Episode 5 The Sarah Millican Television Programme

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Hello!

Hello and welcome to The Sarah Millican Television Programme,

where I tell TV, I love it,

and then get jealous that it's seeing other presenters.

I love television - it's taught me everything I know.

I love The Apprentice...

a show where Lord Sugar fires people who don't actually work for him.

It's like me ringing Colin Firth and saying, "It's not you, it's me."

When they get fired, they have to get straight in a taxi,

which, ironically, is driven by the bloke who won Series 3.

I love Total Wipeout.

It's pure light entertainment.

It's lots of people falling off things into water.

Basically, You've Been Drowned.

Richard Hammond mocking people for minor mishaps...

it's like George Michael criticising your parking.

I've learned much while watching Crimewatch.

If you're going to commit a major crime,

get your hair done and put some lippy on,

so you don't look like shite in the reconstruction.

Basically, on Crimewatch,

it's the police, saying, "We can't do this, can you help us out?"

It would be like on Embarrassing Bodies, the doctor saying,

"Do you know what the hell this is?"

"Shall we just cut it off?"

Tonight, I'm going to talk about two different types of TV programmes -

sport and entertainment.

I don't mean when you watch someone do the long jump,

and there's dog dirt in the sand.

Sport is on telly all the time, you just can't avoid it.

It's like PE at school.

Remember in the infant school,

when you just wore vests and pants for PE?

One summer day, I was wearing a sundress with no vest,

so, when it came to PE, I was just wearing pants.

None of them found me a vest.

The teacher made everyone do it just in their pants.

I'm pretty sure if I could remember her name,

I could get her arrested...

Mrs Pullin.

People say PE lessons are a valuable preparation for life.

Yes, without PE, your first experience

of standing crying in your pants

would be in your 30s,

in a fitting room, in Top Shop.

I hated the communal showers in PE.

I didn't need a shower anyway,

because I never got picked for anything.

I just put things away at the end.

Honestly, how much of a sweat can I work up,

putting hockey sticks back in a cupboard?

According to statistics, PE was most people's worst experience at school.

It came ahead of bullying!

"Please punch me in the face - it'll get me out of rounders."

I wasn't a very good swimmer.

When we did our 25 metres,

the pool that we did it in was really small,

so we had to do corner to corner to corner to corner.

I've never been very good at swimming on my front -

I've always been better on my back.

I was so nervous of hitting my head, that I turned too quickly,

so instead of getting a 25 metres badge,

they gave me a certificate for 10 metres,

as I'd just done a little circle in the middle.

I was better than my friend, Debbie, though.

She was so rubbish at swimming, she didn't think anyone would notice

if she just walked across the pool.

As long as she did the arms.

It was so tragic that nobody had the heart to tell her

that we could see her legs because it was water!

She was like a rubbish Jesus!

They let us try fancy sports at school,

and I found out I'm pretty good at javelin.

But it turns out it's judged on distance, not height.

I was also good at darts as a child.

I nearly always hit the wooden square on the wall

and, occasionally, the round felt bit in the middle.

That was at an after-school club we had called Tiddlers,

where we'd drink tea,

watch old films and play darts.

I've got a horrible feeling that I was dropped off at an old people's home.

In netball, it was always the popular girls

that were asked to pick teams, and I was usually picked last.

There was even a time when one team decided

they would rather be a man down than have me on their side.

-AUDIENCE:

-Aw!

But once, just once, the teacher asked me if I'd like to pick a team.

Of course I bloody did.

So I picked every girl in that class who had glasses or an inhaler...

..a wonky eye, club feet, braces or a sling.

I built myself a team of mutants.

Or as I like to call them, my friends.

We'll trip people up with our crutches.

We'll see the ball better with our jam-jar glasses.

We'll obscure the opponent's vision with our massive perms.

If this was a Hollywood film, we would've won,

but it wasn't -

it was a comprehensive school in South Shields.

We got slaughtered.

For most of those girls,

it was the first time they'd held a netball

when not putting it in a cupboard.

Some people continue doing PE as an adult.

Some people even hire personal trainers to be mean to them

and motivate them to lose weight.

Or you could just get married to the wrong man.

The last time I was in a gym, they were called leisure centres.

I was only really interested in vending machines.

But to be fair, you can work up a sweat

if your Double Decker gets stuck and you have to shake it loose.

A friend of mine once saw a woman Immac-ing her nunnie

in the changing room at the gym.

She popped it on, but you know you've got to keep them separate.

She had her legs apart for 15 minutes while it worked.

Another friend saw a man on a treadmill eating a Happy Meal.

With the Olympics coming up,

people will get motivated to be more active.

I feel the same when Wimbledon starts and I want to play tennis.

Or when Delia Smith's on the telly and I want to eat.

Or when Gary Barlow's on the telly...

and I want to eat.

I ate a bar of Dairy Milk recently.

Recently! It's still in my teeth.

When I'd finished, I noticed it said on the wrapper,

"Dairy Milk are proud sponsors of the Olympics,"

and I thought, "Oh, my God, have I just done a sport?"

What I need is an expert from the telly to teach me about sport.

If a red-faced man in a pub ever tells you

that women don't know about sport,

just saying her name will instantly shut them up.

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome top BBC sport presenter,

Clare Balding.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

-Hello.

-Hello.

Thank you for coming on the show.

Do you actually watch the sport when you're presenting,

even if it's something shit, like golf?

-I love golf.

-Really?

I commentate on golf for the radio.

So the Open golf, I had Phil Mickelson on the final day -

none of this will mean anything - but I was very excited.

For ten holes, he played magic golf. It was amazing, then he fell apart.

-Magic golf?

-Magic golf.

Is that like crazy golf?

Yes, it was like crazy golf. It was so exciting.

-Get it in the windmill.

-Over the bridge, brilliant.

Have you ever been commentating on a sport and thought,

"Oh, my God, I've just forgotten all of the rules to this?"

-Frequently, yes.

-So, you've got no idea if they're doing well or not?

Not so much you've got no idea whether they're doing well,

but you sometimes go blank.

I presented darts once.

And only once.

At the end of it, as I was going live for the final link,

I couldn't remember the name of the guy who'd won it.

Seriously, I couldn't.

I just thought, "Oh, please come." So I kept the sentence going and... "Wonderful scenes here.

"Congratulations to..."

And as I went "to", the name popped into my head.

You didn't just say, "The big fat one!"?

Next time.

-You can have that as a standby.

-That's good.

-You're welcome.

At school, were you always picked first for games?

No, I'm quite crushed by that and damaged psychologically.

I just commentated on them and I found myself with a career.

Sort of get your own back.

-Yes, totally.

-I like that.

-On all those bitches.

-Yeah.

Now, you love horses,

but you know what happens to horses when they're not very good?

D'you...

D'you ever...

D'you ever use a Pritt Stick and get sad?

LAUGHTER

"Aw..."

"I knew him."

-I actually might cry.

-Really?

-That's awful.

-Could you do it to camera?

They've a very good retraining of racehorses charity set up

that makes sure that racehorses that don't want to race any more,

they can do something else, train for something else.

-What else do they do?

-My dad trained...

My dad trained a horse for the Queen once called Forge,

and he ended up not liking racing at all and became an extra in films.

-He was in that series, Trainer. Do you remember that?

-Oh, yeah.

He decided... They had this shot at Newbury Racecourse.

They did the race many times, and by the third go,

he thought, "I don't like this," so he lay down.

"I'm not doing any more of this,"

and that is why he wasn't a good racehorse.

-Quite a diva.

-Yeah, he was. "Get me off set!"

"I want my own caravan."

Is it a caravan? It's a trailer, isn't it? Not a caravan!

I'd make a rubbish diva! "I want a caravan."

"Take your trailer and stuff it up your arse!"

I have sat on a horse once, only once ever, and it hurt my nunnie.

Then it stood on my sister's foot,

and we thought, "We're never going to a school fair ever again."

But I was a little bit worried that I might have lost my virginity.

It had never been sore down there before.

Is it possible to lose your virginity?

I don't think it's possible to lose your virginity,

but I think, way back in Victorian times,

they would make women ride side-saddle

to make sure there wasn't the danger of legs spread.

-Legs akimbo.

-Yeah.

Maybe when they got married,

their husband would think they weren't a virgin but they were.

-Wow.

-Yeah.

-He'd have his torch out and that, wouldn't he?

-Yeah.

That's amazing, but maybe after that, they're allowed to ride a horse properly.

I think sometimes it's a good excuse.

"Oh, I've just been riding... a lot."

"I've just been on a horse."

It's been great talking to you.

-Has it?

-It really has,

but I'm not very good at ending these conversations.

As you know, a good finish is very important.

So what I need is an expert to help me out,

someone who knows about big finishes.

Please welcome, world champion gymnast, Beth Tweddle.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Thank you for coming on the show. How are your Olympic preparations?

Training is going really well.

I start competition season soon,

so that'll be a kick-start to 2012 and getting me moving.

You could actually win gold. It's very exciting, isn't it?

Yes, everything is going my way at the minute,

but it's just about what happens on the day.

Looking forward to the challenge

and hopefully I can end that career with an Olympic medal.

You're effectively doing roly-polies for a living.

-Is that a job?

-I'd like to say so.

Some people, including my boyfriend, would disagree.

He quite often says I'm a bit of a bum, I don't do anything.

But I call it a job.

You must be really good at sex, though, mustn't you?

Ever been getting it on with your boyfriend

and stopped to chalk your hands?

You'll have to ask him about this.

So, Beth, I'm looking for a big finish for my chat with Clare

and when I was little, me and my sister bought some leotards,

not as spangly as yours, but they were nice.

We didn't bother with the gymnastics -

we'd just wanted to do the ta-da at the end.

That was the only bit we were interested in.

As a world champion, you've obviously done a lot of ta-das.

You're clearly very good at it.

Let's have a look at what you're going to teach me.

Yeah, I've got a few skills I'm going to show you -

keep a close eye and you can have a go next.

OK, deal.

APPLAUSE

CHEERING

Oh!

Oh!

That was amazing.

Your boyfriend is very lucky.

Is there any chance I could just do a forward roll?

-Yes, but there's one condition.

-OK.

A really good ta-da, but can we call it a "pre-SENT"?

Is that what it's called? A present?

Rather than a little ta-da, a nice present.

So you do, "Present!"?

-Without the sound effect, yes.

-Really? Am I not allowed to say it?

Taking the fun out of sport, isn't she?

-Let's do it. Shall we do it?

-Yes.

-Clare, would you mind commentating?

-Oh, love to.

-Excellent, let's do it.

Well, this is quite some story at the Olympics of 2012.

This girl has come from nowhere.

She has limited athletic ability

and absolutely no certificates,

apart from something proving she can swim 10 metres.

Sarah Millican will now attempt the forward roll,

looking for a clean entry,

a clean exit, rhythm and balance in between.

And she goes into a forward roll. She struggles to get up.

Lovely present to finish.

What a finish from Sarah Millican,

and the flowers come onto the stage.

The audience here in London go mad.

What a sensational performance from Sarah Millican.

Oh, thank you very much. That was fantastic, thank you.

APPLAUSE

Thank you and good luck in London. Beth Tweddle, everybody.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

And thank you for the brilliant commentary, Clare Balding.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Now, one of my favourite entertainment shows on the telly

is Strictly Come Dancing,

but I would never want to go on in case I never got picked.

Strictly would be better if it was more like a nightclub,

where you have to signal to your friends to rescue you

if Anton du Beke sidles up.

ITV has got Dancing On Ice,

which is basically Strictly with a bigger insurance budget.

Apparently, they tried to get Brucie to host it, but unfortunately,

the local scouts kept coming round and gritting the stage...

and asking if he needed anything doing.

Dancing On Ice is like someone saw Strictly and went,

"It's good, but it's just not gay enough."

Let's be honest, though - talent show wise,

everything has been done, hasn't it?

We're down to finding

Britain's best opera-singing, one-legged break-dance crew

who are doing it for their nanas.

People want to go on The X Factor

because they think it'll change their lives, and it does.

They can't go out any more, because people think they're shit!

Did anyone here play a musical instrument at school?

Recorder.

That's not an instrument, flower.

It's just a fancy rape alarm.

It would have the same effect, wouldn't it?

SHE SCREECHES

I tried playing the clarinet at school.

My teacher told me I needed to practise in the summer holidays

for three hours every day.

I was in the middle of the Sweet Valley High books.

He had no chance.

I took the clarinet box in to the teacher after the summer holidays

and blew the dust off it.

He understood.

It's a shame you can't do that with boyfriends.

"You haven't touched him for six weeks, have you?"

"Do you want to stop?" "Yes, please."

"Did you blow it even once?"

LAUGHTER

"I can't get a note out of it."

APPLAUSE

My one and only talent is I can do a horn.

SHE MIMICS A SQUEAKY HORN

I can't do it without doing me hand, though. Always have to do the hand.

MIMICS HORN

MIMICS HORN TWICE

My fella and I were once in HMV,

and he was thrilled that he knew the track that they were playing.

As we got to the till, the next track came on, and he knew that too.

"Still got it!"

We asked what it was, and the lad behind the counter said

it was called The Best Dad Album In The World Ever.

I love Glee, and, in some ways, my school was very similar.

Overwhelmed with emotion,

someone would burst into song in the hallway,

then everybody would join in...

kicking and punching them till they stopped.

At one school disco,

we were encouraged to bring our own mix tapes.

Momentarily forgetting how uncool my music taste and I were,

I handed my favourite one in.

Halfway through the night, they played it. I was thrilled.

First song, Kylie Minogue's Got To Be Certain.

I could see the other kids looking around as if to say,

"Whose tape's this? We must immediately stop bullying her

"and show her how to do her hair properly."

It was all going so well until the opening bars of Al Jarreau's theme from Moonlighting.

# Some walk by night... #

MUSIC CUTS ABRUPTLY

It's like living it all again(!)

So, what I need is an expert from the telly to teach me

about all things showbiz.

He can put his left foot in, he can put his left foot out,

and I'm pretty sure he can shake it all about.

Please welcome the star of Pineapple Dance Studios

and Dancing On Ice, Louie Spence!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Thanks very much for coming on the show, Louie.

Now, let's see a little bit of you in action.

DRUMBEAT PLAYS IN BACKGROUND

That was just my intro music. I have that every morning.

I just can't help myself!

How do you deal with your shyness?

I don't know! I really don't.

Apart from the shyness and having an impediment, you know, it's hard.

It is hard being me.

But it must be hard to come out of your shell every once in a while,

-cos you're so quiet, normally(!)

-It was never hard for me to come out!

Happened a long time ago!

I came kicking out the womb, "Hey!"

See, my best dance move is the boob dance. Do you know the boob dance?

Well, you're giving me a bit of competition there, actually.

Is it going to be that one?

Well, whatever you do, it doesn't matter about the bottom half.

You always have your arms in the air, cos then your boobs look fantastic. That's what I do.

Then your boobs are pointing where they're supposed to be rather than resting at me belly.

Sometimes when I'm at home and I'm naked...

You know when sometimes you're naked

but you're talking about boring things with your partner, logistics,

"What time are you going to be in?" that sort of thing.

And I just put me arms up and hold the doorframe.

It makes me tits look amazing!

He's never noticed that it looks really weird.

What's the weirdest place you've ever broken into dance?

Well, I mean, for me, it's not really weird to break into dance anywhere,

-cos if I hear a bit of music...

-It's expected.

-Exactly.

I suppose funerals aren't really a great thing to go, you know...

-On top of the coffin.

-A quick tap dance, you know what I mean?

Their favourite tune comes on, and there's me in the background, "Wo-o-oah!"

Have you ever danced your way out of a fight?

You know what, I may have danced my way into one, not out of one.

Louie, you might have gathered that I don't know anything about dance.

-No.

-That's quite clear.

I've got a list of dance moves here.

Um, do you think you can show me what they are?

-Can I show you what they are?

-Yeah. Come with me, pet.

APPLAUSE

Now, they're going to come pretty thick and fast, OK?

That's how I like 'em, darling! LAUGHTER

They say it's the girth that takes your breath away!

Let's see how many you can do against the clock. Are you ready?

Right.

MUSIC: "It's Like That" by Run DMC

Vogue.

Hootchy kootchy.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Robot.

AUDIENCE CLAP ALONG

-Krumping.

-AUDIENCE:

-Whoo!

SARAH LAUGHS

Mashed potato.

Mashed potato - that one?

Funky chicken.

LAUGHTER

No, no, no!

Funky chicken!

The Lasso.

-AUDIENCE:

-Wo-o-oo!

-Eat the pasty.

-What?

Eat the pasty!

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

I made that one up!

Running man.

CHEERING

Charleston.

CHEERING

The Cossack.

Woo-hoo-hoo!

CHEERING

The Caterpillar.

And your final one...

..is the Get Off Dance.

Ladies and gentlemen, Louie Spence!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

SARAH LAUGHS

Get off!

That's it for tonight.

Unfortunately, we didn't have time to talk about

Andrew Lloyd Webber's search for Nancy.

If Andrew Lloyd Webber is ever searching for the Child Catcher

from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, he should just look in the mirror.

LAUGHTER

We didn't have time to mention Popstar To Operastar -

surely the easiest way to go from one to the other

is just to eat loads.

-LAUGHTER

-Good night!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd