Episode 4 The Blame Game

CHEERING

Hello and welcome to The Blame Game, the topical satire show

that's more dangerous than Tyson Fury in a gay bar.

PROLONGED LAUGHTER

I'm Tim McGarry and punching above their weight

are our regular panellists - Colin Murphy...

APPLAUSE

..Jake O'Kane...

APPLAUSE

..and Neil Delamere.

APPLAUSE

And our special guest tonight is an actor,

a writer and a brilliant stand-up comedian.

He's hosted Live At The Apollo,

you'd seen him on everything from Have I Got News For You?

to Would You I Like You?

Please welcome the wonderful Hal Cruttenden.

APPLAUSE

Hal's wife is actually from Northern Ireland

and I don't want to criticise,

but Hal does an impression of his wife's accent, which is

frankly offensive and stereotypes us as scary sectarian bigots.

Speaking of which, Hal, where exactly is your wife from?

Now, what a week it's been.

Storm Desmond battered the UK and Ireland,

Storm Donald Trump battered the reputation of America

and Storm Nigel Dodds turned out to be a damp squib.

Yes, congratulations to Arlene Foster who will be the new DUP leader

and First Minister.

Arlene is from Fermanagh, perhaps our most picturesque county.

Honestly, the countryside in Fermanagh is so wonderful,

you could frack for miles down there.

Now, if you suffered from the floods this week or had a power cut,

you have our sympathy, but remember, things could always be worse.

I mean, you could be a Muslim just about to go on holiday to America...

..who supports Manchester United.

Now, on with the show, the audience ask the questions

and the panel provide some very unreliable answers,

so what is our first question tonight from you, the audience?

Who's to blame for the panel always having a dig about Lurgan,

says Jacqueline from Lurgan?

Can I just say I've never had a dig at Lurgan, I love Buckfast.

Jacqueline, thank you for coming from...

Jacqueline, are you here? Yep?

There you are.

Thank you for coming from Lurgan to Belfast -

not as if you can have a night out in Lurgan, is it?

Jackie, Jackie, can I ask, who did the writing for you on the...

APPLAUSE AND GROANING

Oh, look. Oh, hold on.

No, no, no, no, so you don't get to clap

and go, "Oh-h" at the same time. Make up your mind.

Who's to blame for Jake O'Kane dressing like Bob Cratchit?

Says Annie in Downpatrick.

Right, what's our first question tonight?

Who do you blame for funny money? An RTE television programme has

exposed some councillors down south as being open to bribes.

The electoral system is different down south.

Down there, they elect politicians and then find out they're criminals.

APPLAUSE

You're way ahead of me there.

One councillor, Hugh McElvaney demanded 10,000 in sterling, rather

than euro, because he might be corrupt, but he's not stupid.

-But who can we blame for funny money?

-I suppose I'd better take this one,

considering it's my part of the island.

Have you seen the undercover footage of the Monaghan fella?

He is brilliant, so they set up this fake company, RTE did,

and an Icelandic woman was shouting to him and she was like...

-CLEAR ICELANDIC ACCENT:

-.."What can you do for us?"

And he was like...

-SLOW IRISH ACCENT:

-"I will do my homework

"cos I know a load of people around the area."

He was talking to her like she had broken English.

Her English was better than his English, right?

And she goes, "What do you want?"

And he goes, "If this is unsuccessful, I don't want

"any money, but if this is successful, I want loads of money!"

And then he goes like this... # Mmm-hmm-hmm... #

like the Macarena of bribery.

But that's not the only funny money one. There's another one.

It's a brilliant one, right?

A Catholic priest in Italy, he's been arrested

because someone left 10 million quid to the parish

and he spent 70 grand of the money, allegedly, right?

He spent it on Mediterranean cruises, or some sort of break,

two fancy cars, a motorbike and a facelift for his ma.

How do you even bring that up?

Er, Mama? Mama mia... cos he's from a Dolmio ad.

"Hey, Mama, I know you have a great devotion to the Virgin Mary,

"but you know the best thing about the Virgin Mary,

"she never let herself go."

BOTH SPEAK AT ONCE

At least he's only fiddling his expenses.

Gerry Adams has a cottage in Donegal which he puts down as a holiday home.

A holiday home because "safe house" sends out the wrong message.

The other story here was Ian Junior and Danny Kinahan were, er...

JTI Gallaher that closed the factory in Ballymena

and put hundreds and hundreds out of work and they invited Ian Junior

to a rugby match with Danny Kinahan, 1,600 quid or something, and...

-1,690 quid.

-Was it 1,690?

-Er...

Ah, see, see?

Cos Ian Paisley Jr was looking after

the interests of the people of Ballymena that worked in the factory

because he voted against all the smoking regulations that were

coming him, all that EU stuff and all that kind of thing

and the smoking in cars bill that passed in England.

That might be happening here now,

to stop people having a fag in a car with a youngster in the back.

"In the good old days, it was proper, it was proper,

"driving around smoking, never did my children any harm.

"He's four-foot two."

I don't know how this is going to be enforced, this law.

It's easy, you take the child out, smell it, put it back.

So there's going to be checkpoints again,

and there's going to be cops there with a light.

"Any children in the car?"

"No, no children at all. No children at all."

"I can smell shite in the car."

-Danny Kinahan, we know him.

-He's the posh guy.

He's what we call a "big house unionist" and he's just...

He's like you. He's very nice and he shouldn't be here and he just...

He just... I don't mean that the way... No, no, no.

-I'm leaving tomorrow morning.

-Welcome.

Danny Kinahan, he won the election for the UUP

and he's just such a nice man. He doesn't fit into politics here.

He's just so sweet and nice and English and decent.

And camp. Are you saying camp?

-Cos he's like me? Is he quite camp?

-No, he's not.

Oh, is he not?

-If you are wearing the... What's it called again?

-Foulard.

-Foulard!

-It's not a scarf, it's a fouLARD!

You told me that this evening as I was having my cus-TARD!

Do you know that Northern Ireland,

you are the highest spenders in the UK in certain things.

-I saw this this morning, yes.

-Food and clothing.

Lowest spenders in the UK on fuel, obviously, green diesel and...

and power, cos you don't need gas if you have a bonfire.

You're the highest spenders on clothes, you're all fashionistas.

You're all fashionistas in Northern Ireland, you should have

those bags, you know, London, New York, Paris, Strabane, right?

We're the highest spenders in fashion...men, amongst men.

-It's all money on foulards, is it?

-Yes, I don't want a scarf,

I want a foulard.

By the way, your politicians might seem to be a bit dodgy,

but your economy's doing far better than ours.

It was revealed this week that the southern economy is growing at 6%

-or something and we're growing at 1...

-Something like that, yeah.

You're three times better.

We're three times faster towards the next recession.

Northern Ireland,... the Republic's got that...

it's a more roller coaster... it's a more fun ride, I think.

Yeah, well, as our greatest songsmith said,

"Life is a roller coaster."

Maybe you've just got to ride it.

But our economy's in trouble and I blame you, not you personally,

your schoolmate, cos you were at school with somebody...

Oh, don't make it worse. I'm already unpopular on this show.

You can save yourself now. You were at school with who?

I was at school with the Chancellor, George Osborne.

He was Gideon Osborne at the time and I know it's awful and if

I'd known what he was going to be, I could have killed him.

I should have guessed, shouldn't I?

Cos he used to stand in the playground

with a little red lunchbox going, "Oh, got some goodies in here."

What... Did he have a nickname?

Cos he was Gideon, did he have a nickname in school?

No, he was, honestly, he was just called Gideon,

he was Gideon Osborne. He didn't have a... I know.

See, how posh is his school, that there's someone in your school

called Gideon and they don't get the piss taken out of them.

Yes, I'll tell you what, we were a really posh school, OK?

And we were bullied by another private school,

not just a state school, a private school called Latymer

bullied us across the river, because we were posh,

but Latymer, get this, Latymer,

old boys from Latymer include Hugh Grant, the actor,

and Milton Jones, the comedian,

so that's the sort of person who was mugging us for our dinner money.

"Oh, could you possibly give me

"your Rubik's cube, I might have to knee you in the balls or something,"

or Milton Jones mugging you with a pun, "Give me all your money,

"the change will do me good," you know, that sort of...

Thank you, thank you very much for that.

Yes, it was revealed this week that the Republic's economy is

growing three times faster than the north.

This is because of the low rate of corporation tax allows them

to attract more foreign direct investment,

the banking sector has been controlled,

the housing market's stabilised

and their bakeries sell cakes to gay fellas.

So what is our next question tonight?

Who do you blame for Uber coming to Northern Ireland?

Yes, Uber taxis are coming to Belfast,

just what we need - more people whingeing about bus lanes.

But who can we blame for Uber coming to Belfast?

I think it's brilliant, I think it's great. I think it's wonderful.

All the local taxi companies are going,

"It's the end of the world, it's the end of the world,

"we're all going to be unemployed,

"all the desk staff are going to be unemployed."

Good. Good.

Liars! I have never got one of them in my life who's told the truth.

You phone up and you say, "I'm going to the airport.

"I need a taxi, eight o'clock."

"No problem, pal, eight o'clock, right.

"Tango 2-4, eight o'clock. Eight o'clock."

Ten past eight. "Listen, pal..."

"Oh, he's top of the street, pal. He's at the top of the street,

"He's turning the corner,

"You'll be away in two minutes, two minutes.

"Tango 2-4, that guy's in a rush."

25 past, "Listen, pal, I'm going to miss the plane."

"Listen, he rang the bell, he's just after ringing your bell, pal."

I like taxi men.

Taxi men, you know, they'll always talk to you, they'll always

talk to you, but they know everything.

"Oh, see your man, George Osborne, see him?

"I'll tell you the problem he has, right?

"He's keeping the interest rates deflated to an extent

"that's going actually the depress the whole economy.

"What he wants to do is let the interest rise

"and the GDP will rise with it."

And all I've asked, "Have you got change of 20 quid?"

That's all I asked. That's all you ask.

I like it when you don't have to talk to people

and you don't have to do that...

cos the people that work in those taxi depots, wow!

If you're out there, wow!

Those voices - "Mm-mm-mm?!"

Those people certain and single with speaking voices like that,

-COARSE ACCENT:

-"What do you want?!"

-POLITE ACCENT:

-"And hello to you too.

"I would seek a conveyance please from the city centre

"going to the outskirts somewhere in the suburbs."

-COARSE ACCENT:

-"No problem, be with you 10 minutes!"

And being in the cab whenever they used to have the radios

and it wasn't actually that long ago either

and you're in a cab and you hear this... This is brilliant.

I was in a cab once and...in the middle of town, stuck in traffic

and the radio was on.

He had the wee speaker thing and everything,

and you heard the woman coming through from the dispatch

and beautiful speaking voice and she comes in...

-COARSE ACCENT:

-.."Anybody free to pick up at the Co?!

"Anybody free to pick up at the Co?!"

Nobody was free.

"Anybody free to pick up at the Co?!" I was wishing someone would...

"Just say yes, just stop her talking!" and eventually

this guy did answer and I swear to God, this guy was French, right?

This guy had a French accent or he was putting on, it was fantastic.

-COARSE ACCENT:

-"Anybody free to pick up at the Co?"

-All you heard through the speaker was...

-FRENCH ACCENT:

-"I will."

Belfast is actually a very trendy city now.

It's been voted one of the trendiest cities in the world.

They do that every year, every year they come out with this nonsense

about, "Belfast is..."

"Belfast is the..." Who do they survey?

Where are they doing the surveys for this?

It's outside a toilet in some nightclub,

that's what they're doing. "Do you think..."

"Belfast is brilliant, so it is, it's absolutely..."

You've got your foulard on.

I'd never even heard of a foulard and I've only learned that...

I'm 46 and I've learned that coming to Northern Ireland.

I think the wardrobe girl's made that up. "Oh, it's a foulard, Jake."

"Foulard, is that what it is?"

They're all exchanging money now - "I can't believe he went for it!"

A foulard! I mean...

-He...he called me Steptoe the other week.

-But you...

-Exactly.

And I'm walking through town, taxi driver, window down, "Steptoe!"

Isn't this part of a lot of very positive polls

about Northern Ireland, about it being trendy, but isn't it...

I don't know whether you've discussed this

or whether it is well known, I think I saw it in the Belfast Telegraph...

-Oh, so it's true!

-Wasn't it...

It was voted sexiest accent, isn't it, in the UK?

Northern Ireland has the sexiest accent. It is.

I know you won't be able to tell that,

I'm so aroused, just sitting here.

-Close your eyes, close your eyes, close your eyes.

-But it is.

-COARSE ACCENT:

-"You're beautiful!

"I'll be with you in 10 minutes!

"10 minutes, I'm coming!

-"Round the corner."

-"Are you anywhere near the Co?!"

I think I have a thing about accents that slightly scare me.

I think it's true.

I do, I think there's something, I'm a little bit...

During sex, does she shout, "You've 10 minutes to get out?"

It's like, "Do you want me to tie you up?"

"If you let me go free, I won't tell a soul."

-But, um...

-"What's your safe word?" "Buttercrane shopping centre."

Thank you, thank you very much for that.

Yes, it's true, Belfast has been named the trendiest city in Europe.

Obviously somebody hasn't seen Jake wearing those cravats.

It's a foulard!

So, what other questions have we got from the audience tonight?

Who's to blame for the floods, the gays or refugees?

-Willie Frazer...

-Willie Frazer.

Who's to blame for Translink trying out an amphibious bus?

So what is our next question tonight?

Who do you blame for boxers with too much personality?

Tyson Fury may be kicked out of the Sports Personality of the Year

because of his alleged homophobia and to make matters worse,

he's also missed the deadline to be leader of the DUP.

But who can we blame for boxers with too much personality?

Now, I didn't know who this man was

until that fight thing that happened a couple of weeks ago.

-I had no idea, I'm not into sport.

-You'd never guess(!)

And the Tyson Fury thing I thought was a state of mind.

I didn't realise it was his name.

Tyson Fury, Tyson Happy, Tyson Hungry.

I didn't realise that was his actual name and, er...

You could have thought he was one of the Fureys, like Finbar Furey.

Um, yeah, and it turns out he's not and he's a boxer man and he's...

A boxer man?!

- I say, I say... - He won some boxing game.

I believe that's an accurate description of it there

and he got battered round the head by some fella

and he battered him not as hard as he battered the other fella

and he won and Sports Personality of the Year,

oxymoron, and I thought, "Well,

"this Tyson Fury fella has got one half of that correct."

Cos he's running round and his religious beliefs,

saying that everybody's... He's a homophobe and he doesn't believe...

Homosexuality's a sign of Armageddon

and this kind of thing and people here are going, "Yeah, well,

"we're used to that," and it's the sexist stuff that I found...

People seem to not get more annoyed about this.

The sexist stuff was unbelievable, the things that he came out with.

The things he said about his wife, he described his wife,

"My wife sometimes needs an uppercut to the chin

"and then sometimes she doesn't." Oh, that's lovely, isn't it?

I mean, you won't find that card in Clinton's, do you know what I mean?

It's...

Then he says women... The latest one was,

"Women are best in the kitchen on their back making me a cup of tea."

And I don't know what kind of world this man lives in, right?

But do you know how difficult it is

to make a cup of tea lying on your back?

The woman would scald herself there pouring the tea

and trying to limbo out of the place,

milk, you've got no idea whether you're...spoon or...

The thing about saying women... this is what he says,

"Women, they're place is either in the kitchen on the back..."

And he says, "That's a man, that's what a real man thinks,"

and we know the real man thinks,

real man changes babies' nappies, a real man shares the housework

with his wife, a real man ensures his partner achieves their optimum.

Is that everything my wife said?

It says it there, look, "If you say all those things,

-"I'll let you wear that stupid scarf."

-Oh!

-Is Fury a normal surname anyway or is it...

-He changed it.

He did change it, though, he was Tyson Angry Bastard...

-But I do... I do think...

-Tyson O'Toole,

I think it was at one point as well.

I do think, "Thank God he's a boxer," for his dad.

His dad called him Tyson and that expectation...

I mean, imagine that had happened to someone like me,

being called Tyson, imagine you end up

Tyson Fury, hairdresser to the stars.

Thank God, thank God he went into boxing, I think.

I stumbled upon some naked aggression this week in town.

On Saturday, I was in town, doing a bit of Christmas shopping

with my youngest and we were wandering...

I forgot that Willie Frazer was out to save Northern Ireland

and he was...

I stumbled across the protest and it took me a while to find them.

-He was protesting against refugees.

-He was protesting against refugees.

It took me ages to find the actual protest amongst the shoppers,

but I found him in behind the Belfast Telegraph seller

and they were all crowded around.

They said there were 50 of them on the news, but there weren't.

I counted 25 and they were crowded around, there was no loudhailer,

they were just in a corner going, "I think they shouldn't be here."

And everybody else was walking past going, "You're a disgrace."

And calling themselves Protestant Coalition, which is

a disgrace to Protestantism, to be honest, and they were...

If the name has more letters in it

than the number of people who turned up at the protest...

Your organisation doesn't have much support.

This is Willie Frazer, though, so Willie Frazer's involved

in this Protestant Coalition and you think,

"Does Willie know who he is protesting against?"

Given that Willie didn't know the difference between an Irish flag

-and an Italian flag before.

-One of the things,

one of there arguments is, "We don't want terrorists here, we don't want

"terrorists coming into the country."

We don't want terrorists here?

That was genuinely one of his arguments.

"We don't want terrorists here.

"We've got our own sort of organic, free-range terrorists.

"We don't want these battery terrorists coming here,

"these artificial terrorists, we want our own ones."

-Unbelievable!

-Coming over here, taking our jobs!

And the sad thing is that Willie Frazer still manages to be

-the thinking man's Donald Trump.

-That's true.

What is going on in there with that?

So he says he doesn't want any Muslims going to America any more.

Did you see the reactions, though?

The reactions to this, the ban on Muslims entering America,

were heartening. So I've written them down.

"Unhinged," is what Jeb Bush said.

"Reprehensible, prejudiced and divisive," Hillary Clinton said.

"Who will go to the shops for me?" - Peter Robinson.

This is really scary, like, 443 people have been killed this year

in mass shootings in America, right? There's been 1,300 people injured...

Avoid Mass.

Thank you, thank you very much for that.

So what is our next question tonight? Who do you blame for uncool dads?

Um.. I can...

I would say, cos I can say this because my kids are in London

and won't see this.

It's kids. Kids are horrible. They're horribly judgmental.

Mine are 15 and 13 and I'm just sitting this out and waiting.

I'm not going to stay here, but I've got to go home,

but we're hoping to get through the teenage years.

I bought a new car this year and my kids said,

"Get blacked out windows," and I went,

"Why? You want me to look cool?"

They went, "No, we don't want other people to see

"who's dropping us off at school."

They genuinely said that. I was talking to them about my dad.

My dad, OK, looked like me, well, I look like him,

he had a beard and moustache.

He was... Get this, I look like him but he was an alpha male.

So he was like me, but a man.

And he was so cool.

We had such respect for him, my kids call me Chubster.

They call me Chubster and The Camp Man, those are the two,

I promise you. I said, "You don't have any fear of me, do you, Grace?"

And she answered by saying...

-MIMICKING:

-"You don't have any fear of me, do you, Grace?"

Martha, my 15-year-old, I was having a row with and I said,

"Martha, I know what it's like to be 15, I was 15 once as well.

"Do you know what? If you'd known me at 15, we'd have been friends.

And she said... I promise this is true, she said,

"Yeah, you'd have been my gay best friend."

I think it's just very hard being a cool dad.

I don't know if you've heard that Ronnie Wood is becoming

-a dad at 68 to twins.

-Twins.

By the time they're teenagers, he's going to be in his 80s.

He can say things like, "Yeah, go up to your room,

"don't jump on my stairlift again."

So I constantly, I don't know,

I don't think Ronnie Wood's going to do well with this thing.

I must admit, do you remember Ronnie Wood didn't join

the Stones till the '70s, so he's one of the younger Stones...

-He's the oldest.

-..and that shocked me

that someone told me that he is 68,

and I thought, "There's something about pop stars getting old

"that's just so wrong,"

like Madonna clings to youth -

she's got the wrong name for being an old lady.

You can't imagine in the old people's home someone going,

"Can someone take Madonna to the toilet?" It just sounds wrong.

"Old Jay Z's pyjamas are falling down again.

"Do you know Rhianna's been on that commode for 25 minutes?

"Are you still happy, Pharrell? Yes, you were up all night,

"not to get lucky, that was your prostate, wasn't it, mate?"

-Your kids are embarrassed by you...

-That wasn't a question.

Colin, we've just...

This is an intervention, they've asked to say this to you.

-Your kids are embarrassed by you.

-How old are your kids?

-14 and 11.

A few years ago, I had a DVD out and it was out by Christmas,

the way most DVDs are, and in January, I was in an Xtra-vision

and I was up paying for the late return

and the next thing, the youngest at the back of the shop going,

"Daddy, Daddy, you're in the bargain bucket!"

Thank you, thank you very much for that.

Just time for our quickfire round.

I will read you various newspaper headlines

and I want you to be faster than Donald Trump out of a mosque.

Hundreds turn up to see dead whale.

Willie Frazer less popular than stiff Willie.

How long is this going to take?

Foreplay in Ireland.

Why do young men chase older women?

Because they're slower than younger women.

New artificial heart grown in lab.

Arlene Foster first in line to buy one.

End of the squishy banana?

Tim McGarry discovers Viagra.

The real Batman...

Spreads Ebola.

And finally, two's a crowd.

At the NI21 party conference.

That's it. That's the end of the show.

Please show your appreciation to our panel, Colin Murphy...

APPLAUSE

..Hal Cruttenden...

APPLAUSE

..Jake O'Kane...

APPLAUSE

..and Neil Delamere.

APPLAUSE

I'm Tim McGarry, until next time,

don't blame yourselves, blame each other.

Goodbye.