Episode 1 Room 101

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Hello, I'm Frank Skinner and welcome to Room 101,

the show in which three guests battle to get the things they hate into the dreaded Room 101.

In each round, only one item can be chosen

and the final decision is mine.

So, let's meet the guests.

Joining me tonight are comedian Robert Webb, presenter Fern Britton and broadcaster, Danny Baker.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

OK, let's have our first category.

Growing Up.

Let's have a look what Robert Webb didn't like about growing up.

LAUGHTER

This is PE.

I was a very skinny, weedy child...

physically under-confident, ashamed of my puniness

and PE was where it all came home to roost.

And especially football, that's where my real anti-talent lay.

I was very good at finding a space, run into a space,

very loudly call for the ball,

in the full knowledge that no-one in their right mind

was going to pass me the ball,

because they'd all individually tried that before, they'd been down that road,

and what I would do was receive the ball and fall over it.

-Receive the ball, fall over it.

-Can I ask you a question?

-Yes.

-Did you play for West Bromwich Albion in the '90s?

LAUGHTER

So, you look back on it with hate?

Yeah, well really, yeah.

I mean, when I first got to my secondary school,

they would say things like, "Robert plays," on school reports,

"Robert plays football with...a quiet determination

"and has lots of good ideas."

LAUGHTER

I learnt a lot in PE, I think.

-I can flick a fly off a wall now with the corner of the towel.

-CHUCKLING

-I got SO good at that, didn't you do that?

-I didn't really go "Swish!"

-Whoa, when was that lesson?

-Did girls not do this...

-We didn't.

-..when you flick each other with the towels?

-Course they did. Didn't they?

-No, absolutely not!

What did you do?

-I removed warts and all sorts of things.

-GROANING AND LAUGHTER

-Did you, did you have these at school?

-Beanbags.

-Yes.

-Ah, but the opposite side of that, in PE, was the medicine ball.

Now I don't know what a medicine ball is supposed to do,

-but whatever...

-Break people's necks.

-Yeah.

-Yeah. LAUGHTER

And inevitably you'd try and kick it.

And if you've ever kicked a medicine ball,

it sends this lightning bolt up to the back of your head...

Yeah, well, the really thick kids would try and head it.

-Well, it just so happens...

-Oh, no, he's got one. He has one!

-Yes.

-Ooh.

Because of child obesity, they don't use them now

because it reminds kids of the Terry's Chocolate Orange.

LAUGHTER

It drives them crazy. Did you Hula Hoop though?

-Hula Hoop was a big thing at our school.

-Yeah.

-No, we didn't...

-We used to have this thing where they'd roll the Hula Hoop

-and you had to dive through it while it was moving.

-Wow!

-Now, you see, that sounds, that's quite fun.

-Yeah.

-I'm all up for that, that's fine.

-I should say, I was the only child at our school,

-all the others were police dogs.

-LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

Hokey cokey!

Let's see what Fern Britton didn't like about growing up.

I didn't like and don't like homework.

Do you still get it?

I have to live in a house with four children who do homework.

-Oh, OK.

-And my kids, each teacher says to them,

"Just 20 minutes a night, that's all you need to do

"to write this 100,000 word essay.

LAUGHTER

"If you don't finish it, don't worry, you'll just be in detention."

And if they get four subjects a night,

my boys sit up till two o'clock in the morning doing it.

-No!

-Yes, they do.

And I think it's outrageous.

Yes, they're pushing them hard at school,

yes, they're working hard at school but please let them come home

and flop about and enjoy, you know, a bit of fun on their computers

and a bit of supper and a bit of telly and do what they want to do.

-That's what I think. Yes.

-APPLAUSE

-Is it really that bad?

-Yes!

-Oh, no, it really is.

-Thank you, Danny.

-I mean, I'm cancelling mine, I'm voting with you on this.

I've just realised.

You see, the thing is, just to take it further,

it's not going to make you any brighter. It isn't.

As I've said before, if schools made you bright,

if the better the school made you a brighter person,

Parliament would be full of geniuses.

And it ain't! It's not.

LAUGHTER, CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Yeah, but you know, if I agree and put this in Room 101,

I don't want thousands of kids going into school

and the teacher saying, "Where's your homework?",

-and they're saying, "It's in Room 101, sir.".

-LAUGHTER

I'm just going to give you a little insight.

If people don't do their homework, and get that extra brain power in,

this is what the nation ends up like.

What is the usual name for the large white bear

that is native to Arctic regions?

-Penguin?

-LAUGHTER

Polar.

We asked 100 people to name a famous Arthur.

Kenny?

-Erm...Shakespeare.

-Arthur Shakespeare?

LAUGHTER

A seventeenth century physician who discovered the true nature

of the circulation of blood around the human body was William who?

-Shatner.

-Harvey.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

OK, you've argued your case well.

Oh, thank you.

So, let's find out what Danny wants to put into the Growing Up category.

The concept that some people have,

and still have, and was born at school, the concept of COOL.

Now, you may say I had no choice in that matter

but I've got a written statement, which I want to read out.

-Oh, really?

-And I'm prepared to take questions on the other side of it.

FRANK LAUGHS

"The concept of cool is without doubt the most specious,

"spineless, worthless affectation in the entire wide wide world of masculine horse dung.

"Cool and its stupid rules perfectly sum-up the humourless, vacuous,

"pompous lack of genuine experience in males

"and sounds the death nail on true emotion.

"Cool is juvenalia. Cool is arrested development.

"Cool is for small people with their noses eternally pressed-up

"against the real window of achievement. They are dead.

"Impotently grading everything in tiny detail,

"from shoes to the moon landing, in a flailing effort

"to project an iota of genuine personality and self-worth."

-Thank you.

-CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

One of the problems with this, Danny, is I think you're quite cool.

LAUGHTER

Do you Twitter?

-All the time.

-Oh, do you?

-Yeah, ALL the time.

He's just blown the argument really, hasn't he?

Yeah, that's quite cool.

It's not... No, hang on, if you'd have gone back 50 years,

"Do you make phone calls?", "Yes, I do.", "Ooh! Oh, ho-ho!"

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

-Don't get me wrong, you know...

-No, no.

-I can look at something like James Dean and think

"If we acknowledge this thing exists, that will be it,"

but what I don't like are people who live their lives by it

and judge others by it.

I started a small campaign, on this radio show I do...

You know these guys in their long black leather jacket,

-the sort of crazy goth look?

-Yeah.

If you see anyone with a long black leather jacket, you have to go...

-KENNETH WILLIAMS IMITATION:

-"Oooh, Matrix!"

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

I have some pictures of me when I was a young man trying to be cool,

-which I am prepared to open up to the public, right.

-Ooh, yes!

This is me in a photo booth trying to be cool.

LAUGHTER

Wow!

I think the secret there is looking slightly off camera, in a PHOTO booth.

-And...

-With a slight pout.

-Yes, slightly open mouth.

-That worked very well.

-Did you like it?

-Yeah. Weren't you pleased with that at the time?

-Oh, God, I was thrilled!

-Yeah!

-I made a vow that one day I would get it on television.

-LAUGHTER

OK then, it comes to the point of my decision and it's a tough one this.

I don't think I can put PE in, Robert, because...

-It's because of the fat kids, isn't it?

-Well, I think it just helps too many children

and in the age of obesity, we need it desperately.

The other two are very close,

but I've like got a kind of a soft spot for cool I think,

cos I think we all have to have something to belong to.

The homework thing you have opened my eyes to.

I didn't know it was as bad as it was. I think...

for practical reasons and evangelical reasons,

-I am going to put homework into Room 101.

-Hear, hear!

Thank you.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Anyway, let's move on to the next category.

Film and Television.

So let's see what winds Fern Britton up about Film and TV.

LAUGHTER

Science Fiction.

-No!

-Yes!

-GROANING

-Yes, it does, absolutely.

-Are you on that one?

-No.

-Science fiction. A, it's not real.

That's why the word "fiction" is in it!

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Well...

..I agree but tell that to these people who think that it is real

and treat it as some kind of religion.

AND why is it always set in the future?

Because, of course, that's all made-up.

I'd like to see some sci-fi from history or present day.

-Past or present would be more interesting...

-"A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away!"

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh!

That was very clever and I'll give you that

but, unfortunately, it shows you're a nerd.

LAUGHTER

Me and quite a few MILLIONS of other nerds.

-Yeah, including me.

-LAUGHTER

Carry on - not that you haven't got every chance of getting science fiction in!

Why do they always imagine that these outer space creatures are going to look human

but with some kind of mask on them, that's it,

and talk in a funny voice, and wear a cape,

and have extreme chest muscles, and ten feet?

I don't understand any of it. ANY of it.

Doctor Who, I think, is the most dreary thing on there...

ZAPPING

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Hold on, let me, let me, you think Doctor Who is dreary?

-Drea-ry!

-Argh, God!

LAUGHTER

I've tried to watch Star Wars three times

and I've never got past the first 12 minutes, I've always fallen asleep.

Well, your kids take nine hours to do their homework!

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

I mean, I'm sorry, but I'm...

you know, this might not be the cleverest family in Britain.

LAUGHTER

Yeah, and the big problem with Star Wars is,

-there's quite a lot of reading at the beginning, isn't there?

-Yeah.

LAUGHTER

I'm just going to see this off for good.

ORIGINAL STAR TREK BEAMING UP SOUND

-Oh, I thought it would de-materialise, but it didn't.

-Oh!

LAUGHTER

Worth a try, isn't it? Worth a try.

OK, what winds-up Robert Webb about TV and film?

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

This is the Jeremy Kyle Show.

This is a show where lots of very angry, very upset,

rather stupid, I mean, you know, by definition, idiotic people...

-Sci-fi fans.

-..because...

Not always sci-fi fans, Fern, and I think you should let that go

because it's not going to be part of the discussion any more.

Where lots of very unfortunate people are invited on a show

to talk through their problems with,

by the method of verbally and sometimes physically hurting each other,

and they're helped through this process by a presenter

with the heart and soul and voice of a Dalek.

LAUGHTER And it's a bear pit, it's disgusting, and I hate it.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Yeah, but I see Jeremy Kyle as the 21st century Dr Dolittle.

LAUGHTER

I think the people who make it are really, and they'll say,

"You know what, we get 1.5 million viewers,"

well, you shouldn't, shame on you, again.

The people who make it, the producers, the production companies who make it,

really should be shovelling manure in sewers

for a more honourable way to make a living.

They must, honestly.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

There are things I like about it.

I love the fact, like wait...

when you get the commercial break to find out the result of the DNA test,

it's like, it's the working class version of the conundrum on Countdown.

LAUGHTER

Wordsworth, in Tintern Abbey, spoke of, "that best portion of a good man's life,

"his little nameless unremembered acts of kindness and of love.",

and there are lots of things in popular culture that fall well short of that

-but I think it's the Jeremy Kyle Show that is most strenuously trying to pull us away from it.

-Yeah.

APPLAUSE

OK, well that's your anti-Jeremy Kyle Show.

I'm going to show a clip that I think everyone in here will say,

"No, no, it's too brilliant to ever be taken off television."

I thought you were sending explicit pictures of your private parts to her?

I've sent one and I'd had a bad day at work.

LAUGHTER

You had a bad day at work so you send her an explicit picture of your...

She was asking me to.

-No, I was not!

-Yes, you was!

No, I wasn't.

Then she got me arrested for harassment,

nine weeks ago.

Why did she get you done for harassment?

Cos I was harassing her all the time.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

No, but there was something very honest and sort of confessional about it, which I...

No, he never said, "No, I didn't do that," or, "I wasn't," he's very...

I don't know if you get that kind of honesty amongst non-Kylists.

LAUGHTER

So, OK, so let's see what Danny wants to put into TV and film.

Panel shows. With...

LAUGHTER

With...somehow bottom of the bill comedians.

LAUGHTER

You know. He's not, he can't be a bottom of the bill comedian.

You turn on, and you go through the channels,

and there are too many shows where halfway-witted people

are pretending to find things funny.

LAUGHTER

Let me tell you something...

No, no, withhold!

Withhold. A little back story.

And, otherwise people are saying, "What are you here tonight for?"

So, obviously, there are good...

I believe QI and Have I Got News For You may have started this virus

but if I have to turn on channels like Dave

and see shows again where people are screeching...

-They're going to repeat this on Dave.

-I know, and we...

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

So, can I just say, they repeat them on Dave

-and do we get paid for the repeats? No.

-No!

Well, I'm with you there. I'm with you there, love.

-LAUGHTER

-So...

-I'm with you there, love.

I think a Jeremy Kyle show that's been through college, that's all.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

See, I think you don't like panel shows

because you don't like other people talking.

LAUGHTER AND CHEERING

APPLAUSE

And so, come on, telly, I know it's cheap

and I know these people all want to put it on their CV

-but that's not a game show. Let somebody win...

-Do you put...

-Instead of the fees they all get, give it to some...

-Do you put game shows on your CV?

-No,

-I

-don't.

-Were you going to put Room 101 on your CV?

-No, no.

-Which, by the way, is a comedy panel show!

It's not, there is no opposition...

I daren't move because of the thin ice that you've created around you.

Well, I've got to say, you know, and as Elvis Costello said in Radio Radio,

"I want to bite the hand that feeds me," I actually don't like them.

-That's cool.

-Yeah...

-You are cool!

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

OK, well I've come to my decision, not science fiction, and...

LAUGHTER

..then if I put panel shows in, I'm going to be severely out of work.

So, and also I don't know what happens to the rest of the show.

Do we have to just close down and sit in front of a bare brick...

Oh, we already are. So... So, in a way by default,

-I am going to put the Jeremy Kyle Show into Room 101.

-Quite right, quite right.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

OK, the next category.

It's the Wildcard round because sometimes we think we constrain you too much in your dislikes...

-Really?

-..but now we want to give you all the freedom in the world.

You can pick anything you don't like at all.

So, let's have a look and see what is Fern Britton's Wildcard?

Dinner parties.

Dinner parties are, and I'm not talking about getting...

OK, I know...

LAUGHTER

-Yeah, what exactly do you eat at dinner parties?

-LAUGHTER

-These...

-I don't mean to be disrespectful to our colleagues in the art department but...

LAUGHTER

Can I just say, before you say this, 8.30, BBC One.

LAUGHTER

I was going to say, it looks like some, just some worms. I wasn't...

Oh, OK.

I think it's the same...

-No, it doesn't, not that one hanging over the edge doesn't!

-No!

LAUGHTER

I was hoping no-one would mention that one.

This is obviously a prawn cocktail, clearly. But dinner parties!

Now, I'm not talking about those nice evenings

when you get mates round and you can have spaghetti bolognese around the kitchen table

and it goes into something that's quite interesting

and you all have a quick glass of wine and it's nice.

I'm talking about a formal dinner party that a friend,

colleague, acquaintance, whatever, has invited you to.

You leave work knowing you, "Oh, I wish I'd said no!

"Can I have a headache? Can I have a tooth missing? Can I not go to this dinner party?"

And when you start, the person you want to sit next to is your partner, who you haven't seen all week.

Oh, no, they're shot up the other end of the table

so you can't speak to them and you're left with some dullard!

-LAUGHTER

-And then at the end, the women all go off into one room

or get down one end of the table and start talking about children and homework

and all of those things, and ALL women can hear the men laughing

and saying something much more interesting

but we're trying to be sisterly. We'd much rather come and say,

"What are you saying? What are you laughing about?"

Are you saying men have more interesting and funny conversations than women?

Yes, yes. I'm afrai... No, no, don't say, I'm not being, that's...

-You've walked me into a blind alley, there!

-Well, I'm sorry.

I was summarising, that's all I was doing.

I'll tell you what I'm not sure about, I don't drink myself,

but if I take a bottle of wine to a dinner party,

I want to see it drunk, there and then.

Sometimes I'll say I'll take snacks, nobody eats those snacks,

the snacks don't come out. That's wrong.

I want to see, if I take something,

-they've got to drink or eat it in front of me...

-LAUGHTER

..before I lea... I'd be a rubbish aid worker.

LAUGHTER

You know that Samuel Pepys insisted on still having a dinner party

during the Great Fire of London...

-Yes.

-..he wouldn't cancel.

And it says in his diary, we had a fine side of pork, and he said,

"We all enjoyed the excellent crackling," which was probably next door's house!

LAUGHTER

The first thing he did when he observed the fire, over the river,

he buried his Parmesan cheese.

-Please, no euphemisms.

-LAUGHTER

-Where did he get it? Was it shipped over?

-Parmesan cheese!

-You got paid in Parmesan in those days.

-Did you?

-Yes, I remember doing Give Us A Clue with Frankie...

-LAUGHTER

OK, let's see what Danny's Wildcard is.

Prince Charles.

LAUGHTER

It's Punk Rock.

I was involved with punk rock myself, we did the first fanzines,

some might say it led to the career beyond

cos we did a lot of telly stuff and they thought, "OK."

But the concept of punk rock these days drives me absolutely insane.

You hear people talking about the punk revolution

like it was something noble. I was there, it wasn't.

It was a load of people who had no idea what they were doing,

making music which is virtually unlistenable

and I'm fed up of hearing that punk is somehow terrific.

So, I'm afraid burning my past, murdering my darlings,

I've had enough of punk rock and possibly youth culture, full stop.

It wasn't romantic, it wasn't very exciting,

it shouldn't be influential but it is.

-Well...

-LAUGHTER

I was one of those tragic men in the audience,

young men who jumped up and down and I was a very poor spitter,

-all went on the chin!

-LAUGHTER

But it meant a massive amount to me. I went and saw X-Ray Spex...

-Rubbish.

-..and they sounded great,

and I saw the bass player had got one string on his bass guitar,

he was just playing it like that,

and it suddenly made me realise that if you want to get up there and do it, you can do it.

-I don't think I'd be a comedian if it wasn't for punk.

-That's why I'm here,

because I was involved in that and it led on in time.

You say, it's hard to differentiate between the people who kind of did it

and the terrible legend around it, which is what I'm talking about.

-And this is the romancing of it and making it noble, as I say.

-But, Dan!

I remember the bouncer at Barbarella's suddenly picking me up,

carrying me down the hallway, I was quite slim,

and he said to the bouncer, "Stripy shirt, and the other guy said,

-"No, not him," and he just threw me on the floor!

-LAUGHTER

That said, I still retain affection for the period,

and truth be told, I just saw the earring made out of safety pins.

You can always challenge me, any pair of trousers I wear,

-just has a little, well I was that soldier right there, look. There's a safety pin.

-Really?

-Absolutely true.

-You still wear the safety pins?

-I still do, yeah...

Well, really, I can't put punk into Room 101

-or your trousers will fall down!

-LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

OK, so what did Robert choose as his Wildcard?

-Ah.

-Well, now, I've got nothing against mirrors

but this is merely a tool to show you what I would like to put into Room 101,

and that is my own bald patch.

LAUGHTER

-Oh, I can't do it.

-Maybe it's grown back?

-There it is!

-Hey! CHEERING

There it is, my handsome face

and my great lagoon of follicle bereavement...

in the same shot.

There it is, winking at us like a glassy-eyed toothless man

that I'll be in the future, beckoning me towards my doom.

-Oh, Robert!

-Well, yes, I recently turned 39,

so I think about my own death most days now. LAUGHTER

And it's annoying for lots of reasons but the main thing...

It ages you from the back and it's annoying for work sometimes...

-It ages you from the back?

-It ages you from the back,

it's not nice to look 15 years younger from the front than you do from the back.

-Well, get a hooded top!

-You've got a very nice bottom.

-Thank you, Fern!

LAUGHTER

But the main thing is that, I've realised from Twitter,

that there are a lot of people out there

who think that I might not have noticed.

LAUGHTER

-That can happen, Robert.

-And I'm sort of bringing it up

because I'm almost, sort of, coming out as a baldy and a slap-head

because I want people to know, yes, I HAVE noticed.

A friend of mine said, he had no idea he had a bald patch

and he was doing that thing, you know, when you lean back on two legs of a chair,

and he said he leant back and he suddenly felt cold from the wall...against...

That's a terrible moment, isn't it?

I think it's vulgar for men to hang onto their hair after 35

and that is the position I've taken. A lot of women like to point it out, don't they?

-"Ooh, you're going a bit up here, ain't you?"

-They do a bit, but then...

I like to say, "You've got the opposite problem, haven't you?"

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

-I think that...

-But women, I've had girlfriends and female friends

who've told me that no sensible woman cares less...

-It's true.

-..and I took an early decision to believe them.

-LAUGHTER

-But it's not a problem to the majority of women.

Do you want to put your hands up, who's it a problem for?

Just one lady.

-You don't like baldies?

-Unfortunately, that's Robert's wife.

I'll see you at home, darling.

LAUGHTER

OK, so at the end of that, well, I quite like dinner parties,

it's something I've only discovered in later life

and I quite like the fun of it.

Punk was a massive thing for me and...

just for sheer courage, more than anything else,

and I also I loved the fact that none of us knew you had a bald patch until you exposed it.

So, I am going to put Robert Webb's bald patch into Room 101.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

And that brings us to the end of the show.

Well done, Robert, you were the most persuasive one.

I'm sorry, Fern, you were great.

-Dan, you are, as you know, an all time hero of mine.

-Thank you very much.

But I thought Robert was spectacular, especially with the bald patch thing.

And, as winner, you get to put one item unchallenged into Room 101.

-I shall choose the actor Russell Crowe.

-OK.

Because he's a silly man, who's consumed by ego

and he did do an Irish accent in Robin Hood

and he shouldn't be so rude to Mark Lawson, who is bald.

-LAUGHTER

-Fair enough.

APPLAUSE

OK, Russell Crowe is going in.

Thanks. CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Thanks very much to Danny, to Robert and to Fern,

and thank you, all. Goodnight!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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