Episode 5 Room 101

APPLAUSE

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

the show where three guests battle to get the things

they hate entombed for all eternity in the dreaded vaults.

Joining me tonight are comedian Hugh Dennis,

presenter Mel Giedroyc and legend Cilla Black.

Wow!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

OK, let's have the first category, please.

People!

OK, so what kind of people wind up Cilla?

FRANK GIGGLES

Ooh!

Yeah, it's people who say,

"Do you know who I am?"

I hate that.

I hate reality stars that walk the red carpet

and expect to be there and, you know, expect the treatment,

the star treatment. And they're famous for five minutes!

I hate that, I absolutely hate that.

APPLAUSE

I do.

I mean, I was standing in line, erm, at an airport

and a very famous lady, I won't name her...

-Please, Cilla.

-Oh, go on!

-Please.

Just give us a clue.

I wouldn't dream of naming her.

Bigger than you, Cilla? Bigger than you?

No.

LAUGHTER

-Please tell us.

-..and she was trying to get an upgrade

from business class to first-class

and I'm standing patiently behind her and the last thing that she mentioned

was, "But I need an upgrade...

"don't you know who I am?"

And I won't mention any names.

Is it Valerie Singleton, Cilla?

LAUGHTER

Cilla, please.

-Very posh.

-Posh? Camilla!

Look, stop... Don't be a Cilla griller.

-Leave her alone.

-You wouldn't be surprised if I mentioned the name.

So, why don't you see how surprised we'd be?

LAUGHTER

-No, I can't.

-I always think, though,

it's an incredibly dangerous strategy.

There was one occasion when somebody stopped me in the street and went,

"I know you."

And in those instances, to put them out of their slight embarrassment,

I kind of go, "Yeah, well, I'm an actor.

"I'm in a thing called Outnumbered, "I do a thing called Mock The Week,"

and he went, "No."

LAUGHTER

He went, "No, yesterday...

"Homebase Chichester."

LAUGHTER

Well, I would never say, "Do you know who I am?"

I have - when I've been queueing up to get into places -

I have used this.

What you see is what you get,

and Frankie Howard, the late and great Frankie Howard,

was right, and common as muck

and with a few bob, I have to say.

LAUGHTER

But even in restaurants, when I call up restaurants,

if they don't want me as Mrs Willis, they don't get my...

I don't ever go there again.

-So, you don't say "I'm Cilla Black?"

-No.

-Oh, God no.

-Really?!

-No, I don't.

I love that.

Was it Carole Middleton?

LAUGHTER

I once heard Pete Doherty say, "Do you know who I am?"

but it was a genuine enquiry.

But I think you're right, people who say, "Don't you know who I am,

"do you know who I am?" they're bad people.

This is a clip I'd like to show you which has an example

of someone saying, "Do you know who I am?"

Do you know who I am?

LAUGHTER

-Do you know who I am?

-Yeah, you're Cilla Black.

Do you know who I am?

Lulu?

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

INAUDIBLE

Oh, well... Yeah.

FRANK LAUGHS

I hold my hands up in shame.

OK, so what is Hugh's people pet hate?

This is...

This is people who bring round cards...

..for you to sign. Before I did what I do now, I had a proper job

for about seven or eight years out of university.

The thing I always hated was this.

Someone will come up with a card

and go, "You know Emma, who you've never met,

"you've no idea who she is, she works in the other building?

"She's just nipped off to the loo, would you mind signing this...

"Oh, no, she's coming, hang on."

And then, eventually, you get the card,

and at that point, you realise

that you've never actually been told what the card is for.

You've got a choice, generally, between, is it their birthday,

or are they leaving the company?

So, you try and cover both bases, that's what I always try to do.

So you put things like, "Have fun. Enjoy yourself."

And then you give the card back and discover

the reason you're giving a card in the first place

is because they're having one of their kidneys removed.

I feel quite sorry for the people whose birthday it is

or who's leaving or whatever, cos they're sitting there and

they have to pretend that they don't know that a card is being signed.

-Yeah.

-That's very true.

People come in and say, "Wendy, can you just come into the office?"

-And you have to work away like you haven't... It's a nightmare.

-Yes.

-Pressure.

-All that pretending.

Having said all that, if I ever leave anywhere,

-I would like one of these cards.

-Yeah.

And you never know, you might need a new kidney.

I think I probably do need one.

I don't think they tuck them inside the card.

I think, sometimes, a card can do more harm than good.

This is a card, a genuine valentine card, available from Asda.

-No way.

-Genuine.

I think the sticker with 7p, that is removable.

Someone wrote to me and said,

"Could you sign a card for my dad's birthday?"

and I signed it, sent it back and thought that's a lovely thing.

I saw it on eBay...

..three weeks later, and the price they were asking

was less than the card cost.

So, my signing of it had reduced its worth.

OK, what people wind up Mel?

People who over pronounce words in Italian.

It's a bit of a niche one, this.

-No, I...

-It's a bit of a niche one.

-OK.

So, I'll give you a sort of example, let's set the scene.

I've got a friend, a sort of friend of my brother's,

who, she goes into a restaurant, she's very softly spoken,

and she'll get the menu out. We're in an Italian restaurant, whatever,

and she'll say, "Yeah, that looks great,

"I think I'll start with the...

the "FUNGHI ALLA MELANZANA...

"..and then I'll probably go for the STRACCIATELLI ALLA FUNGHI...

"..and, um, I don't know, for dessert I'll probably have

"TIRAMISU."

Could you tell us what this person's name is?

I'll tell you what I do notice, they only seem to do it in Italian.

-Yes.

-Who would dare go into a Chinese restaurant and say,

"Yes, I am ready to order. Can I have the... chicki cho..."

You wouldn't dare!

You would not...

It would...it would be wrong on a million levels.

For some reason, it's OK in an Italian restaurant,

-even though it's exactly the same thing.

-Yes.

It's a show off-y thing, it's pretentious, it's unnecessary.

There's a name for it, it's called hyper-foreignism.

-Is that so?

-That's honestly what it's called.

-Oh, really?

I've got a clip of a woman here

who, I would say, is the hyper-foreign secretary.

And she's Welsh...

LAUGHTER

..but, um, she's someone who, I think,

-totally falls into the trap you're talking about.

-Let's have a look.

Mix it with half a tub of RICOTTA

which I love to serve with PAPPARDELLE.

You can also use dried TAGLIATELLE or even PENNE.

You can also use LINGUINE, SPAGHETTI.

One tub of MASCARPONE, one tub of RICOTTA.

Your TAGLIATELLE should be just AL DENTE.

That is why you don't have SPAGHETTI with Bolognese.

I felt...

APPLAUSE

The "Bolognese" was a bit of a let down, I thought!

-Bolognese-ee.

-It was the way she said spaghetti,

she said it about five times,

-"Spag-ay-tti, Spag-ay-tti..."

-Yes.

-There's no need.

-No, it's spaghetti, we all know that.

-Spaghetti, yeah.

-OK, we've come to the end of the people round

and, erm, I... With the cards thing,

I think it comes from a good place,

and the fact that you want a card when you leave, maybe tonight,

I think you've slightly undermined your thing.

And I do think... I think it's an improvement,

even though it is annoying, that people who used to just

turn everything into brutish English impersonations,

they're trying to do the language a bit.

But I do think it is unacceptable, erm, unless you're Cilla Black

in 1971, or whenever it was, to say, "Do you know who I am?"

And so I am going to put people who say, "Do you know who I am?"

into Room 101!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Anyway, let's have our next category.

Modern Life. Right, what doesn't Hugh like about modern life?

This is, erm, this is massive charity cheques.

I've had to present these things,

and it's kind of the impracticality of it.

Because the people giving the cheque are going, "That's fantastic,"

and I'm thinking, "You're not going to be able to pay that in anywhere."

No bank is ever going to accept a massive charity cheque,

cos they haven't got massive paying in slips.

They're quite... I mean, they're unwieldy, they're big,

they've got sharp corners -

that's how Pudsey lost an eye, apparently.

Banks don't even like cheques, do they?

They're trying to get rid of cheques,

and yet we're still promoting massive cheques.

In China - you know when you win the lottery

you can ask for no publicity -

in China, you can have no publicity,

but you still have to turn up and get the cheque,

so this is genuine, this is what happens.

Oh, no!

It gets worse than that.

That's a genuine Chinese lottery winner.

A million years ago, I was in Liberty's, you know...

Posh shop?

Yeah. And I was asked for my autograph by several people,

including the shop assistant.

And so I signed the cheque, and then she said to me,

"Have you got any form of identification?"

I said, "I've just signed your autograph book,"

and I still didn't say, "Do you know who I am?"

No, thank God.

Right, what is Mel's modern life gripe?

Parent and toddler groups.

You've got a small child, you're feeling exhausted,

you're not getting a lot of sleep, the last thing you want to do

is go into an overheated room which has horrible crash mats

which smell of foot odour, usually,

you get a horrible, silty beverage, no snacks, nothing to eat at all

for an hour, and you have to be jolly in an enforced way.

Why do you bother trying to make your toddler

make friends with other toddlers? We know now, they don't

make friends until they're at least eight or nine.

What's the point of that? I didn't make any friends when I was there.

I was just too grumpy and too tired and I have a terrible,

terrible memory of this parent-toddler "fun" club.

APPLAUSE

A friend of mine says that his daughter, who's tiny,

goes to a group. He said, "It's not a very interesting group,

"but it's good for catching all the main diseases."

Oh, yes. We, we...

I had no idea parents actually want their children to catch stuff early.

There was a big thing, um, pox parties,

where a mum whose child...

I've been to those, but not on purpose.

LAUGHTER

There's a whole other layer in these parent-toddler "fun" groups,

which is, basically, competition.

"Oh, so your baby hasn't got a tooth yet? Oh, dear.

"Well, mine got a tooth, you know, two weeks ago."

-Do you know what I mean?

-Yeah.

-You know, that goes on, that goes on right through.

-I know.

So I did my kids' sports day when my son was maybe seven.

I took part in my one and only father's race,

but I was just, sort of, dressed normally.

-There were people in spikes.

-Yes.

-And, erm...

-Yes.

..with shorts, limbering up, and we... It was the 100m.

We set off, I got 10 yards,

and I was elbowed in the head by the man next to me.

Just ran along, deliberately just kind of went, boof.

It was crazy.

OK, what doesn't Cilla like about modern life?

Everything.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

No, modern technology. Where do I start?

I mean, I don't like the new technology.

The word technology, even, really makes my blood boil.

I mean, what are these things...? What do you have? Those...mobiles.

-Remote control?

-Mobiles, yes. I can't stand them.

I can't stand them, because people walk along the street

and I think they're talking to me, but they're talking to the phone,

and I'm answering them!

You know, "What did you have for dinner?" "Well, I had so-and-so."

And I can't stand them and, urgh, people...

You don't have one?

-You don't have a mobile?

-I do, I've got an iPhone.

-Oh, an iPhone?

-An iPhone.

Oh, and don't talk to me about the iPhone.

I phoned a taxi by mistake and a taxi turned up outside my door

and I just wanted to know about the weather.

No, I don't like technology.

So, you think we should have stopped at Etch-A-Sketch?

What's that?

Oh, come on!

I mean, you are someone who, in the past,

has been known to use technology for your own ends.

Oh, you're not going to show film again, are you?

This was hi tech.

Oh.

Ooh!

Oo-o-o-oh!

APPLAUSE

-Naughty.

-It's amazing, you seem to have lit up an Asda valentine card.

LAUGHTER

And you've got a Wii, is that right?

Oh, I don't understand Wii-fis.

LAUGHTER

-You get these Wii-fis that do exercises...

-Yes.

-Wiis? They call them Wiis.

-It's a Wii, OK.

Well, you can call it whatever you want.

Thank you very much.

-You can play golf and you can play tennis...

-Brilliant.

..what's wrong with a doorknob?

It's a good... It's a good question.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

No, let me explain.

I've got several doorknobs in my kitchen

and I jive with the doorknob.

-Oh!

-That's how I get my... Ooh, try it, Mel.

-That's great.

-It's fabulous!

Grab hold of a knob...

LAUGHTER

I was rather afraid you were going to say that.

-And then you..?

-Yeah, Steve Wright in the afternoon,

you're bopping away. Jiving away.

You don't need these Wii-fis.

Why don't you get out there and do it, physically?

You can say that about any indoor game.

If we were playing Hungry Hippos, you wouldn't say, "Get to Africa!"

Outdoor sports aren't always as much fun...

..as, er, as people say they are, because this is a German guy

-who's about to go swimming on a very cold day.

-Genius.

Right, look at him now, he's so full of himself.

"Yes it's cold, but I don't care.

"The cold won't stop me from going for a dip."

GROANS AND APPLAUSE

Brilliant. Brilliant.

One thing you're right about - if that had been him playing Wii,

-it wouldn't have been as funny, would it?

-No.

So, I...

I don't think I can put parent-toddler groups in,

because I think it's good that people meet and catch stuff

and share their problems.

And, erm, if we put all technology in,

it means that the show will close down.

But I do think those big charity cheques,

the cheque is dying out as a concept anyway,

it's about time they got modernised.

So, I am going to put big charity cheques into room 101.

APPLAUSE

Next category, please.

OK, it's the wildcard round, which means there is no restraint

at all now, it doesn't matter what the subject is,

you can pick anything you don't like and try and get it into Room 101.

So, what is Mel's wildcard?

People who tell you their dreams.

I don't mean, like, "Oh, I'd love to go into space one day,"

or, "Oh, I'd love to win a gold medal at the Olympics,"

or those kind of dreams.

I mean their nuts and bolts dreams that they've had.

It's so dull.

Do you not...? I've done this with friends,

when someone will tell us a dream and we all sit around and try

and work out what it means, work out the symbolism.

-It's quite a fun thing to do.

-No.

-No?

-I think it's a bit like, do you remember Catchphrase?

-Catchphrase.

It's a bit like that, because you get a few images and they say,

"Yeah, I was in this big house and then suddenly a tiger appeared

"and then I..."

CATCHPHRASE BUZZER

Are you afraid of your wife's mother?

That's how I...

"It's good, but it's not right." And then on you go again.

-So, I kind of, like dream analysis.

-No, amateur dream analysis. Nah.

One thing I am confused about is have you ever watched a dog dream?

The dogs do that...

-"Bruff! Bruff!"

-That's right, yeah.

-"Bruff!"

-They're chasing rabbits.

I've been told that before,

but my dog lived in Birmingham its whole life.

LAUGHTER

-Never seen a rabbit.

-You do that. Humans do that, don't they?

-I get told off all the time for doing that.

-Doing what?

-For sort of twitching.

-When you dream?

-Yeah.

But what always happens at night...

This is hell for me, can I just say? This is all hell.

So, I'll be lying in bed and I kind of...

I don't go "ummm" like that, but I do go...

And I fall off things and then I sort of wake up. Do you do that?

Oh, stop it, please!

LAUGHTER

-This is exactly what I'm talking about.

-OK.

OK, so what's Hugh's wildcard?

I would really like to put Las Vegas in Room 101.

I've only been once to Las Vegas,

and I went last summer at the end of a...

Took the family on this long trip and went to Las Vegas.

And I think my expectations of it were slightly wrong,

because I thought it would be like Casino or Ocean's 11.

But, actually, Las Vegas is sort of to me, anyway, it's a bit like

a hybrid, a cross between a motorway service station,

Alton Towers,

and a cross-channel ferry.

LAUGHTER

It's just miles and miles of, kind of, fruit machines,

and terrible food.

But you have to do a bit of gambling.

You at least you have to go on the fruit machines and stuff like that.

Yeah.

People spend whole days, often very fat people,

on fruit machines with a bucket of coins and they're on it all day,

and this is the only fruit these people ever see.

I didn't realise before I went there, that you have to walk

through the casinos to get anywhere. But if you have kids,

one of the rules is that you're not allowed to loiter with kids.

They can't stop in the casino, cos it's against Nevada gaming law.

So, that basically means I spent like three days in Las Vegas,

walking. I could never...

LAUGHTER

I couldn't stop.

The hotel we stayed in...we stayed there because it had its own beach,

so, knackered after walking for miles and miles,

I would go and lie on this pretend beach in the middle of the desert

in Nevada, thinking, "Why aren't I on a beach?"

OK, then what is Cilla's wildcard?

Well, knickers, really.

Doesn't your lingerie and knickers go grey too quickly

after you've washed them?

-I think there's a conspiracy going on.

-OK.

I think the manufacturers make them,

so they go grey after a certain amount of time.

You think it's deliberately made to do that?

I think the manufacturers do that, and I've bought from posh shops,

-right the way down to, you know...

-Liberty's?

..everybody else goes.

You know, I do, I buy and they're all the same.

You're talking about white knickers?

White knickers, that go grey after a certain amount of time,

very... Relatively quickly.

-They're not just see-through, are they?

-Pardon?

No!

I'm terribly sorry!

-You should write a book about this called 50 Shades Of Grey!

-I should!

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

I tell you what I love about this, is I used to watch you

on Top Of The Pops in the late '60s and I used to think

"If ever I met Cilla, I wonder what we'd talk about."

This never crossed my mind, I must say. We have a clip here.

Chris Tarrant, you may remember,

used to be a roving reporter before he became a big-time presenter,

and he's interviewing women in an underwear factory,

and can you imagine, in the modern-day,

beginning an interview like this?

Excuse me, can I ask you what sort of undies you're wearing?

-Er, frilly one.

-Like these?

-No, little bikini ones.

When you're going out somewhere special,

do you put a very expensive pair on?

-No, not really.

-Same old ones?

-Yeah.

-Do you wear any expensive ones from here?

-No.

-Why not?

-They fall to bits.

LAUGHTER

Oh my God!

Has anyone here ever cut a pair of pants off themselves?

-No.

-OK.

-LAUGHING:

-Hold it!

Yeah, come on, Mel, you've got to tell us.

-Why did you do it?

-I had a bit of an accident.

OK, you had a bit of an accident.

I had a bit of an accident and I had to cut...

I didn't want to take the jeans off, so cut the pants out.

Please tell me someone else has done this.

What kind of an accident did you have?

LAUGHTER

-Oh, come on, Cilla.

-Oh, that kind of accident!

Cilla, let's call it "a surprise, surprise."

LAUGHTER

Right, that comes to the end of that round, and...

Oh, it's a toughie.

I think, even though I occasionally do it myself,

it can be incredibly tedious to share dreams.

But I am slightly fascinated by dreams and what they mean,

so I do also like it, if it's in the right context.

Las Vegas, I do think it's something that you grow to love,

and if you went back without the kids and just embraced it,

I think you'd have a great time. But I cannot, I have to say,

resist the temptation to put knickers into Room 101.

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

Thank you.

INAUDIBLE

And that brings us to the end of the show. Well done, Cilla.

You were the most persuasive guest tonight,

so you are this week's winner!

CHEERING

So, thanks very much, Hugh Dennis, Mel Giedroyc and Cilla Black.

And thank you. Good night.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd