Larry Dean and Felicity Ward Live from the BBC

This programme contains some strong language

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

LARRY LAUGHS

GLASWEGIAN ACCENT: Thank you very much! Thank you very much!

-Hello! AUDIENCE:

-Hello!

Nice to meet all of you, man.

It's a pleasure to be here and I'm in a good mood, man.

Actually, to be honest, this is my first gig back.

I've been off ill. I've been off ill for like a week,

having a throat infection and, yeah, it's really messed up my throat.

I'm actually from England.

LAUGHTER

No, I'm actually from Glasgow.

SOME CHEERING

Don't worry about it, I'm not an anti-English Scottish person.

A lot of English people are always worried if a Scot

is going to make fun of them and stuff. I love England.

When I come down here, you always ask me what Glasgow is like,

you know that kind of...

LONDON ACCENT: "Glasgow, Jesus, what's that like?

"Sounds a bit rough!"

It is an all-right English accent, isn't it?

Not too shabby, as you'd say.

All right, I do appreciate this is not an ENGLISH accent

because there's obviously lots of different types.

Actually, this is more of

a kind of south-west London estate-agent accent.

You know that kind of guy who thinks he's absolutely mental

because he gets the last train home. Jesus!

The kind of guy, when he hears a police siren,

he goes, "Ha-ha! Probably for me! What am I like?!"

One of those absolute nutters.

IN OWN ACCENT: I just thought I'd practise the accent.

I like the accent, but I thought I may as well practise it,

just in case I wanted to work down here

and there was a yes-vote to Scottish independence.

That could've got me past the border patrol,

just driving up, going... ENGLISH ACCENT: "All right, mate?

"Just going home. See you later, cheers.

"Oh, sorry, mate, what's my vehicle?

"It's a banter bus, mate. Get your ticket now. Wey-hey!"

Actually, did you guys... Did you guys want Scotland to leave the UK?

-AUDIENCE:

-No.

-No?

Did anyone want Scotland to go?

-No.

-No, nobody?

That's lovely.

"No, please don't leave us, we need your money.

"Give me your oil, man."

I thought it would be a bit weird, right,

cos personally, personally, I'm going to be honest,

I voted yes, but it wasn't an anti-English thing at all.

You guys should have your own independence referendum

because you hate Westminster politicians more than anyone.

I think we should all come together

and have an independence referendum from just Westminster.

It would be great, we could just cordon off Westminster,

have a big wall around it and that's where we'll put

all the people who think they're powerful,

but they're really just wrongies.

It could be our Vatican.

But it got a bit cringey at points, man,

especially that kind of thing of, "Oh, Scotland, if you leave the UK,

"you're not going to be able to use the pound any more."

It was like, "Oh, my God!

"What are we going to do with all our shopping trolleys? Meh!"

And the thing is, I thought, if Scotland leave the UK,

we'd have to get rid of the Union Jack flag.

If we got rid of the Union Jack flag, that would be a disaster.

Nobody would know which pub was racist any more.

What would the racists use as their slogan?

You know that, "There ain't no black in the Union Jack."

It's like, just cos that rhymes, doesn't mean that makes sense.

I hate that shit, man.

For some reason, stupid people seem to think

if something rhymes, that's a fact.

Life is not that simple, I'm afraid, mate.

Like, I bet all the guys have heard these ones,

like, "Bros before hos, mate, bros before hos."

That is just sexing with a twang.

Do girls do that to guys?

Do girls come up with rhymes for guys?

"If one arm's bigger than the other,

"he's probably a lonely bugger."

You're going, "Maybe next time, actually, yeah!"

Yeah, man, I got so annoyed with that ain't no black...

Because a lot of the immigration stuff going on

and people were like, "Ain't no black in the Union Jack," I hate...

Any... Any bigots in?

LAUGHTER

I am actually a homosexual.

That's what I call myself and...

Actually, I don't call myself that,

I call myself a bender.

Cos the word "gay", the word "gay"

makes it sound a bit gay, doesn't it?

The word "bender" makes it sound like a threatening thing,

like you're in a bar and someone's going, "Sorry, mate, are you gay?"

"No, mate, I'm a fucking bender, bring it on, ya bastards."

Well, no, because girls are usually quite good at telling... Girls...

Oh, got my girlies! Hi!

You are usually quite good

at telling if a guy is gay, stereotypically.

Could you tell I was gay, you know, before I...?

Before I came on stage?!

Like you smelled me in the building!

"There is definitely a new best friend in here somewhere."

But no, I don't... You couldn't tell?

You can never tell?

How cosmopolitan are you?!

"I'm never going to judge."

"Most of the gays in my area, they are always at the bins at night."

Well done. But...

Don't worry, we can be besties! Hooray!

But no, I've just never had the look, man.

I get told I look more like a lesbian rapper.

I do, don't I? I don't know what it is!

Feminem, but...

I've got a boyfriend as well and he's all right...

and, er... I shouldn't say that, fuck, he's going to watch this,

but, er... I met him on that thing, Grindr, and...

WOMAN LAUGHS I know!

Exactly.

If you don't know what Grindr is, it's the phone app that lets you

know how far the nearest gay person is away from you in feet and...

I know, yeah, why would you ever need to know on a phone

how far a gay person is away from you in feet,

like some kind of sat nav to find them?

If anything, homophobes should just have Grindr, just walking down

the road going, "Oh, Jesus, I'm not going that way, no...

"Oh, my God, I'm surrounded!

"Got to get out of this church somehow, man..."

I feel quite bad about doing that joke. I'm a Catholic and...

Obviously I'm not a good Catholic.

I'd make a great altar boy, though, but, erm...

GROANING LAUGHTER

Oh, I'm sorry, I hope I didn't offend any paedophiles

in the audience there. Sorry about that!

Any paedophiles in?

It's not as popular as it used to be, but...

I'm going to have to start acting camp one night

cos if you see me now, right, like, I'm a pure stealth gay

and I'm gay when you least expect it.

That sounds like the creepiest superhero ever, that, doesn't it?

Like all the bad guys going, "Watch out, guys, Stealth Gay's coming!

"Run, run, run! Backwards!"

So I thought, I'm going to have to start acting camper so people go,

"Oh, Larry, he's quite camp. Probably gay."

So what I started doing is,

I started going around with my wrists down.

Yeah, I know, exactly, I don't look camp, I just look ill.

I do that for a while, though, and I got to go to Disneyland for free,

so it wasn't all bad, but...

But nobody thought I was a bender, right, so I thought...

My brain is so stupid, though, my brain didn't think,

"You look ridiculous, that's why nobody's thinking you're gay."

My brain thought, "You've got to act camper."

So I started going around with my bum out as well.

That's my problem, man, if I was camp

I would just look like a dinosaur, just walking around like that.

CAMP VOICE: "Oh, there's a sale on!"

HE SCREECHES

HE SCREECHES

HE SCREECHES

Sorry, man, sorry, man.

I'm sorry. You all right?

Sorry, man. Are you OK?

I'm sorry, you guys, you look scared. You OK?

Right, cool. Just frozen like that.

Is that you giving it the,

"Stay still. His vision is based on movement"?

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

So, erm...

this has been nice.

Thanks very much.

Folks, you've been absolutely lovely. I've been Larry Dean.

Have a nice night. Take care. Thank you very much. Cheers.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

ROCK MUSIC

CHEERING

Hello!

Hi!

Stop it, stop it, stop it!

Hello! How are you? Good?

CHEERING

Are you as excited as I am?

CHEERING

No, you're not.

I am, my name is Felicity Ward and it's very nice to be here.

I'm Australian, but I've been living overseas for a couple of years.

I've actually been volunteering in a little village called London...

I have been volunteering, I've hardly been paid for a single thing.

Ha-ha-ha-ha.

Life is quite difficult. And...

Thank you for laughing at my pain, and...

I am grateful to be living over here, though.

I love living over here so thank you very much for having me

in your beautiful country.

At the same time, my mum is English so you can't kick me out, yeah!

Visa! Visa!

I came over here with the intention of leaving. Not, like, straightaway.

I didn't get off the plane and go, "I have made an expensive mistake."

I came over here, I was going to stay for a short time,

but then I met one of you lot and I fell in love and I was

a typical foreigner, coming over here, stealing your knobs and...

Heterosexual, I know! It was a surprise to me, too!

But it looks like I'm going to stay here for a long time

cos guess what happened to me this year? I got engaged!

CHEERING

It's very exciting. We're both in our late 20s.

He's 29, I'm 35, and he's very handsome and he's very romantic.

The first night I met him, we got back to my place and I was

absolutely going to try and sleep with him on the first night, ha-ha.

He was so hot I thought that I was a bet. Ha-ha!

I'm like, "That's a bet I'm happy to lose, dude.

"Oh, no, are you going to try and put that into there?

"Oh, that sounds terrible, how embarrassing for me.

"Oh, no, don't, get away."

So we got back to my place and we'd been dancing all night

and fully clothed, I went into my bedroom and fully clothed,

I just laid face down on the bed.

I was exhausted. I wasn't presenting or anything like...

"We start from the back!" No.

Not on the first date, and...

And not just for birthdays.

So I'm lying down - guess why he proposed to me? -

so I'm lying down and I don't know this guy at all, and he comes over,

without prompting, and he just takes my little shoes off for me.

AUDIENCE: Awww.

Isn't that a romantic thing to do?

Up until a certain age

and then it's just home care after that, isn't it?

"Why don't I slip into something more comfortable?

"My circulation socks, they're in the top drawer. Thank you."

He's, er, he's very tolerant of me, though.

I have some mental health issues.

"What? No! Stop it! Shut up! You'd never guess!"

Anyway...

And the nature of mental illness is that I can be quite up and down so

every night he gets to play a game called Guess Who's Coming To Dinner?

Even when he wins, he loses!

I have anxiety.

That's my big one, that's my top seller,

and a lot of people wouldn't guess that I had an anxiety disorder.

Worms, maybe, but not anxiety, and you're right, I have had worms.

I've had both. You're right on the money, there.

I have mental health issues, but don't worry,

I've never killed myself before.

I don't want to give away the ending,

but I have self-harmed, I did it last year.

I - this is hard for me to talk about - I ordered a Domino's Pizza

and that's it. I ordered Domino's.

It was awful. I still have the scars.

Most people call them stretchmarks.

And when you order from them online,

on the last page of the website there's a little button

in the corner and it says, "Why not tweet about this with your friends?"

What a great idea!

If I had friends, I wouldn't be having a lonely pizza, would I?

I'd be having an intervention of some sort.

What do people tweet, anyway?

"Just ordered the meal deal combo -

"these feelings aren't going to eat themselves!"

With a smiley poo at the end.

It's the perfect Emoji for that moment, isn't it?

It's like, "I'm smiling, but also I'm a piece of shit."

I wonder if it's called Domino's

because once you order from them, it sets off a chain reaction

of other self-destructive behaviours, like you order from them

and then you think about buying eyelashes for your car headlights

and then you think about wearing Ugg boots outdoors

as footwear - that needs to stop -

and then heroin. It's a very slippery slope.

It's a gateway food. Don't do it.

I moved over here, I thought

I would miss more when I moved over here and I got over here

and I do find that people in London are very mean on the street.

They are not as nice as I would like them to be,

but I understand why that is.

Why that is, it's just easier to be angry than sad.

I know that, and it's definitely true if you live with anxiety

or depression, or as I like to call them, The Blues Brothers.

You may have that.

Because when you're angry, you say what you want when you're angry.

It's like being drunk. It's great.

You're like, "Consequences?

"Yeah, that sounds like tomorrow's problem.

"Now, let's start with your face..."

And when you're angry, you can still be beautiful.

You think about catwalk models,

they are furious and they all pull the same face when they come out.

They walk out and go...

"I'm hungry.

"Oh, these? They're just my cranky pants." Still beautiful.

You will never be uglier than when you cry.

Your lips fold out and in at the same time, like...

SHE WAILS

..and you get, like, a bung eye and a hunchback

just to complete the look.

SHE WAILS

And you know how ugly you look,

so you try and move away from your own face.

SHE WAILS

And your voice gets three monsters when you cry.

You get high monster, which is...

HIGH-PITCHED WAILING

..or you get low monster, which is...

GRUFFLY: "Maybe if we talk about it once in a while..."

..or you get emphysema monster, which is...

HIGH-PITCHED AND BREATHLESS MOANING

HIGH-PITCHED WAILING

You sound like a South American panpipe.

I don't know if you're crying or you're about to burst out

into El Condor Pasa, I don't know.

WAILS THE TUNE

And it hurts! Why does it hurt? It's supposed to be good for you.

That is bad design, God.

Now, if I was a smug atheist, I'd go, "Oh, that's because

"there is no God, now let's all go and fellate Richard Dawkins."

I, er... Fortunately, there's some things over here that you have,

that we also have, some same, awful shit that I thought I would miss

like Magic FM.

Oh, I love me some Magic FM!

Especially the late-night show cos it's just four hours

of low-energy, sentimental music interrupted by a guy going, "Mmm..."

Just at different intonations.

"Mmm...

"Mm-mm-mmm, mmm..."

And there's a call-in section

and you think that people will call in, they'll need to calm down,

they'll need to go to sleep, like nurses or insomniacs.

It's only one kind of person that calls up, so he'll go,

"All right, mmm. We've got Tony on the line

"and Tony, what do you do for a living?"

SHOUTS: "I'm a truck driver!"

"Unexpected, OK, and what can we play for you tonight, Tony?"

"Oh, something soothing, thank you, Derek."

"All right, Tony, well here's a little bit of Savage Garden

"with Truly Madly Deeply."

"Mmm... That's soothing, isn't it, Tony?

"On that long, dark, monotonous road...

"Kind of makes you feel little bit sleepy, doesn't it Tony?

"Kind of makes you want to have a nap.

"Go on, Tony.

"I won't tell anyone."

It's just music to have car accidents to! That's all it is!

They exclusively play adult contemporary music on Magic FM

and if you don't know what that is, congratulations,

you have a little something called good taste.

Adult contemporary - or AC, as they call

it in the air-conditioning business - is very easy to

identify by just asking yourself a couple of questions.

The first one is, does your mum go, "Oh, I love this song! Turn it up!"?

You're listening to AC.

Or the big question is,

does the singer wear a turtleneck without irony?

That's all you need to know

cos that covers your Michael Bubles, you John Mayers

and of course, the king of adult contemporary, Michael Bolton.

Ho-ho-ho-ho!

# How can we be lovers if we can't be friends?

# How can we start over when the fighting never ends?

# Oh, tell me... # Well, that's two questions, Michael.

Do you even want the answer to the first one?

That's why we broke up - you don't listen.

The thing I have trouble with over here, it is very hard to find

a public toilet in this city and you charge people for it.

At London King's Cross, it is 50p to use the toilet,

but there's two free pianos in the foyer to play.

Go fuck yourself, London.

So I've been shitting in pianos more than I would like.

WOMAN LAUGHS DISTINCTIVELY

That's an incredible laugh. Please don't stop doing that.

That's not a choice at all, she's like, "Aaaaaargh!"

"I'm sorry... Aaaaaargh!"

"I didn't want this for myself! Aaaaaargh!"

The other thing that I find difficult with the toilet situation

in the UK is the bathroom attendants.

We don't have those in Australia.

You know when you go into a toilet in a nightclub and there's

a woman in the corner and she's staring at you and she has a shop?

And I'm not making fun of her

cos she's clearly working hard for her money,

but as an IBS sufferer - I have irritable bowel syndrome -

she's my natural enemy cos she sees me go in

and I'm in there for a while and then

she sees me come out and we've both bore witness to the horror

that has just taken place so then I need to make a mercy purchase and

I go, "Oh, yeah, I'll just get a lollipop"

cos who doesn't like buying food in a toilet, you animals?!

Who is THAT hungry? Who walks out and goes, "I need to replenish."

No, you don't, just go up the stairs,

there's restaurants everywhere!

"No, I'm toilet hungry, thank you."

I do have irritable bowel syndrome, which is the sexiest of all

the syndromes, I'm sure you'll agree,

and there's two different kinds that you can have.

There is the backed-up one. I don't have that...

I don't know what THAT was.

I don't have the fisting one.

I have the other one, I have the... Yeah, my...

I have that you go, "Oh!" I have that one

and people get very uncomfortable when you mentioned the D word

so I came up with a euphemism a long time ago.

When I'm having an IBS attack, I say that I'm having

a closing-down sale because everything must go!

And you can use any synonym for closing-down sale,

you can use clearance sale, fire sale, liquidation...

Probably should have started with that one.

I...

I also have insomnia

cos I just think God thought I was blessed with too many gifts

and, you know, and if you haven't had insomnia,

oh, it is like jet lag for people who can't afford to travel. Ohh.

It is...or if I was in a Theatre In Education troupe

and I was talking to a room full of teenagers, I'd say

insomnia is just a hangover for someone who's had too much life.

LAUGHTER

Um, I have insomnia and insomnia is like,

I have this little lady who lives in my head

and she is the panic personified and I call her Beryl

because Beryl is an ugly name for an ugly woman and I'm sorry

if there is anyone in here called Beryl.

I had a friend come up to me once, she goes,

my grandma's name is Beryl and I'm, like, oh,

my God, I'm so sorry, I'm not going to change it.

LAUGHTER

It's not my problem. So...

Beryl is like,

do you have any friends that constantly have terror in their eyes

and the only way they feel better is if they can emotionally dump on you?

That's who Beryl is, so I'll be lying there trying to get to sleep

and she comes in and goes...

MAKES STAMMERING NOISE

"Are you having trouble sleeping?" Yeah.

"OK, can I just ask you a quick question before you go to sleep

"and then I'll go?" Yeah, OK, just make it quick.

"OK, um, you know the film, Junior?"

The one where Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a pregnant man?

"Yeah." Yeah.

"When he gives birth in that film, does he give birth out of the eye of

"his penis and if he does, how come no-one talked about it at the time?"

OK. Bye.

Or sometimes she'll just do a little bit of a drive-by.

"Carol looked at you a bit funny tonight, didn't she?"

What?

"Yeah, when you said that thing about her hair."

Did she? "Yeah." OK, bye.

Or the worst is when she tries to help.

LAUGHTER

"What, what...why are you having trouble sleeping?"

Because you're here.

"Oh, OK, do you want me to, um...

"just sing you a lullaby or something?

# "I'm blue, da, da, de, da, da, de, da, de, da...

# "I'm blue, da, da, de, da, da, de, da, de, da...

# "Da, de, da, de, da, da...

# "I'm blue, da, da."

Are you finished?

"Yeah."

"I'll sing it for three more hours and then that's it."

Sorry for the person that I make eye contact with there.

Just someone sitting there going,

"I didn't pay enough money for this ticket."

SHE LAUGHS

My fella has to sleep next to that. Me just going...

SHE GRUNTS

My fella, he's about to turn 30. He's about to turn 30.

He's six years younger than me and that's never going to change.

Come on.

It's not a joke but I'm not ever going to get sick of saying

that out loud. He's about to turn 30.

Is there anyone in here who is, like, 28, 29, coming up to 30?

Give us a cheer.

-Yes. And what is your lovely name, ma'am?

-Serena.

-Serena?

-And what month is your birthday?

-June?

-Oh, my God, what day?

The 17th? I'm in September, it's nowhere near it.

LAUGHTER

How do you, how do you feel about turning 30?

-Erm, OK.

-OK? You should. It's great.

But there are some things that happen to you that nobody

warns you about, so I'm going to tell you

so these don't come as a surprise, come June. OK?

This is for anyone coming up to 30. Happens overnight.

Overnight you just start liking coriander.

Just without consent you're like, hate it, hate it, hate it,

then your birthday comes, you're ordering a Thai beef salad.

Um, the second thing that happens is, you start

taking your jumper off halfway through meals.

LAUGHTER

You don't even have to be having a curry.

You can be having a sandwich, you're like, far out, it's a

bit warm in here. Eating becomes exercise.

And the last thing that happens, well, I hope this happens to other

people, otherwise I'm going to look more disgusting than I already do.

Deodorant just stops working.

It just goes into retirement.

To me, deodorant is like a loveless marriage.

It's still there but it hasn't worked for years.

And it doesn't even matter if you're hairy or not hairy.

Like, I'm relatively hairless. I have some hair.

I'm not like one of those weird fucking hairless cats.

I don't like those cats and I don't like the people who like them.

LAUGHTER

Why would you buy a cat that looks like a testicle? Why?

Why would you bring that into your home? They're so gross.

They look like an embryo of a bigger cat. They're so gross.

How did that become a trend?

How many women were standing around going, honey,

I love looking at your nuts...

But I hardly get to see them.

Maybe it's time for a Sphinx cat, yeah?

Sphinx cat, they're the ball-sack that loves you back.

LAUGHTER

The other thing I'm afraid of... I am afraid of Ferris wheels.

Because they move at the speed of nightmares.

LAUGHTER

When have you ever seen a Ferris wheel in a movie just before

something good is about to happen?

SHE SINGS TUNE

Oh, yeah, no-one's going to die on that, are they?

Well, you know when they stop just halfway through

and the carriage starts swinging in the air

and everyone's getting their phone out, taking photos?

I'm getting my phone out, because I'm calling the police.

If you get stuck in a Ferris wheel, you're stuck in there for ever.

Have you seen the people that run Ferris wheels?

Not engineers, mate.

They are carnival folk. That's a carny.

The only thing they can do in a crisis situation is pick up

the phone and call the Lollipop Guild. That is all that they can do.

"Hello, who do you represent?"

"Oh, we represent the Lollipop Guild, what's your emergency?"

"Someone's stuck in a Ferris wheel." "A Ferris wheel? Ha-ha."

"Ha-ha." "Ha-ha." "Ha-ha."

Then they do that until they die.

They go so slowly and they go around twice.

What did you miss the first time around?

Oh, I'm glad we did another lap.

I thought that was a hill in the distance.

Hah, hah, it's just my mountain of disappointment. Oh....

They move so slowly, they go around and around

and they finish in exactly the same place as they started.

If I wanted that feeling, I could just talk

to my dad about immigration.

I've been Felicity Ward, you have been absolutely wonderful.

Thank you so much for having me.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE