Episode 5 Live at the Apollo

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome your host for tonight,

Jack Whitehall!

APPLAUSE

Wooooo! Hello!

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen!

And welcome to Live At The Apollo!

CHEERING

This, er, this my third Live At The Apollo

and one thing that people have asked me now, "Jack, you've done

"a bit of this and that, do you ever get recognised?"

Normally it's my voice that gets me in trouble, cos this is a voice

that I'm stuck with, it's not a particularly intimidating voice,

it's very hard to sound assertive with a voice like this.

I was in the cinema the other day and behind me

were these two youths, OK?

About 13, 14, hooded ne'er-do-wells behind me. They were

talking very loudly, these rude boys,

they were having what I like to term

as a "rude boy cinema club", OK? It went a little bit like this...

"Here, bruv, guess what I seen the other day on D-V-D?"

"What you seen on D-V-D, man?"

"I seen the Iron Lady." "Was it any good, blade?"

"Nah, it's shit, it's nothing like Iron Man."

LAUGHTER

I was like, I'm going to have to nip this one

in the bud for the good of the rest of the cinema. I turned round,

I was so polite to these young gentlemen. I was like,

"I'm awfully sorry, chaps, um, but is there any chance that when the film actually starts

"we can bring this tete-a-tete to a rather swift conclusion?"

13-year-old boy in my face,

"Nah! Shut up, Downton Abbey!"

So, I'm quite posh and I had a posh family upbringing

and stuff which is why I think I'm so obsessed with

trying to find the characteristics that make us all British,

things that link us all whether you're from the north, south, east,

west, any socioeconomic background - the things that unite us.

There's one, that I'm a big fan of, one that I think we all possess,

that is our obsession and adoration

in this country for free shit, right?

It's drilled into us from an early age that

if something is offered to us and it's free, we're going to have it.

Whether it could be a cup of tea or coffee, a complimentary

glass of red or white wine, a pen, a bowl of sweets, a magazine,

a sample product that's been erroneously laid out

at the supermarket - if it's free, it's ours.

We are a country whose entire healthcare system

is built upon the solid foundations of being able to convince people

into giving us their blood, with the allure of free biscuits.

I mean, woe betide any boss in this country of ours

who thinks it is a good idea to put his credit card

behind the bar at an office drinks party. Oh, no, no, no!

I did temping work before I became a stand-up,

I worked at an office where they had an American boss. At a drinks party

he put his American Express card behind the bar. Oh, I pity the fool!

In America, that might work, it would get greeted with praise.

"Hey, guys, have you heard?

"Tyler's put his credit card behind the bar!

"What a swell thing of Tyler to do!

"We'll make sure that we buy him a round later and I suspect

"we'll need to leave a pretty substantial tip, period. Yeah!"

LAUGHTER

Not in Britain.

In Britain it becomes like a challenge.

To see how much it is physically possible to drink

before that bastard becomes a pay bar.

You see people having pep talks, geeing each other up,

"Have you heard?

"That dickhead's put his credit card behind the bar!

"We're going to drink so much free alcohol in the next hour that

"Tyler has to remortgage his bloody house, come on!"

With this mindset, this mindset we have of liking free shit and taking

it regardless of whether we need it or not, is not something that has

been passed across to our European brethren. Our more rashly minded,

logical German cousins for example, do not think in this same way.

I found this out recently cos for the first time ever

I used a German airline.

They were amazing!

Best airline I've ever used, the pilot was brilliant.

We went through a little pocket of turbulence.

Now, I am a very nervous flyer.

He comes in straight away on that PA system

"Please do not be alarmed!"

Cue a considerable degree of alarm.

Instantly though we are put at ease by the sheer confidence

of his next statement,

"We are experiencing some turbulence problems, but do not worry,

"I will find solution to the weather!"

Not to the plane, he'll find a solution to the weather!

He's there in the cockpit parting the clouds like the god Zeus!

Compare that to the bullshit you're used to on bloody

budget airlines. I was on a budget airline once, again we were waiting

on the runway for about an hour, everyone was getting a bit nervous,

PA system comes on,

"Hello, erm, ladies and gentlemen, erm, we are experiencing

"a few technical difficulties, in a few a moments the cabin will

"go quiet as we kill the engine, before we then re-boot it again

"and we should be off in a couple of moments."

Sorry - come again?

We're on a little metal bird that is about to be propelled through

the air at hundreds of kilometres per hour,

and the way you plan on fixing the current problem

is by switching it off and switching it back on again?

It's a plane, not a bloody PlayStation!

Make some shit up! What's next, the air hostess

on the runway blowing on it to see whether that works?

But that's the problem -

we all now are in the mindset of travelling with budget airlines so

when you travel with a nice airline you forget. Like food, for example.

I'm used to buying the food in the airport,

otherwise it's 10 euros for a panini

on board that's dry as a camel's fanny, and no-one wants that.

So I was in the airport, I bought myself a massive Burger King,

the biggest Burger King that I could muster, burgers, fries, nuggets, everything!

So much that I had to pay for it as extra baggage. I get on to

the Deutsche Air flight, I start eating it. I eat so much food,

you know when you've eaten so much,

when you sweat you can smell meat on it? I had the meat sweats!

Ten minutes into the flight,

the air hostess starts walking down the centre of the plane with

a trolley, administering as she goes a complimentary cheese strudel!

Now, my free shit radar clocks her immediately.

I lock onto her like the Predator. I'm like, "Oh, yeah, honey,

"you'd better come on down give some of that cheesy goodness to Daddy."

Cos my internal monologue is from Harlem.

She goes down the plane, she's giving out these cheese strudels,

she stops at a German gentlemen sat next to me, who, like myself,

had opted to buy something for himself in the airport.

He'd gone for some salad concoction.

He looks at her, she looks at him,

the look lasts no longer than a second.

But it was as though in that moment everything has been said,

it is as though the man has gone,

"Guten Tag, mein herr, but I must point out to you that I will not be

"requiring your delicious baked goods today because I have decided

"to instead to partake in the consumption

"of this totally delicious salad platter

"of cold meats and pickled vegetables, therefore

"it would be totally illogical and irrational for me to take

"from you your cheese strudel.

"I must bid you farewell, Auf Wiedersehen...

"and point out how similar I sound to the pilot in this story."

She walks off, OK?

She then arrives at my place, she looks at me,

she looks at my sweaty, meaty face.

LAUGHTER

She looks at the carnage on my tray table,

the sotted remnants of my Burger King meal, she smiles again,

and then, ladies and gentlemen, she moves the trolley on by.

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

"Where do you think you're going?"

I start panicking, all right? I start looking round my place,

I look above me to see if there is a sign,

I was not aware that I was sat in the no-strudel zone!

I beckon her back like a policeman who's caught a drink driver.

I'm like, "Madam, you'd better park that vehicle up,

"and I suggest you have a pretty damn good explanation as to what

"that little moment of madness was about!"

"Where the hell is my cheese strudel?"

She looks at me smiling, she's still smiling!

Like this is some big bloody joke to her,

and do you know what she says, ladies and gentlemen?

She goes, "But sir is eating the burger?"

I'm like, "Yes! I know sir is eating ze burger. Sir bought ze burger

"from ze airport so sir could eat ze burger on ze bloody plane!

"But what you are forgetting to remember about sir is that

"sir is also a British citizen.

"And therefore even if sir had just eaten the nicest meal

"of his entire life and was so full that the consumption

"of any more solid matter

"would cause sir to explode across the cabin,

"if sir is offered something that is free, sir will take said free item

"even if by eating it, it will make sir feel physically ill.

"So would you kindly stop making assumptions about

"my dietary requirements, put that pretty little hand of yours

"into that trolley and strudel me up!"

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

In hindsight, I might have been a little more polite.

The lady puts her hand into the trolley,

she withdraws from it one complimentary cheese strudel.

I swipe it from her triumphantly,

not breaking eye contact for a moment.

I then take the biggest bite that I could muster.

It is at this point, ladies and gentlemen of the Hammersmith Apollo,

that I realised three vital pieces of information

about the Deutsche Air complimentary cheese strudel.

Number one, it is the hottest thing

I have ever put in my mouth in my entire life.

It now feels like I have just given a blow job to the Human Torch.

Fire coursing through my very veins,

but do I let this register on my face?

Oh, no, no, no! I do not want to give

the strudel fraulein the satisfaction.

Number two vital piece of information

about the complimentary cheese strudel on the Deutsche Air flight,

it is the most disgusting thing I have ever tasted in my life.

It tastes as though a tramp has just wrapped his foot in pastry

and kicked me in the mouth.

It's so gross-smelling and tasting

that even the head chef at a Wetherspoons would be like, "No,

"we can't serve them that."

Utterly disgusting, but do I give up? No, Hammersmith Apollo, I do not

give up. In a fit of the Blitz spirit, I eat every single morsel

of that cheesy pocket of misery, as a point of principle.

Whitehall one, strudel Nazi nil.

The third and final vital piece of information about the Deutsche Air

complimentary cheese strudel is that

if you are sat in the first class seats it is indeed

a complimentary cheese strudel, but, if like me,

you're in standard class, it costs four euros fifty!

Epic fail.

That's why the German economy is thriving

and ours is up shit creek without a paddle.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have fantastic acts on for you this

evening and it is my great privilege to introduce you to the first one.

She is fantastic. I've worked with her on many an occasion,

I'm sure you're going to love her as much as I do, please would you

give a warm welcome to the stage to the wonderful Katherine Ryan!

Hello! My name is Katherine, what's yours? Shout it out.

LAUGHTER

I talk funny cos I come from Canada.

But I live in the UK now, which can be very confusing,

but no, I'm just like you, I'm a British mum.

I'm your typical British mum really, a young uneducated immigrant.

That's great.

MUTED LAUGHTER

Ohhh, no, my daughter was planned...

Poorly, so poorly.

I made my little sister the baby's godmother. Yeah,

cos she was too fat to be my bridesmaid, so.

That's the rule, that's the rule.

There are loads of celebrity mums for us to look up to, aren't there?

Kate Middleton is glorious,

beautiful, classic, beautiful English mum, I love her.

I remember when Kate Middleton announced her pregnancy.

I was like, "Awww!

"I wonder if she'll keep it? Who knows?"

I know. The young Royals are hot.

Aren't they hot?

Prince Harry, ahhh, he is getting serious with his girlfriend,

I read that in Hell No magazine.

I love Prince Harry, or as I like to refer to him

the Duke of I-just-came-bridge.

Ladies? Ladies?

But I know who my hero mum is, ladies,

my hero mum has got to be Beyonce!

CHEERING

I love Beyonce. Beyonce's strong, she's powerful.

When Beyonce came out as part of, Destiny's Child - that's right,

she was only 15, like a little baby, 15!

In pleather trousers, showing off that, like, camel toe -

in Canada it's moose knuckle, you can have that.

A little girl in pleather...

# No, no, no, no! #

Remember? And everybody was like, "That's fine.

"That's fine, there goes a strong, powerful, beautiful black woman."

And when Rihanna came out - same deal, she was very young,

16 with that # Hey, Mister DJ pump on the replay... #, you know?

And again everyone went, "There goes a strong, powerful, beautiful black woman."

Noooo! We all know how that turned out. Not well.

But when a little white girl puts on a mini skirt and tries to do

a song and dance... Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus, Lindsay Lohan,

me?

Everybody said, "That's not happening, back in the closet.

"She must have had terrible parents, no, no." And it's not fair!

Cos all I've ever wanted to be my entire life

is a strong, powerful, beautiful black woman.

Beyonce is a headline act.

She headlined the American Super Bowl,

does anyone watch American football?

CHEERING

Do you? Yeah, I do sometimes. Beyonce, that's a big day.

Like, grandparents are there, the kids, all Americans,

they have this big... Everyone comes together and there's a turkey.

You know Americans are serious about

like, sports or genocide when they get a turkey...

-Erm...

-LAUGHTER

And Beyonce came out to headline that thing.

In an outfit made of like python and elephant,

like stuff you should not kill.

She treated us, to a reunion, y'all, of...

Destiny's Child - that's exactly right!

It was # N'n'n'n'n'n'n, Kelly!

# Can you handle this! #

And she's like, "Come over here, the other one, can you handle this?"

Now you know.

And they had been living under the stage the last four years!

Cos Kelly popped up on this side and she was ready, right,

"What's up, Beyonce, hm!"

And she had the kind of thighs you need to be friends with Beyonce,

the kind of thighs that could squash a man's head like a grape.

But the other one!

What happened to the other one?

Other one was not expecting a phone call.

She pops up on this side like, frightened,

like a little deer in the headlights, like,

"Arghhhhhhh!

"Erghhhhhh!"

Skinny, like rickety crickets,

like degenerative bone disease,

some kind of muscle atrophy,

she's probably great,

# All the single ladies... #

If you put a ring on it you would snap this bitch's finger off!

APPLAUSE

"Arghhh!"

And after like two lines each, Beyonce dismissed them.

She's like, "Thank y'all, thank y'all Kelly.

"Thank y'all...Not-Kelly..."

"Goodbye." And they're like "Arghhhhh!"

She's like "That's what happens when y'all don't practise!"

Beyonce became more powerful as a mother, didn't she, didn't she?

I know what changed - it was the hips.

They went from like the little,

# No no no #

Straight into the Beyonce hips we know and love today.

She can't stop the hips now,

Beyonce walks to the grocery store this way now, like uh-oh!

"Milk and bread, milk and bread for Beyonce."

CHEERING

"Uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh!"

This is Beyonce queuing at the bank, "Uh-oh, uh-oh!"

That's a powerful woman!

You saw Miley Cyrus at VMAs.

This is not a dance...

Twerking is a victim's dance. It's a cry for help.

LAUGHTER

"Erggggg!"

CHEERING

Nah. No...

You know, you don't want to dance like that,

you want to dance like Beyonce. You can be sexy but dance like Beyonce,

like you sit on a dick and rip it off.

Beyonce is so powerful, she reinvented sexy face.

You didn't even notice, did you?

Sexy face, what did it used to look like, girls?

Show me a little sexy face.

Look at you, a little smile, a little, hey now! WRONG!

Sexy face, practise with me, thanks to Beyonce,

is - there's a bad smell and you're angry about it.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

You come at your man like this tonight, like.

He'll be like, "It was the dog!"

Thank you so much for listening, I'm Katherine Ryan, see you soon.

APPLAUSE

Katherine Ryan, ladies and gentleman! Wow!

So before we go on, I want to welcome some of the celebrity guests

that we have on tonight.

I am so excited to see some of the faces in the crowd.

Oh, my God, as a big fan of the underground music scene

I am so pumped that we have got one of the dopest,

one of the sickest musicians around, Tinie Tempah...

Will you look over there, it's one of the Pussycat Dolls!

Kimberly Wyatt from the Pussycat Dolls!

Ladies and gentlemen, we have another fantastic act for you to

enjoy. I'm such a massive fan of the next guy I'm bringing out.

I'm so excited he's on the same show with me, you're going

to absolutely love him. Will you please give a warm

Hammersmith Apollo welcome to the fantastic Rich Hall!

Thank you!

What a glorious, internationally star studded evening of comedy -

you've had British and Canadians and now the American.

Now the token American fella,

it's like a UN council of comedy for you, isn't it?

-Can you feel the difference between the Canadian and the American?

-Yes!

Yeah. Aside from the lack of guns.

I have to, cos people ask me all the time now,

"So, Rich, does everybody in America own an assault rifle?

"Is it mandatory?"

"Er, no."

"Then why?"

"I don't know, maybe because Americans have guns."

"Well, why not get rid of them?"

"That would be like trying to stop obesity

"by getting rid of spoons, all right?"

It's not going to happen, cos Americans have guns

and we're not getting rid of them cos there's always some guy

in a camouflage outfit with an AR-15 going "Arghh!

"The Second Amendment says I have the right to carry..."

That was written 220 years ago, you prick.

WHOOPING

I don't think they foresaw you were going to own an AR-15

with a laser sight on the top and a 200 magazine clip.

I think they were thinking of muskets.

That's why they pulled a quill out of a duck's back

and dipped it in ink and wrote it into law.

I was reading a cover of a magazine in America,

cos we have all these gun magazines and there's one called Guns & Ammo.

This is the, this is the headline of the article,

I didn't even read the article, this is just the headline -

"Which is better for capturing a mallard: Kalashnikov or Browning?"

How about a piece of bread?

The state of Iowa has just passed a law,

it's now OK to get a hunting licence in Iowa, if you're blind.

If you're blind!

I'm pretty sure that bill was introduced by deer and pheasants.

So the government, you know they have every opportunity to pass a gun law

but they never do, they never do.

"Well, it's going to happen again, don't worry."

"Well, what if it happens?" "It's going to happen."

"We need to pass a law."

"Nope, we're not going to pass a law

"because of the National Rifle Association."

That's the gun lobby - and they just say, "Well,

"it's not our problem people go a bit nutty,

"you can't regulate nutty."

Well, what about if some guy gets tooled up

because he's just watched a Batman film and then he goes off

to a cinema and shoots other people dressed as Batman characters?

You don't think that has something to do with violence on television?

"No. People know the difference between what they see on television

"and real life."

Oh, yeah, then how come there's advertising?

You people will go out and buy insurance

because a meerkat told you to do it.

And you're pretty normal people.

Americans get all tooled up, then they go out

and imitate other behaviour and well, there it is, it happened again.

So, right, the NRA has an answer.

Someone says, just asks them point blank all the time,

"So what are you going to do about shootings in schools?"

This is the NRA's actual answer, this is their solution.

"Well, let's arm the teachers."

Man, that makes sense.

Most of us know teachers who can't even pass by a white board

without getting covered in ink, we're going to give them a gun!

They'll be standing in the classroom

going, "What the hell am I supposed to do with this?

"Last week they gave me blunt scissors!"

"Now I've got a gun..."

Cos there are teachers in this room,

ladies and gentlemen, who know full well,

if you had a loaded pistol in the classroom...

I'm not saying you'd fire it, but you'd probably wave it about a bit...

"Timmy, I told you to sit down!"

I had horse meat in Montreal last month,

this is something the Brits, are kind of upset about.

But not really.

I had horse meat and it was in Montreal

so it was prepared by French and it was delicious.

I didn't order it, someone else ordered it and I had a bite

and I thought, "Wow, horse meat tastes pretty good." But when it

happens in Britain you go, "Hey, how could this possibly happen?"

"What? They've been putting horse meat in our frozen lasagne?

"I'm shocked!"

Who's walking through the supermarket like,

"Come here, fella, hey, do you work here? What's your name, Alex?

"Alex, I'd like to treat myself to a sumptuous Italian meal.

"Can you help me?"

"Er, certainly, sir.

"We sell a pasta-making machine right here at the supermarket - you can

"make your own pasta and we have rows of fresh vegetables,

"cheeses and spices." "Right, I forgot to mention

"I have no domestic skills or self-respect."

"Oh, well, we have a takeaway counter there

"that makes a fresh lasagne bolognese, that was made today,

"you can just take that home and heat that up in your oven for 30 minutes."

"That would involve a certain amount of time, wouldn't it, there, Alex?"

"What do you have that comes in a box?

"That's just a coagulated big mass of animal and vegetable decay,

"that's just kind of been wedged into a plastic hospital bedpan,

"that I can shove into a microwave and twirl round and watch it as it

"comes around and every time it does give a big screw-you to my mother,

"and her mother and her mother and anyone who ever spent

"countless hours in the kitchen making tasty, palatable meals..."

"What do you have for less than a pound that I can parade through the

"supermarket so everyone can see what a loser I am with my meal for one,

"and a serving suggestion on the front

"I don't even intend to live up to?

"I just want to stand in my own kitchen in my underpants eating

"something unidentifiable out of Frisbee with a shoehorn for a spoon?"

"I want to shove it into an irradiated box and stare through

"the window like a warden on Death Row who just strapped his own dignity

"to the electric chair and then fried it at 50,000 watts..."

LAUGHTER

"You got anything like that?"

"But I don't want any horse meat in it,

"cos I have standards."

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

There was horse meat in the meatballs at IKEA!

Christ, you can't even take your family out to a furniture store

for a decent meal any more! What the hell is going on?!

Thank you very much ladies and gentlemen, I'll see you again!

The fantastic Rich Hall!

Ladies and gentlemen, you've been a fantastic audience,

you've seen this evening -

-the brilliant Katherine Ryan...

-CHEERING

-The wonderful Rich Hall...

-CHEERING

I've been Jack Whitehall, thank you very much, good night!