Episode 5 Live at the Apollo

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

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Yeah!

Hello!

Oh! Look at it!

I can already see it on your faces -

"Oh, great. An American hosting the show.

"Is there no end to what these assholes will try to pull off next?

"Is he capable? Can he pull it off?"

You're damned right I can!

CHEERING

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Live at the Apollo.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Comedy's important, ladies and gentlemen. Don't for a second...

I know a lot of people, Americans are always,

"Hey Rich, I hear those Londoners have a dry sense of humour."

Oh, yeah? They're pretty wet right now.

They don't have a dry sense of humour at all.

What they have is a sense of humour, you understand?

Americans love to laugh. There's a difference between a sense of humour

and the ability to laugh.

That's why I'm in London, ladies and gentlemen.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Where you put up with shit every day of your life.

Is there not a day you don't wake up in London and say,

"What kind of shit is going to befall me today?

"What will happen that I didn't see coming in a million years?

"Look, there's a homeless guy urinating into a bottle

"and cleaning the windscreen with a lettuce.

"Well, I didn't see that coming."

That's London.

I love doing comedy in Britain. It's that simple?

I never thought that I'd be standing on this stage and telling you

that our president, our wonderful president,

who the world loves but Americans are like "Hey, what's going on?"

Don't know what will happen for him or not.

Turns out the audacity of hope wasn't what we were looking for.

Can't run four years as president on the audacity of hope,

cos hope is a bit desperate, isn't it?

It's not an economic policy, it's just hope.

Hope is right below wishful thinking and above performing a rain dance,

on the scale of activity.

LAUGHTER

Hope is what you want the weather to be tomorrow.

Consequently we have what you've obviously heard of before - the Tea Party,

which is the biggest bunch of Bible bashing, tub-thumping, foot-washing fundamentalist freaks.

If Satan were to hold a Tupperware party...

the Tea Party candidates would be demonstrating the products,

that's what they are.

Last month, in the course of 24 hours,

two different Tea Party candidates both announced that God had told them to run for president.

God!

Who in 2000 years has appointed one saviour of mankind,

within one week appointed two different dip-wits

to run for presidents of the United States.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Sarah Palin probably gets the most press

because she's the best marksman.

All the Tea Party candidates claim that they speak for the average Joe

in America, just the normal guy, the normal struggling, average Joe.

First of all, Sarah, you live in Alaska.

There's no-one normal in Alaska.

Alaska's full of people running from the Drug Enforcement Agency

and people who hate humans so much, they thought Montana was too crowded

and went to Alaska to touch moose.

That's who's in Alaska.

You're not normal!

Sarah Palin says on a TV show, she's been interviewed,

"It's perfectly normal in Alaska to open up your front door and see a grizzly bear."

No, it's not!

LAUGHTER

It's perfectly normal to look out the front door and see

a 12-foot carnivore chowing down on the family dog like the last leg in a bucket of KFC.

Yep, see that every day.

It's not normal to build your house with a carnivore room, for crying out loud!

She was asked, "What did you do when you saw a grizzly bear?"

"He was too cute, I couldn't shoot him."

Again - wrong.

If you think bears are cute, wait till you meet terrorists, they're adorable.

Don't screw with the bears! That's my message.

Bears want to eat you, even the little ones.

Don't give your kid a teddy bear, it's sending the wrong message.

"Well, Yogi and Boo-boo are cute."

No. Ever look at Yogi? You know what he's wearing?

A hat, a tie, a shirt. Where did he get that from?

I'll tell you where - a victim, that's where!

He's parading with the shirt as a kind of trophy,

reliving every moment when he ripped them to shreds. It's not right.

So after two years, she decides she doesn't want to be governor of Alaska anymore,

and she goes off on a whirlwind trip around the world

to study foreign policy. She goes to Israel.

As if the Jews haven't suffered enough.

Touches the Wailing Wall and runs away.

Then she goes to New York, where they're building a mosque,

and she looks at it and she says, "Muslims need to refudiate this mosque".

Even Muslims are going,

"I don't think that's a word in anyone's language, Sarah.

"Did you just say 'refudiate'?"

"Yeah, refudiate..."

"No, you mean refute or repudiate, not refudiate the mosque",

But it's not a word!

She says, "Shakespeare made up words, why can't I?"

Cos Shakespeare was a Renaissance genius

and you're a dip-shit from Alaska! All right?

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

You can't just make up words!

I read her biography, I want to be refundiated!

LAUGHTER

So, you know, to sum it up, ladies and gentlemen,

because people always ask me,

"Rich, is it really better in Britain for comedy?"

And I think it is. I'm not blowing smoke up your ass.

I'm just telling you, it's better.

It's a better place, right, cos you do, you have a sense of humour.

That's why you came out tonight.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Oh, he's prodding us up for the kill! No!

I'm serious, cos listen, you know,

in America we don't have this whole kind of...

this broken society thing, you know, and you can be...

LAUGHTER

That came out completely wrong, didn't it,

I'm just quoting something that I see in the papers, "broken society".

I don't even know what the hell that means. Is society broken, fella?

You feel your society's broken?

A little bit?

Well, that's not broken, that's just damaged, isn't it?

LAUGHTER

Where are you from?

Twickenham.

Twickenham? Well, no more questions, your honour.

Get back to your rugby. What do you do in Twickenham?

I'm a teacher.

A teacher?

See? This man's not interested in broken society,

he's interested in making children's futures better.

That is so much better than what I do. I just tell jokes.

What do you learn from that?

Nothing. The world is evil and I can't fix it.

Not a faith healer, am I.

Tell you what I've learned, ladies and gentlemen,

from watching idiots like Gaddafi.

I say idiot - basically the man was a dictator,

and he only made himself Colonel.

What does that tell you?

LAUGHTER

In America, if you can put chicken in a bucket, you're a colonel!

But I'll tell you what I've learned. What's your name?

Peter?

All right, Peter, I have learned from watching these tyrants

that maybe the term "human shield" is not being used to its best advantage.

It's usually used in a negative light.

But I've found as a comedian, quite often when you hit these situations,

where people have been here a while, you're about to hit a wall,

people are getting hot, tired and restless,

that's where the human shield comes into play, do you understand? Peter?

I'll tell you what I mean, all right? Get over here.

Get over here, Peter. Over here.

You don't have a choice, Peter.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

You are my human shield, friend. March right up here.

There's some people here who want to hurt me

and I'll be right behind you the whole time.

of turn this way so I get...yeah, broader target, there you go.

Do you have a sweetheart, Peter?

Yeah, my girlfriend.

Can you say that with a bit more world weariness?

All right, Peter, there you go, you take the mic.

I just want you to read what I've prepared for you.

Say it right, no-one gets hurt. You understand what I'm saying?

Pretend your girlfriend's not here and you're having to phone home.

Take the mic. Watch the technique.

Hello, no, everything's fine.

It's just that I'm going to be a little late getting home. Why?

I've run into a little situation here at the Apollo.

Rich Hall? Yes. He's a very funny man.

Well, he's currently using me as a human shield.

Isn't that wild (!)

LAUGHTER

Who would ever have thought that "your name" would ever find myself here on stage?

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

You should've prepared it better. It would've said "Peter" already.

All right.

LAUGHTER AND CHEERING

I, Peter, would find myself on stage as Rich Hall's hostage

leading the audience in a rousing sing-a-long.

LAUGHTER

Who doesn't love the late John Denver sing-a-long, everyone?

CHEERING

# Almost heaven... #

I don't know the song.

# West Virginia

# Blue Ridge mountains

# Shenandoah River

# Life is older

# Older than the trees

# Younger than the mountains

# Rolling like the breeze

# Country roads

# Take me home

AUDIENCE SINGS CORRECT TUNE

# Sing you bastards

AUDIENCE CLAP IN TIME

# To the place I belong

# West Virginia

# Mountain mama

# Take me home

# Down country roads. #

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Good night, everybody.

Let's hear it for Peter the hostage, ladies and gentlemen!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Ladies and gentlemen, you're in for a real treat tonight.

We have two, TWO, fantastic performers on the show.

Please, ladies and gentlemen,

you're about to enjoy yourselves like you've never enjoyed yourselves before.

Please welcome, Mr Mark Watson.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Hello.

Hello.

Yeah. Yeah!

CHEERING AND WHISTLING

It's very generous of you,

but deep down, we all know it's impossible to follow Peter.

LAUGHTER

There are times in your career where you see the person before you

and think "There's nothing I can do here".

To sing Country Roads as movingly

and with as little respect for the original as that...

And I'm just back stage waiting to come on thinking, it'll be fine.

I'll do my best, I'm a comedian.

I'm not the greatest comedian in the world, but by God, I'll give it a good go.

The only thing I would be worried about is

if I had to follow an avant-garde musical genius.

LAUGHTER

I mean, what can you do?

I'm going to be periodically drinking water,

very important to hydrate yourself.

I tend to sort of gabble on and you don't allow yourself time to...

The reason I don't normally have a bottle of water on stage

is cos you get so easily distracted by the unbelievable crap they write on these bottles.

If you look at one of these labels, it's unbelievable.

"The water you're holding has been naturally filtered through ancient rock for 5,000 years".

Ancient rock as opposed to modern rocks that you find these days.

"This is a stunning rock formation".

Yeah, they put it up in the '60s.

And then there's always a little bit about how important water is.

You only ever find these statistics on bottles of water, conveniently.

"Did you know your body's 80% water,

so it's very important to drink as much water as you can."

As much water as you can! If they had their way I'd be drinking water solidly basically.

"It improves brain function".

I think this is probably bollocks, don't you?

Your body's 80% wat... You are four fifths water.

I find that a bit suspect really. Four fifths of you is water?

If that's true then we're all just basically paddling pools with eyes.

I find that a bit hard to swallow,

but also if it's true, if I am 80% water,

why am I buying these expensively branded bottles?

Why can't I just suck myself...anyway...

LAUGHTER

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Yeah, I...

I didn't really want to see that thought through, because I was aware

it was obviously going in a coarse direction,

but sometimes you just start saying something

and that's it, it's all over, ah.

A lot of people say, "I could never do stand up comedy, it'd be my worse nightmare".

You hear this quite a lot, "Oh, that'd be my worst nightmare".

In a way, it just shows you how limited people's nightmares must be.

This is just talking, you must have something worse in the bowels of your subconscious.

I had a nightmare, I was having the shit kicked out of me by Nelson Mandela,

like proper stuff, fingers in my eyes, knee in the balls -

surprisingly athletic for an 80-year-old man - pulling my hair, all the dirty tricks.

You want to punch him back, you can't, it's Mandela, you'd be a racist - THAT'S a nightmare!

It's just the world we live in. It's an aggressive bloody world, isn't it?

I'm a relatively simple person, I don't want much out of life,

but even the simplest things are hard to accomplish.

For example, I went out recently on a shopping expedition to buy one carrot, right,

that was all I wanted, a single carrot.

My wife was cooking... She wasn't just cooking that,

she had a recipe of which that was a component,

she wasn't just going to cook the carrot, "There you are", like an ice lolly...

She does most of the cooking -

I'm aware some people are thinking, "I doubt he's got a wife" -

I bloody have, no time to prove it,

but just take my word for it, there we are, I have a...

I own a...woman, so...

You can't say that these days, can you?!

Anyway, so to get onto more politically-correct ground,

my wife does all the cooking... It's actually true,

I pretty much let my wife cook, purely because it's a sensible distribution of skills.

My wife is a good cook and I'm very poor at it.

I'm happy with my role, which is basically,

you know, just foraging, but I went to buy this one... I say foraging,

it's very much that - normally, if you go to Tesco, you will lay your hands on a carrot,

no real jeopardy there.

Still, I like to pick it up and go, "Got it!" You know?

But actually, this is my point,

it was surprisingly hard to buy a bloody carrot, right -

I took it to the till, this is ALL I was buying, one carrot -

first of all, this lady tried to put it in a bag for me,

and I always try to not take a bag if I don't need one for environmental reasons,

but they're furious. You'll have tried doing this,

if you say, "I don't need a bag", they look at you like, "How dare you?

"How dare you?" This woman was... She said, "What are you going to do?"

And I said, "Well, I don't want to appear cocky here,

"but I've got two hands, there's only one carrot,

"I think I will nail this.

"I'm almost certain I'll get this home by hook or by crook".

Because what am I going to do?

Just walk around with one carrot in a bag?

"I've got my carrot in a bag!"

"How was your day?"

"Yeah, great, just walking with my carrot in its bag!

"I've got a piece of celery at home in a bit of Tupperware, too".

I don't want to make out I'm someone with a repertoire of vegetables that I walk...

Anyway, then there's a receipt,

she insisted on printing out a bloody receipt which meant the till roll had to be changed -

why?!

Why do you need a receipt for this transaction?

All I'm buying is a single carrot, why would you ever need a receipt?!

You're not going to bite into it and think, "Hang on, this is a pear".

Right, basically, buying a carrot can't go that badly wrong.

So by now, I'm really impa... I was frothing with impatience,

I wanted to get home, see my wife, whether she exists or not,

and finally, just when I thought I had finally secured this carrot,

as I was walking out, this girl was like, "Excuse me,

" before you go" - so now I have to listen - I said, "Yes?"

She said, "Did you want to pre-order the Harry Potter DVD?"

LAUGHTER

Now, what part of my actions so far would give you that impression?

I was trying to be polite, I said, "Sorry?"

So by now, SHE'S impatient like I'm sort of idiot,

"Did you want to pre-order the Harry Potter DVD?"

I mean, no, not really, my aim was to buy a carrot

and I would say I've achieved that modest end.

I mean, if I wanted to buy a Harry Potter DVD, what I'd probably do is go somewhere like HMV, for example,

I'd go to a place where you could buy DVDs, I'd pre-order it,

when the time came I would collect it,

I'd take it home and I'd watch it - I wouldn't approach this transaction by going to a supermarket,

seizing a carrot from the fruit and veg bit, and then standing there at the checkout thinking,

"She knows what I really want here, she'll gather my true intentions.

"She knows that this carrot is a metaphor for an orange wand"!

Is this what supermarket shopping is meant to be?

Some sort of guessing game?

"I'd like ten Lucky Strikes, please" -

"Shrek 2, I'll just see if we've got it in".

-But thanks very much, you've been a lovely crowd.

-LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

My name's Mark Watson, see you again! Bye, thank you, bye!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Mark Watson!

Mark Watson, ladies and gentlemen!

Ladies and gentlemen, are you ready for one more comedian? CHEERING

Absolutely fantastic, one of my favourite performers -

ladies and gentlemen,

would you please welcome Andrew Maxwell!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Hooray!

HE LAUGHS

Good evening, The Apollo!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Are you feeling OK?

God, it's hot in this country, isn't it, though?

-It's hot, are you feeling hot?

-CHEERING

Oh, it's hot,

God, it's hot.

Compared to Ireland, it's very, very hot.

Has anybody here ever experienced an Irish summer?

CHEERING

Oh, my God, what an August we can offer the world, people!

20 degrees!

Every day!

Granted, it's not a great tourism slogan -

"Come to Ireland, it's room temperature"!

Do we have any English people here?

CHEERING

We have got English people.

I want you to know, on behalf of all the Irish people in the room,

and all the Irish people watching this at home,

I want you to know you're totally forgiven.

LAUGHTER

You're forgiven, English people, we no longer hate you.

It's in the past, it's over.

You're forgiven, we don't hate you any more...

We can't afford to hate you.

LAUGHTER

Aaah...

Who knew hatred was a luxury item?

Any Muslim people here?

I was just wondering,

because this is the thing I've been getting recently,

when I've been asking, "Is there any Muslims in?",

I'm getting pissed-up geezers saying yes.

I did a gig in Bethnal Green about a year ago, I went, "Is there any Muslims in?"

This dude stands up, shaved head, fat neck, Ben Sherman,

it was the most unlikely Muslim in the world.

LAUGHTER

This man looked like he was entirely made of sausage.

He stands up, he stands up in the middle of the audience,

I went, "Is there any Muslims in?"

He stands up, lifts up his pint of Stella and just went, "Yeah!"

"What? You're a Muslim?" He went, "Yeah! Why not?"

Fair enough, I know that's how you join.

I thought there and then, maybe that is the solution to the old Islamic panic in the British media,

an all-cockney mosque.

Now THERE'S a mosque the Daily Mail would find hard to complain about being built.

Oh, you can see it now, can't you?

The call to prayer from the top of the geezer minaret in the Cockney mosque...

..Oi-oooooooooiii!

Want some!

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Ah, every Friday evening at the Cockney mosque,

neat rows of white Reebok classic down the street.

ANDREW MAXWELL CHUCKLES

Probably the most inspiring thing of the year has definitely been the Arab Spring.

It's been incredible,

I mean, it's gotten better in some places than others.

The worst thing for me is that Tony Blair's back on TV -

ooh, I really don't like that sun-kissed hustler.

Do you know he's brought out an autobiography?

How bad taste is that?

While we're still stuck in the two wars that he started

so he could curry favour with the American industrial-military complex,

so he could see out the rest of his sunny life on golf courses in Florida, yeah?

There we are, he's brought out an autobiography,

-HE IMPERSONATES TONY BLAIR:

-You know, Tony Blair, my journey,

you know, just in case people want to see it from Tony's perspective.

Not really. Not really, Tone.

What other bad taste bits of merchandise have you got up your sleeve there, Tony?

A fragrance?

"Tony Blair, denial".

You never know what will offend people.

I hope I haven't offended anybody?

You don't know.

You can talk about whatever you want on stage, nobody gives a toss,

but you talk about cats, don't talk about cats on TV, you know,

even if it's a funny thing about cats,

like cat in the bin, remember that?

There was a week of cat in the bin - a week! -

of a cat going into a bin!

You remember the first time you saw that horrific,

horrific footage of the cat going into the bin?

I know, live it with me, brothers and sisters.

Is it just me, or was your first reaction,

"Why...

"is Susan Boyle...

"putting a cat in the bin?"

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

It was going on.

Genuinely, my first reaction when I saw the cat go in -

I've become such an environmental idiot as I've got older -

genuinely, my first reaction when I saw the cat go into the bin was, "Oh, God, no, wrong bin...

"..a cat is 100% recyclable".

You never know, man, I love the news, and the tabloids.

I love the tabloids, man, but aren't they creepy?

Oh, you better believe they are, here's a classic example -

the Middletons, Kate and Pippa, right?

They must have been raised in pretty much the same upbringing, right?

They've got to be pretty similar women.

Not in the tabloids, they're not!

I feel sorry for Pippa, do you?

Because all the filth is on her, isn't it?

Because the tabloids can't say anything untoward about Kate,

not the future Queen of England.

-IN QUEEN'S ENGLISH:

-"Oh, here she comes, lovely, lovely Kate,

"oh, lovely, lovely Kate, here she comes,

"Duchess of Cambridge, future Queen of England, here she is..."

-HE SINGS:

-# Aaah... #

"..handing out coins to the immigrant children."

# Aaah... #

-IN COCKNEY ACCENT:

-"Look at filthy Pippa!

"Urrrgh, you filthy cow!

"Who brings an arse to a wedding?!"

# Aaah... #

Lovely, lovely Kate,

# Aah... # ..healing the poor with her eyes...

# Aah... #

Look at filthy Pippa! Down the docks with a bell, ding-ding!

Come and get it, boys,

come on!

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

People, you've been an absolute delight.

Thank you Apollo, good night.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Andrew Maxwell, ladies and gentlemen!

Andrew Maxwell!

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for coming out tonight.

We hope you've had a wonderful time - one more hand please for Mr Andrew Maxwell and Mark Watson.

Thanks for coming, good night!

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