. I like Streatham.

SCATTERED CHEERS

Some nice parts of Streatham. Not you, you bunch of...

You've got to live in a nice area. It's like your mate Kirstie Allsopp

always says on Channel 4.

She's always saying "location, location, location",

but we all know what she's really thinking is

"biscuits, biscuits, biscuits"!

"I don't like these bevelled floorboards."

"Well, they were all right before you came in, princess."

We're going to bring on the first act, but first,

I'd like to tell you a story. This is what it's like living in London.

It's the same everywhere.

I hate the hard sell. You know you get the hard sell. I got it the other day.

You know when people ring and say, "Do you want to combine the gas with the electric?"

and I think, "It sounds dangerous!"

I hate the hard sell. It's horrible, innit?

This is a true story. The other day I was lying in bed with a hangover.

It's awful when your cock's so big it won't stay in the bed?

I had a stinking hangover!

And I get this phone call, right?

And I knew this bloke was trying to sell me something with his opening line, right?

Cos he said, "Hello, sir. How are you today?"

I said, "No, thank you."

And he genuinely got the hump and said, "No, thank you what?"

I said, "Sorry. No, thank you, please."

He said, "I'm phoning from EDF." I said, "I'm not interested.

"He said, "I haven't told you what it is yet."

I said, "You're ringing to offer me a free season ticket to Wembley

"plus access to Dirty Brenda's all-night knocking shop

"with as many chocolate Hobnobs as I can eat."

He said, "No, I'm not. I'm ringing to talk about your domestic fuel bills."

I said, "Why didn't you say that in the first place?!

"Keep talking, son." He said, "Well, sir..."

cos he didn't get the sarcasm.

He said, "How would you feel about paying less for your gas?"

I said, "Honestly?"

He said, "Yes."

I said, "I reckon I'd feel exactly the same,

"but I'd be paying less for me gas."

He said, "Who's your current supplier?"

I said, "It's Big Pete. He comes round every Thursday on a moped."

I said, "Oh, sorry, GAS! I thought you meant electricity."

I said, "It's British Gas. "He said, "Can I ask why you chose them?"

I said, "Well, it's a funny story.

"I needed some gas and I live in Britain, and I don't know

"what it was, but they seemed to be ticking all the right boxes!"

At this point, he got the hump and said,

"I'll ring someone who'll answer less sarcastically."

I said, "Phone someone else, they'll be less sarcastic, stay on the phone longer,

"but they'll still end up saying no to you anyway."

I said, "I don't know who's providing your current rejection,

"but if you switch to me, I would combine the rejection

"with the sarcasm and save you up to 15% on your cold-calling time!"

Do you know what he did? He tried to offer me Nectar points!

Let me tell you something about Nectar points.

I spent the last two years collecting them.

Do you know how many I've got? Enough for a tiny jar of honey.

I'd have been better off collecting bloody nectar!

I'm glad you laughed at that joke

cos when I did it a month ago in Ireland, it got nothing.

I did a gig, two nights in Ireland.

I did that joke about the Nectar points, got nothing.

I walked off and the bloke that travels with me...

I went, "Why did that joke not get a laugh?" He went, "I know.

"They don't have Nectar points in Ireland."

What are you telling me now for, after the gig?!

He said, "Don't worry. Tomorrow night, say Tesco's points."

I don't know what's worse, the fact that he suggested that

or the fact that half of you are now looking at me and going, "What happened? Did it work?

"What about Lidl points, Asda points?"

Well, ladies and gentlemen, we are going to bring on the first act.

It gives me great pleasure to bring on this act.

There's comedians that are brilliant

and there are comedians that are very close friends,

and I can honestly say that this bloke is neither.

No, he's brilliant.

One of my favourite acts and you're going to love him.

Please welcome back to Live At The Apollo the amazing Rich Hall!

Thank you! God bless you.

Look at you, look at you, look at you.

Riding the big wave of comedy, are you, fella?

Snapped off your tie and came straight from the office, did you?

You got that look of comic desperation in your face,

like maybe you've had a rough day at the office.

Don't...

He's probably wanted by the law. Get that camera out of his face.

I've seen the guy on Crimewatch. Get it out of here!

The man wants to sit in the front row

with his hot girlfriend and have a little privacy.

I read an article recently, ladies and gentlemen,

that said that stand-up comedy killed folk music.

Really? Because it's a better form of protest and dissent.

I reckon probably what killed folk music was the day that folk musicians

realised that practically everybody on the planet owns a hammer.

What are you hammering out there, Mr Folk-singer?

Well, I'm hammering in the morning. Really?

I'm hammering in the evening. No shit. I've been hearing you.

I'm hammering out danger,

a warning,

the love between my brother and sister. Really?

Whatever's going on with your brother and sister really doesn't need to be hammered out, OK?

I'm pretty sure that was illegal AND immoral.

Why don't you put down that hammer before I shove it up your banjo-playing ass?

I think that the reason that Brits appreciate comedy is because,

you know, the darker things get, the more you need to laugh.

You know what I'm saying?

And this is a dark country, ladies and gentlemen.

Brits love it when someone dies in a joke. That's hilarious.

If a big stage truss hit me on the head right now, I'd have my own series by Monday.

What about the Irish? They have a wonderful sense of humour.

They do, but they can't handle morbidity.

I did a six-city tour of Ireland and I'm thinking, great, the Irish.

Woo-hoo! They don't even need comedy.

They're perfectly self-entertaining.

I'm on a train travelling to the south

and I'm reading the Irish paper, the Times, and this is what the headline said -

"Cork man drowns."

Thanks, Britain, for actually getting that because...

that was handed to me on a paper plate.

Look at that. "Cork man drowns."

I've got to read the rest. If this guy's name is Bob,

I'm going to eat a bug. And it was.

The guy's name is Bob.

So I get to Cork, look at that, "Cork man drowns." Not a peep.

There's tumbleweeds from Ireland crossing the stage.

Don't make fun of Bob, he's dead. Sorry, Ireland.

I know there's a different approach in Britain to the economic situation.

America is... Britain is just cut, cut, cut, cut, austerity, cut,

you're going to suffer, cut, cut, cut, and America is

"Buy more shit, spend our way out of this!"

Shooting money out of a dollar cannon

and every piece of shit gadget that comes on the market.

I love the subtlety of British TV ads.

Like unbelievably subtle.

It's almost like they're not trying to sell you something.

You watch it, and 30 minutes later... What were they selling?

What the hell was that? 600 Vikings just waded out of the ocean,

walked into a pub, and one drove away in a Citroen.

What were they selling?

Deodorant. Really?

American consumerism is based on taking out

late-night ads and pretending that you're mentally deficient.

You're screaming at the top of your voice,

"Come on down to Wally's World of Mortgages!

"That's right, we've got mortgages.

"I'm crazy. The boss left with the keys. I'm by the safe.

"I don't even work here. We'll give you a mortgage.

"Even if you've never heard of a mortgage, come down and we'll give you one.

"Can't pay us back, won't pay us back?

"We don't give a shit, even if you're a crack whore popping babies out of your womb

"like self-rising biscuits, come on down here now. You're a home-owner."

People will take advantage of that guy. He seems nuts.

It's the ad crunch spectacular -

a whole infomercial devoted to the biggest piece of shit ever perpetrated on the public.

You can have a washboard stomach in 12...

Who needs a washboard stomach?

Are you going to play hillbilly bluegrass music right off your stomach?

It's shit!

"Hi, I'm Chuck Norris.

"I used to pummel vaguely Middle Eastern looking guys for a living.

"Now I'm selling this piece of shit Velcro nailed to an old ski.

"Flip it over, it's a canoe. Turn it inside out, it's a ladies' dress." It's shit!

"You can have it by tomorrow." Course you can cos it's a piece of shit.

That's what we do in America. We make lots of crap,

but we deliver it really, really fast.

Good things come to those who wait,

but shit pretty much shows up right away.

Pick up the phone. I'd like the ad crunch... Bing-bong.

That was fast.

I'd love to tell you things are better in America, but...LAUGHS

..I don't...I don't really know. It's, er...

We have a fantastic president, but most Americans just want to see his birth certificate.

Show us your birth certificate, Obama?

I watched the elections here. I kind of watched them.

I kept an eye on 'em. I didn't get the full brunt of it.

Basically, I left the country for a while, Gordon Brown was in charge.

I came back. Now, apparently, the country's being led by two gay antiques dealers.

I don't know how that happened. But at least they're getting along.

Let me explain it to you. There's two parties in America.

There's Republicans and Democrats.

Republicans are called the red states, Democrats are the blue states.

The blue states are generally either on the west coast or on the Atlantic seaboard,

so basically a Democrat is anyone who's seen water.

If you go to America, find a Republican and take him to the beach.

Even Republicans hate each other now, so they have a splinter group called the Teabaggers...

the Tea Party, Teabaggers...

whose leader is Sarah Palin, future presidential candidate

who spent two years governing 8,000 square miles of snow

and would occasionally nip out at lunch

to blow the head off a moose from 300 yards away.

That's presidential material. Another woman who's moved to the forefront,

running for senator from Delaware, named Christine O'Donnell,

who's running on a platform of anti-masturbation.

She actually wants to make masturbation illegal.

I give that law six minutes.

Cos the Bible says it's wrong. These are her exact words...

"Well, if my husband has figured out how to please himself,

"why am I in the picture?"

I got news for you. You're not.

No man ever whacked one out of the ball park thinking of his wife.

You could be thinking of a 300lb-Bavarian-milkmaid

strapped over a barrel while you bang her with a kayak paddle,

wearing a Burger-King paper crown

and making her call you Mr King Big Daddy Spanky Bottom.

Just as you're about to shoot a ropey parabola of man juice

onto her ham-hock buttocks,

David Hasselhoff walks in dressed as a Luftwaffe pilot and says,

"You've got a tax refund coming."

And if that's wrong, I don't want to be right!

Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.

Rich Hall! Rich Hall. Marvellous.

Before the next act, I'll just tell you a few quick things.

Time for a quick joke.

I'm on tour at the moment

and this joke that I'm about to tell you hasn't been working.

It's been getting nothing so I thought,

what better thing to do than tell it on national television?

This hasn't been working. And it's my favourite joke.

I've always wanted to kidnap the ex-professional tennis player Pat Cash,

just so after his family have rung up and paid the ransom,

I can say, "Do you want Cash back?"

LAUGHTER

I knew that joke was all right!

What does Swindon know? The bunch of inbreds.

Ladies and gentlemen, it's time to bring on the next act.

There's an old saying in comedy, "we always save the best till last."

Well, tonight, something a little bit different.

I'm joking! You'll love this man,

he's fantastic and all the way from Scotland.

Will you please welcome the absolutely brilliant Danny Bhoy!

MUSIC: "I'm Gonna Be" by The Proclaimers

Hello.

Hello, hello, ladies and gentlemen. Hello.

It's lovely to be here in London. I'm not from here. I'm from Scotland.

Well, I'm half-Scottish, half-Indian,

which means, unlike most Scots, I don't get sunburned watching fireworks.

We're terrible. We spend all year complaining about the cold.

"It's cold out there, Danny, it's cold. It's always cold."

First day we go on holiday, "It's too hot for me.

"Welcome to Heathrow airport, your flight's over there in 20 minutes."

But we have no dangerous animals in Scotland.

It's almost like, when Noah was travelling around the world,

he didn't come back to Scotland for the drop-off.

Or didn't go there in the first place.

Think about his message. He wouldn't have got a great reception in Scotland.

Hello, Scotland, I am Noah.

All right, pal, how's it going? All right?

Yes, I'm all right.

Scotland, I need two of all of your animals.

Oh, aye. How are you going to pay for these?

Is it going to be cash or cheque or what?

No, Scotland, I'm a messenger of God.

There is to be 40 days and nights of rain.

Oh, that's good. Say it again. Say it to him. Please. That's good.

Listen to this. 40 days and nights of rain?

We're on 52 at the moment, Noah.

It's not a great prediction, is it?

40 days and nights. What a chancer, eh?

It's one of the things I like about Scotland. No dangerous animals.

A lot of things I like about Scotland, things that other people don't like.

I like the brown grass and the rain that hurts your face.

I like the... I like our national anthem.

It's the best national anthem in the world, Flower Of Scotland, because it tells a story

of Robert the Bruce's victory at the Battle of Bannockburn.

# Oh, flower of Scotland when will we see your likes again? #

Gets you there.

It's the only national anthem in the world that I know of

that makes provision for people with Tourette's to join in.

In the chorus, we sing,

# And stood against them... # HE SHOUTS: Against who!

# Proud Edward's army... # Bastards!

# And sent them homewards... # Wankers!

# To think again. # Happy New Year. Aye, Happy New Year.

I don't know, though.

I love all that old music.

I do. I love it all, that lovely hymns and...

I'm not keen on modern music now.

I don't get it. I don't like it. I don't like all that club music.

You know, the oof, oof, oof. Oof, oof, oof.

You hear it coming out of every single doorway on a Friday night.

Oof, oof, oof, oof, oof.

Sounds like a cat trying to be sick.

Oof, oof, oof.

That's what cats do. Oof, oof, oof, oof, oof.

When I go into my living room and the cat's on the sofa going,

oof, oof, oof, oof, I don't go, "Oh, yeah!"

You get out of there!

Cat-owners, you'll know what I'm talking about. That's a moment of panic.

You know you've only got a few seconds.

Shit, door, window! Open the door, open a window!

Hold on. Please hold on! It gets faster...

Oof, oof, oof. Please open that door quick!

Jesus Christ!

Eh? That was close.

They're so schizophrenic, cats. Ten minutes later, your nice effeminate cat comes in.

Miaow! That's my cat. I love my cat.

Come here, you. Are you all right now?

It comes in...

Am I all right? What was that all about?

Am I all right?

Smashed my face on that wall. Did you know that was there?

Did you know that was there, did you?

Straight into it. Tried to get round.

I couldn't get round.

You don't believe that "cats always land on their feet" shit, do you? Look at that.

Look at that. I can't even... I can't even lick that bit.

I thought you were going to be sick. It was a cough.

Would you do that to one of the kids if they were going to be sick?

Chuck them? No, but Mr Tiddles here, that's fine.

I don't know why cats do that. Cats...

the whole body goes, doesn't it? When a cat's being sick.

You know all about it. When dogs are sick, they're almost apologetic.

Oh, sorry.

Oh, God, is that me?

Oh, no, don't clean it up. I'll lick it up.

Oh, happy to, happy to.

Anything to get the taste of my balls out my mouth, eh?

Anyway, the point of that was we have the best national anthem in the world.

I think so.

There's a lot of things in Scotland I don't like.

We have the worst national symbol, the thistle.

It's a weed. It's a weed.

I don't know how we ended up with a weed.

We must've got there at the end of the day in the great garden centre of national symbols.

Eh? The English, you got there first, didn't you?

ENGLISH ACCENT: Hello! What?! We'll have the rose.

The rose is romantic and poetic, just like the English. Ha-de-ha!

And off you go.

And then maybe the Welsh turned up.

WELSH ACCENT: Hello-a!

I'm hearing a lot of this for the first time as well. You do know that.

"Hello-a! I'm a Welsh man.

"And for my national symbol-a...

"..I'll have a daffodil, I'll have a daffodil!"

Cos the daffodil is chivalrous and respectful, just like the Welsh.

Ho-de-ho!

And the Irish turn up, you know, "Diddly-dee, potato".

Don't know what this is. Some kind of...

Some kind of mandolin.

I'm a story-teller

and my story must be told.

What would you like as your national symbol, Irish person?

"Well, I'll have the shamrock.

"The shamrock is rare and mystical just like the Irish. Diddly-dee."

And off he goes into the mist.

All the countries have their national symbol.

We must've got there right at the end, the Scots, just as everyone's packing up.

"How's it going? You all right? Sorry I'm late. Eh, what have we got left?

"Ooh, not a lot, eh?

"What's that prickly, shitty-looking thing there? What's that?"

"That's a thistle, sir. You don't want that."

"Oh, looks all right to me."

"No, it's a weed. It's a weed. We were about to throw it out."

"What, free?"

APPLAUSE

"Load 'em up, boys, load 'em up!"

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for listening. You've been a lovely crowd. Thank you.

APPLAUSE

Danny Bhoy!

Danny Bhoy!

Danny Bhoy!

That's the end of tonight's Live At The Apollo. Tune in again soon.

But first, give it up for both the acts you saw tonight - the brilliant Rich Hall!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

And the amazing Danny Bhoy!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

My name's Lee Mack. Good night!

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

E-mail [email protected]