Episode 8 Live at the Apollo

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

'Jack Whitehall!'

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Live at the Apollo.

CHEERING

Ladies and gentlemen,

we have a cracking show in store for you this evening.

You are in for a treat.

And let me say, you look like you deserve it. This looks like a beautiful audience.

CHEERING

Oh, yeah.

Some beautiful faces in here.

And also a couple of famous faces as well. Oh, yes.

A star-studded audience tonight in the Hammersmith Apollo.

Kerry Katona is in the house.

CHEERING

Oh, yeah. Kerry Katona.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

I love Kerry!

I watched Kerry, I watched you on the Big Brother.

Celebrity Big Brother.

I wasn't sure, about this series of Celebrity Big Brother,

truth be told.

I thought quite a predictable series, Celebrity Big Brother.

It was won by a gypsy.

Well, obviously he was going to be the last one to get evicted.

No, it's nice to have you here, Kerry.

It's lovely everyone has come out to the Hammersmith Apollo

to have a laugh, to enjoy yourselves

because I think, on the whole,

we are quite a grumpy nation. We are a grumpy nation of people

but I think that's something that we should celebrate. Celebrate how grumpy we are

because that's what makes us British, and if we weren't like this

we'd be like Americans, and we don't want that.

There are some things in this great country, oh, yeah,

there are some things that we will never have,

and we need to embrace that. Like customer service.

We are never going to have customer service in the UK.

They love that shit in America. I don't want it here.

Go into a shop in the UK, you know what you're getting put through, yeah?

Like your phone shop, for example.

You walk into the Carphone Warehouse, you know the drill.

You know if you go to Carphone Warehouse you can get ignored for days.

LAUGHTER

There'll be a corpse where an elderly gentleman's

tried to upgrade without his wife there to help,

and even when you do get assistance

it's going to be from some patronising little suited teenager,

constantly arksing you, "How many minutes you talk in a month, bruv?"

When you leave the shop, you feel like you've earned your phone.

I broke my phone when I was in America.

I had to go into the Apple Store in New York.

Oh, my God! The Apple Store in New York

is like a big, white, glistening cathedral

of twats!

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Before you even have your foot in the door,

there's a wank-tard in your face.

"Hey, buddy, my name's Drew. What brings you to the Apple Store today, hombre?

"I'm here to buy a phone, not make a friend. Piss off."

They genuinely applaud the first customer in of the day.

The Apple Store in New York. They all stand around applauding the idiot as he walks in.

"'Whoo, we love you, man, customer number one, you rock."

Can you imagine getting away with that at a phone shop in the UK? I think not!

T-Mobile in the Westfield Shopping Centre?

The only customer getting applauded is the last one OUT of the day.

"Oh, thank Christ you've gone, mate.

"We can all go down the pub, you BlackBerry wanker!"

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

I don't like customer service.

And it works both ways as well.

When I was in America I needed to use the train, and I was on the platform,

and I saw a poster in one of the stations, right?

It had on it, one of their rail employees.

She was there, all made up, her eyes full of life and hope.

She had a smile across her face,

and then underneath it, a little slogan,

"Hey, you got enough snacks for the journey? Enjoy your trip."

Compare that to the posters you get up and down this great island

on every single station platform. What is it?

A poster of a National Rail employee with a massive black eye.

"Please don't hit our staff."

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Recently, I really wanted to get into a relationship

and, lo and behold, I met the woman of my dreams. She was incredible, right?

As soon as we start going out the problems start emerging

cos, when I first met her she was great,

but as soon as the relationship became official, she changed.

When I first met her she was cool, she was funny, exciting.

She said she was bi. I was like, "Oooh! Sexy!"

Turns out she meant bipolar. She was...

LAUGHTER

And she scared me as well, like, she intimidated me.

The older woman. She liked things I wasn't comfortable with, in the bedroom, for example.

That was a nightmare because she liked to be experimental in the bedroom.

When it comes to the bedroom, I'm quite English about the whole thing.

Quite sort of English Victorian, right?

I want three minutes in the dark, we both roll over,

assume the foetal position and cry for a bit.

That's how it should be done, right?

None of this talking, as well. I hate the talking.

This is the element I can't stand.

They say during sex that a woman should lie back and think of England.

I think they should lie back and think of London, specifically, London Underground.

Don't make any eye contact and don't dare start a conversation.

This girl, she was obsessed with doing all the talking

and I'd warned her, I had warned her, people,

this voice does not work in the bedroom.

It is not a sexy voice so stop trying to make me dirty talk,

but she persisted in doing it. She tried to trick me.

She'd be like, "Oh, Jack, tell me I've been a bad girl.

-(SLIGHTLY EFFEMINATE TONE)

-"You've been a bad girl.

"How bad? I don't know. Is there a scale?

"Worse than a looter, not as bad as Harold Shipman. Are you happy?"

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

There were so many problems with our relationship, so many issues.

The major one was that her friends didn't like me

and, as a guy, if a girl's friends don't like you, you are screwed.

There's nothing you can do

it's like laws of the animal kingdom. Girls are like a pride,

they're gracious, they look after, nurture the weakest of the group.

Guys don't give a shit.

They will kick out the weakest to rot in the sun.

If you want to observe this in all of its beauty,

the savannah, if you will, is the airport.

When you see groups of girls and groups of guys

going as lads and girls on tour, to like, Ayia Napa, Ibiza, Magaluf,

and it all starts in the airports with the tour tee-shirts

and the tour hoodies they've had made up.

You see the girls with their little wheelies,

their little neatly ironed pink hoodies they've organised months in advance,

with little nicknames, on the back, in glitter...

except with girls it's not nicknames, is it?

It's character building.

They'll find any positive about their friends and celebrate it. Incredible to see.

You'll see the group of girls and at the back there'll be this 300 tonne hunk of ham

with like, a gammy leg, chins growing out of their ears

you didn't even know a chin could grow out of.

She reaches herself round to see if there's a queue outside Greggs

and on her back in glitter it just says, "Angel Eyes".

You can't deny her eyes are gorgeous.

They follow you around the room, because one of them is lazy.

Next to them in the queue you've got the guys,

they're crawling over a bin liner full of tee-shirts, desperate to get the one that says "Shagger".

And then they start dishing them out amongst their friends,

except with them it's not nicknames. It's character assassination

with no wit or reason to it, whatsoever.

It's just like, Dick Splash, Shithead, Tit Face,

some poor guy in a wheelchair getting forced into one that says, "Top Gear".

It's cruel.

He's not even part of their group.

And they get on the holiday,

it's no different when they're actually on the holiday.

Groups of girls on holiday, they're sunbathing on the beach,

and one of them falls asleep in the sun, they'll wake them up.

That's what they do.

A guy wouldn't dream of doing that.

The girls, it's like, "'Angel Eyes, Angel Eyes,

"wake up! You're falling asleep in the sun.

"You're burning all over your shoulders. Girls, quickly, get some suntan...

"We're going to need more than that. Come on, girls.

"It'll be all right. We're looking out for you

"cos we're BFF, friends for ever."

LAUGHTER

Further on down the beach, "Oy, what's Jay doing? Shh!

"He's fallen asleep in the midday sun. Oh, wow!

"Shall we put some suntan lotion on him? Yeah!

"I'll draw the balls, you do the shaft."

LAUGHTER

Yes. It's very funny, isn't it, Hammersmith Apollo?

Laugh it all up. That will take weeks to go!

LAUGHTER AND CHEERING

APPLAUSE

WHISTLING

Someone wolf whistled. That was NOT sexy.

Yeah, that's how I like my guys with a cock on their chest.

Maybe Kerry.

No, I didn't...

I couldn't resist!

The relationship, it didn't last.

And it WAS my fault. It was a Friday night when it happened,

because she had arranged dinner and then a movie. That sounds quite fun,

but it is not fun because she's a sophisticated, mature woman.

This was a sophisticated, mature dinner

and I hate going to fancy restaurants on dates

because if you go to a fancy restaurant on a date

they make you look like an idiot. If you take a girl on a date,

you need to go somewhere where you can look like you're in control

which is why, if you're ever taking a girl on a date,

there is only one place, and one place alone, you can take them.

Any takers?

AUDIENCE: Nando's.

Nando's.

Correct!

Nando's is where you take them

because if you go to Nando's you can look like you know your shit.

You arrive at Nando's early. You're greeted at the door.

"Hello, has sir ever been to Nando's before? Yes, I have, my good man,

"and we both know you'll be doing absolutely bugger all this evening, so stand aside!

Have that booth in the corner.

Ooh, banquette seating, nice for scooching up together when this gets interesting later on.

First, time for the wine. "What would Madame like?

"A dry Sancerre or a crisp Sauvignon Blanc?" Doesn't matter, it's Nando's.

They both taste exactly the same.

Which leads us on to the food.

"Do you like chicken?" Good, cos it's all chicken. I already know what I'm getting.

It's a double chicken breast in a pitta, lemon and herb spice,

but at the last minute, I'm asking the guy at the counter

to swap the little flags round

so he can put in one that says it's extra hot,

so when I'm eating it she thinks that I'm hard as nails.

"Would sir like cheese and pineapple with that?" Why does anyone want cheese and pineapple with chicken?

It makes no logical sense. Her dinner has arrived.

She's order two sides, one of macho peas, one of witty repartee.

At this point in proceedings, ladies and gentlemen,

she is eating out of the palm of my hand,

mainly because I've forgotten to get the bloody cutlery from the tooling up desk.

But it doesn't matter

because he's about to ask the question every woman asks.

This is the killer, this is make or break time

whether she'll get into the cab with you, or not.

She turns to me, looks lovingly into my eyes and says, "Jack, what's peri-peri?"

Ooh. A very, very good question, my dear.

This is the final penalty in the shoot-out at Wembley. This is make or break time.

A very good question. What is peri-peri?

I'll let you into a secret, Hammersmith Apollo. It's a good question, but also one

nobody actually knows the answer to,

so you can make up whatever the hell you like and she's still going to be impressed.

Peri-peri, my dear, is a blend of aromatic spices

bonded together by tears of Portuguese widows who lost their husbands at sea.

El hombre est il mort.

And she's mine!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Ladies and gentlemen, it is now time to move on with proceedings.

Our first act this evening, he's a lovely guy.

He's an incredible stand-up. You are absolutely going to love him.

You're in for a treat. Ladies and gentlemen, will you please give a warm welcome to the stage

to the wonderful Josh Widdicombe.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Hello.

CHEERING

-Yes. Are you well?

-AUDIENCE: Yes.

I struggle with those questions. I never know what to answer.

I'm only confident answering a question

is when I'm at my computer, like when your computer crashes,

it comes on and goes, "Your computer's just crashed. Do you want to send a report?"

No.

I'm not a grass.

LAUGHTER

If I was going to grass up my computer I wouldn't via my computer. He'll know.

I'll be grassing him up, he'll start grassing me up,

he's got far more on me than I have on him, I can tell you.

It's nice to be in Hammersmith. I've moved to London, area called Finsbury Park.

-Do we know it?

-AUDIENCE: Whoo!

Those people clearly haven't been to it.

LAUGHTER

It's not a nice area. When I moved in,

one of the ways the guy got us to take the house, he said,

"Well, great location.

"To give you an idea, you live just across the road from Argos Extra."

If you don't know it, it's a smaller version of Argos.

They've used the rare definition of "extra" to mean "far, far less".

LAUGHTER

They've got the normal catalogues which are full of things

they've never had in stock.

Dialling into the stock check for 20 minutes, nothing is coming up,

the guy said, "Are you all right?"

and I said, "You haven't got anything."

He said, "Well, what you've got to remember is that we have a greatly-reduced range.

"To give you an idea, that warehouse out the back is actually

"no bigger than this room we are having the discussion in now."

So here's an idea - go out the back, get that stuff,

bring it through here, we'll call the whole thing a shop.

LAUGHTER

Currently, what I am doing is dialling in numbers

in an attempt to guess what is the other side of a wall!

LAUGHTER

This isn't shopping, this is Battleships!

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

We've been in there 20 minutes,

I don't even remember what I came in for.

I'm just dialling in random numbers.

The only thing I have found that you have in stock

is a Playboy-themed hot-water bottle.

He said, "Yeah, that is one of our sexier items."

I said, "When did the hot water bottle become a sexy item?"

From my experience, it is used or two things -

cold feet and period pains.

LAUGHTER

Call me a weirdo, I have never been turned on by either of them.

If there is a relationship between a hot-water bottle and sex,

it is that when you see your partner is filling up a hot-water bottle,

you're not having sex.

LAUGHTER

He said, "Well, no, it is sexy, isn't it,

"because it is shaped like a rabbit."

I said, "Is that sexy?

"Obviously, we had different emotional reactions to Watership Down!"

LAUGHTER

I do not understand this Playboy idea that the way to make a woman sexier

is to give her the ears and tail of a rabbit.

It is always the ears and tail, I do not know if there are other prototypes

that Hugh Hefner tried that did not work out,

that he brought out for his mates and said, "Do you fancy her?

"She's got buck teeth.

LAUGHTER

-"And massive feet."

-LAUGHTER

"No? What about this one?

"She has fur and I have put her in a hutch.

LAUGHTER

"No? Third time lucky, she has myxomatosis.

"She shits Maltesers."

LAUGHTER

It is difficult in your 20s.

I am single, I came out of a relationship a while ago.

The worst bit is just after, when no-one knows what to say to you.

Some people say, "Well, think of the good times.

"It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all."

That is not true, is it?

Because that is not how losing things works.

When you lose your phone, your first reaction isn't,

"Well, at least I had a phone, I mean..."

LAUGHTER

It is better to have had a phone and lost a phone, isn't it?

Than never to have phoned at all.

You're thinking, "Well, those phone calls,

"they are memories I will always cherish."

Going out alone, that is difficult as well.

I went to the cinema on my own for the first time recently.

I didn't realise that is the act of an oddball.

I've eaten alone before, do not do that.

I went to Pizza Express and said, "Can I have a table for one, please?"

And she said, "No."

LAUGHTER

Instead, she gave me a table for two

and she slowly removed the cutlery of the non-existent second person.

I said, "What are you doing? I am not going to get confused!"

I'm not going to look down halfway through and say,

"Where the hell has my girlfriend gone?

"I didn't think I had one but the knife and fork are saying otherwise."

I went to the cinema alone and I went to see a film

and it wasn't on but the problem is, by the time you get to the cinema,

you feel it'd be rude to leave without seeing something

so I managed to convince myself, for the next 90 minutes,

I wanted to watch Alvin And The Chipmunks 2.

-The Squeakquel.

-LAUGHTER

I went up to the desk and said, "I will have one, please,

"for Alvin And The Chipmunks 2: The Squeakquel.

"I have not seen the first one, I do imagine I will pick it up."

She said, "One?" And I said, "Yeah, one."

She said, "You do know it is Orange Wednesday, don't you?

"It's two for one."

I said, "That is not much help for me. I am one.

"What do you expect me to do with the second ticket?"

She said, "You could offer it to someone else."

I said, "Look, people already think I am weird.

"If I was to stalk the foyer brandishing a ticket

"for Alvin And The Chipmunks 2: The Squeakquel,

"show me who would like to come and sit next to me?

"If anything, I think that is going to make matters worse,

"thank you very much!"

I left, I thought, "I'll go and get food,"

I went to Wagamama, and they've got the long benches,

I thought it'd be fine, I'd sit on the end of a long bench on my own.

I sat down and a group of three came in.

She decided to set them two opposite me,

one next to me to create a square.

I said, "What are you doing? This is the most awkward thing that has ever happened!

"This isn't Tetris."

LAUGHTER

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

You have been absolutely lovely. Thank you very much, Apollo. Cheers.

My name is Josh Widdicombe, good night!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Ladies and gentlemen, Josh Widdicombe!

CHEERING

Woo!

Ladies and gentlemen,

your next act this evening is an absolutely fantastic stand-up.

I have worked with her a lot. You are absolutely going to love her.

Will you please give a warm welcome to the stage

to the brilliant Shappi Khorsandi!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Hello, Apollo!

CHEERING

I am one of two children. I have a big brother.

There is a year between me and my brother

and we're REALLY competitive.

It took me years to beat his Pac-Man score

and when I did, he chased me out the house, down an alleyway,

wrestled me to the ground, gave me an almighty Chinese burn,

completely ruined my wedding dress.

It is not that easy to be the big brother, the big sibling,

because there is a lot of expectations when you're the older one. I understand that.

My brother, at the age of five, would draw a picture

-and my dad would go...

-IRANIAN ACCENT:

-"What is this?

"A house. And this is..."

He is foreign. "And this is the family.

"Why am I taller than the trees?

"If the sun was that close, we would all be burnt alive.

"You have to work much harder than this

"if you want your work to make it to the fridge."

LAUGHTER

You see, I think it is important to screw kids up.

Not loads, just enough for them to become interesting adults.

I have a little boy, and he's three,

and I don't think I screw him up but I must do,

because I am a mother.

I am a single mum and I had a boyfriend round at Christmas -

it turns out some boyfriends really are just for Christmas!

LAUGHTER

I was like, "You will not meet my child until we are solid."

And the chap would come round while my son was sleeping

and he would be gone in the morning before my son woke up,

but my like being my luck, they ended up meeting

in the hallway of my home at three o'clock in the morning,

both needing the loo, both naked.

And in a panic, this man said to my son, "Hello, I'm Father Christmas."

And my little boy said, "But he was here last night!"

LAUGHTER, GROANS

Sometimes you get so proud of your kids

because they display kindness and sensitivity

that, frankly, they didn't learn from you.

I went into a shop with my little boy

and the shopkeeper was two inches taller than my three-year-old.

My little boy was beside himself to say something,

absolutely beside himself, but he knew instinctively not to.

He just looked at the guy, looked me, looked at the guy,

and the bloke was brilliant, he was obviously used to children reacting to him in this way,

so he was chatting away to my boy and my boy was like, "A grown-up, my size?

"I am going to tell him EVERYTHING!"

And he did, he was like, "My name is Charlie, I live with my mummy,

"I see my daddy at the weekend, we have a cat called Lola

"and a dog called Benjamin Petanyahu."

LAUGHTER

I thought of that name.

And when we left the shop, my little boy walked as fast

as his little legs would carry him to be out of earshot.

And he went, "Mummy, Mummy, come over here, Mummy!"

And I said, "Oh, what is it, darling?"

And my little boy said, "Mummy, that man was LITTLE!"

And I was like, "Yes, darling, yes, he was little."

"Why was he so LITTLE?!"

And I thought, "What a glorious moment I am about to share with my son,

"because he is now at an age where he notices difference

"and I can explain to him now that people might look different

"and they might sound different but we all matter equally

"and inside we are all the same."

What a beautiful chat I didn't have.

I didn't say that to him.

In that moment, I said, "Because he didn't eat his broccoli."

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

No-one is proud here.

Recently, my brother said,

"You have been separated for ages now, you need to find yourself a new fella,

"why don't you go on the internet?" Cos he found his girlfriend on the internet,

I think it was eBay.

LAUGHTER

So I joined an internet website and to my surprise,

on the online form that you had to fill in,

one of the things you had to tick to see who you wanted

was racial preference and it said,

"White Caucasian," three boxes, "Not Important,

"Decidedly Important, Absolutely Crucial."

I thought, "That is a little bit weird,"

because your photo is up there in the first place,

so you can just be racist in private, why hurt anyone's feelings?

So I want to show you this.

I wrote an e-mail to the administrator of this website.

I wrote an e-mail, basically, in a nutshell, going,

"What are you on, mate?" And he wrote back going,

"The choices we provide on our matching algorithms..."

I had to look that word up.

Nothing to do with sex.

LAUGHTER

"..are for our users to find the perfect match.

"They are in no way indicative of someone being racist at all."

White Caucasian, Absolutely Crucial.

So I wrote back going, "Shut up," bit more coherently than that.

And then he wrote back and said,

"Some people are more stringent than others

"when it comes to finding a partner."

Doesn't that sound like a real dig at me?

Like, "Oh, you'd shag any old colour."

LAUGHTER

"We merely help them find the right person by enabling them

"to measure height, weight, occupation, level of income and ethnicity."

Thing is, height, weight, occupation, level of income,

they are all things that can be measured.

How do you measure ethnicity?

I had no idea how to measure my own when I was filling out the form.

I had to look on a Dulux colour chart.

Turns out, I am Natural Calico.

LAUGHTER

This correspondence went on for quite a while.

Tell me if you think I went too far -

eventually, I sent him a copy of the Nuremberg Race Laws.

LAUGHTER

I'm not saying that this website is a Nazi organisation,

I just think we should nip things in the bud at source.

LAUGHTER

He wrote back to me and said, "Dear Shappi,

"I have enjoyed our correspondence.

"I have now noticed your name is Shappi Khorsandi.

"Might you be the same I saw on the Michael McIntyre Comedy Roadshow?"

LAUGHTER

"If so, I am single..."

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

CHEERING

"..and I wondered if you'd like to go for a coffee."

LAUGHTER

Listen to this. "Won't this be a funny story to tell our kids?"

LAUGHTER

"Smiley face."

LAUGHTER

I wrote back. I said, "Thank you so much for your e-mail,

"I am very flattered.

"However, I have noticed your name is James Chaudri.

"Little bit too brown for me.

"Natural Calico only."

You've been a marvellous crowd!

You've been ace, thank you so much!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

-Thanks for that, well done.

-Mwah!

Shappi Khorsandi!

CHEERING

Ladies and gentlemen, you have been absolutely wonderful.

A big round of applause for Josh Widdicombe...

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

-..Shappi Khorsandi!

-CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

I've been Jack Whitehall, good night!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

E-mail [email protected]