Episode 5 Would I Lie to You?

APPLAUSE

Good evening and welcome to Would I Lie To You?, the show where

deception always gets a good reception.

On Lee Mack's team tonight,

a comedian who once wrote a book of made up facts about pandas.

Well, that's the thing with panda facts - they're never black and white.

It's David O'Doherty.

A breakfast TV presenter who tells us

what the day's weather is going to be like, saving us all

the arduous task of looking out of the window.

It's BBC weather's Carol Kirkwood.

And on David Mitchell's team tonight,

a Glasgow-born comic who'll mix delicately spun lies with

good old-fashioned Scottish aggression.

It's Susan Calman.

It's a joke. It's a joke.

And a man who's done almost 490 Pointless shows,

and if you count tonight, 491.

From Pointless, Richard Osman.

So, to Round 1, home truths,

where our panellists read out a statement from the card in front of them.

To make things harder, they've never seen the card before

so they've no idea what they'll be faced with.

It's up to the opposing team to sort the fact from the fiction.

Richard is first.

I have a 40% stake in a prize winning racing pigeon.

Lee.

If there's one thing I know about, it's buying pigeons.

So be careful with your answer.

Tell me now Richard, how much did you pay for 40% of a pigeon.

-We paid £600.

-Ah! You were robbed.

And it is...

And it's about £70 a month to keep him which is, which is fine.

-£70 a month?

-Yep.

-Wow.

That is a lot of trill.

We don't feed him...we don't feed him trill.

-What do you feed him?

-Er, IPO, steroids.

Oh, well, fine.

What do you do for £70 a month?

What, are you taking him to Alton Towers?

What...what are you...what are you doing with him?

Firstly he's got to be housed, he's got to be fed, he's got to be trained.

-Yes, in a wooden shack.

-I won't leave him...

-What's he got - a bungalow?

-..In a wooden shack this is a prize winner.

-When you say a prize winner, what has he won?

-He won Prix Calais.

-Yep.

And he's won some local things, but that's the proper deal.

-Is it 'prix', P-R-I-X.

-Correct.

How many pigeons were in the race?

It's about 450 odd... It's less than 500 but more than 100 it's quite.

Oh, come on! 500! The sky would be black, then, with pigeons.

"It's the Germans - they're back!

"Agh!"

They're released in Calais and they race all the way to...?

-Well, they...they race home.

-And where's home.

-Essentially. Well, his is up in Lancashire.

-Right.

What's the pigeon's, er, name?

It's called Cobbold Jo, C-O-B-B-O-L-D.

-Cobbold....

-Cobbold Jo.

-Cobbold Jo.

-It's because the original, as you know about racing pigeons, right?

-Oh, I do know about racing pigeons.

-You know Tolly Cobbold?

-Yeah.

-Tolly Cobbold was the...was the grandfather.

-Yeah.

And so, you know, we chose that name that's nice.

Is that true, is there a pigeon called Tolly Cobbold?

I don't know.

-You said you know about pigeons.

-You're mixing me up with someone from a Hovis advert.

LAUGHTER

Are there any distinctive markings, just if there were some pigeons,

say in Trafalgar Square, I'd be able to say,

"Oh, that's Cobbold Jo, down in London for the sales."

I'm going to be honest I would struggle to er,

to choose her out of a pigeon parade but, you know.

Her? And she's called Jo?

-Yeah.

-So is it 'Jo' with no 'e'.

-Yeah.

-Yes.

That's fine, short for Joanna.

I think I might have this.

I don't think lady pigeons do the racing

because they would be pregnant some of the time.

I tell you what, she'd better not be.

It was only a cuddle, wasn't it, Richard?

Do you go and watch...when they go off do you watch it?

-I have seen the pigeon race once.

-How much of the race did you see?

-I've seen the pigeon released.

-Have you ever seen a pigeon land?

-Yeah, I've seen a pigeon land.

-You were there when the pigeon landed?

-No, I...

-You've never seen a pigeon land?

-Right, I've seen a pigeon land, yeah.

-Yes.

But not under racing conditions.

-You've just seen a pigeon land in its spare time.

-Yeah exactly.

So you've only ever...

So what you're saying is you've seen your pigeon take off,

-but you haven't seen your pigeon land.

-I have seen...

-Does that mean your pigeon's lost?

-Ugh...

I don't think when a racing pigeon lands it's any different than

-a normal pigeon.

-No, exactly.

-Oh, wrong.

-They don't get...

It skids right into the shed and go "Whoa, I was going fast."

It raises its wings as it breasts the tape,

that's what it does when it lands.

So, it's time to decide, Lee. What are you going to say?

-OK. Carol thinks it's?

-I think it's true.

-I think... Not true.

Let's say lie. I get confused if you say not true.

It is a lie!

You think it's a lie.

-Ah, Richard the pigeons, the racing, Cobbled Jo, truth or lie?

-It is, I'm afraid...

a lie.

APPLAUSE

Yes, it's a lie.

Richard doesn't have a 40% stake in a prize winning racing pigeon.

Carol, you're next.

I was rumbled at a dinner party after serving up

a shop-bought pie and pretending I'd made it myself.

-David.

-What was in the pie?

Steak and kidney.

And what shop did you buy it from?

I bought it from a local butcher.

Did you make a big deal of saying,

"Oh, look at my home-made steak and kidney pie, isn't it lovely?"

-Unfortunately I did, yes.

-Oh.

-I waxed lyrical.

And who were the people that you were trying to impress so much that you weren't home-making

but you didn't know well enough to say "I bought this from a nice butchers."

They were the parents of a good friend of mine who had been really kind to us

-and I wanted to do something nice for them...

-Repay them by lying?

How did they find out?

That's the question, that's the important issue, Carol.

Well, this was actually quite a bit awkward,

because we were all sitting there having a lovely meal,

beautiful smells, I was saying "I'm so glad I've made these

"because I know steak and kidney is your absolute favourite."

So, knife and fork in, how surprising this is chicken and ham.

Oh, dear.

Weren't you tempted to just go with it, pause and then go,

"Well, how do you make it?"

And, so, what happened when they realised your deceitful ways?

Well, I had to really lie some more and had to think.

I really thought you were going to say come clean.

But, no, lie some more and say "I'm afraid, do you know

"one of the first signs of Alzheimer's is thinking

"you're having chicken when in fact it's steak and kidney.

"It's a terrible thing,

"It means you've basically only got hours of consciousness left."

So, what DID you say Carol?

Well, I said because they had thought that I'd cooked these I said

"I made a big batch of pies at the weekend and I made some chicken

"and ham and I made some steak and kidney and I froze them all.

-"I took out the wrong ones."

-That's very devious.

-SUSAN:

-Did you see how easily that tripped off her tongue?

We have nothing to fear from climate change.

You'll just tell us what we want to hear. It's all fine.

If you feel like you're drowning, in fact it's a lovely sunny day.

So David, what are you going to think here?

I think it's genuinely,

as it is hard to believe Carol would ever lie,

but she's lying one way or another, so is she lying today

or did she lie a long time ago,

I prefer to think that she lied a long time ago.

In which case she's telling the truth now.

Although, actually her lie now would, to be fair, be mitigated

by the fact that that is the point of this game.

I'll be devastated because I've watched Carol and loved Carol

for some period of time and I'll be slightly devastated

and I'll have to take the shrine down that I've got in the house.

But I'll take that shrine down, she probably is telling the truth in that she lied.

Don't throw the shrine away, by the way,

while we can have a little chat about it.

-So, David, you think it's the truth?

-I think we think it's true.

You think it's the truth. Right, Carol Kirkwood was it the truth or was it a lie?

It was...

the truth.

Yes, it's true. Carol was rumbled at a dinner party after serving up

a shop-bought meal and pretending she'd made it herself.

Susan, you're next.

The day before I need to make a journey,

I often make the journey so that when it comes to making

the actual journey, I'll know what the journey involves.

Wow, and that... Just how far, have you gone on these journeys?

-Eh, probably driven an hour.

-From Scotland?

From where I live.

If it's possible for me to do it like that. I mean, I'm not...

I'm not not...strange,

It's got to be possible, it's not like

if I'm going to New York I'll go the day before to New York then come back.

This is journeys that I can make I would say in about an hour's drive radius.

-It's always driving, not on the train?

-I would do it on the train.

I've done it on the bus as well. I've taken the bus to make sure where the bus route goes and the bus stop is.

You don't trust that the driver knows?

Well, no, it's me,

I need to know where I'm going so I can, I can...

You don't on a bus. He'll just do it. You just sit back and relax.

No, but I think Susan's saying that there are certain things

you have to do yourself, even when you travel by bus,

like get on the bus and get off the bus.

At the right point.

And also get on the right bus, that's...there's more than one bus.

-Sorry, you...

-I don't want to sound totally working class.

Tell us, Susan, if you would, the last time that you did this.

It was probably about two weeks ago. I had to go to a meeting

-somewhere I'd not been before.

-Where? A self-help group or a meeting?

You were going for self-help about stop being so anxious about going for journeys

-and you even recce-ed that.

-Yes.

There must have been quite a few of you hanging outside

the meeting point the day before.

Yeah. So I drove from my house to the location,

looked at what the parking restrictions were so I could have the right change with me.

So I was completely relaxed the next day.

If you know for a fact that you're going to do this, you're going to go the day before

do you not the day before that think, "tomorrow I've got to do

"that thing where I go the day before somewhere" and do it that day.

Susan, this now makes sense, cos didn't I see you yesterday

-just sniffing around outside the studios?

-Yep.

Did an event happen in the past such that you once arrived somewhere

and went, "Oh, I wish I had come here yesterday

"and I could have foreseen this terrible situation."

Like when JFK was shot.

Yes, I've always been haunted by that, if only I'd been there.

Yeah, if he'd gone the day before he'd have known when to duck.

-It's rude to be late for things.

-Is that at the base of this,

-that's the root of it?

-I'm paranoid about people thinking I'm rude

or in any way, you know, deceitful like Carol, and just...

-So...

-What are you thinking, then? It does sound plausible.

-When you die, you'll have only lived a third of your life.

-Yeah.

The other two thirds was a recce.

Yeah.

DAVID: I just don't think it fits.

I think she lives life by the horns or whatever that is.

Right.

-Lie?

-Truth.

-Oh, I would say truth.

-You think it's the truth?

-I don't know.

I'm just... I'm practising, I'm going through what,

what I'm going to say in a minute. That wasn't my answer.

-OK. So what are you going to say?

-It's the truth.

It's the truth. Susan, truth or lie?

It is, eh,

the truth.

Yeah, it's true, the day before Susan needs to make a journey,

she'll often make that journey so that she knows

what that journey involves.

Right, our next round is called This Is My... where we bring on

a mystery guest who has a close connection to one of our panellists.

Now, this week each of Lee's team will claim it's them

that has the genuine connection to the guest

and it's up to David's team to spot who's telling the truth.

So please welcome this week's special guest, Iain.

So, Carol what is Iain to you?

Well, this is Iain and to frighten a teacher,

we once hid a ram inside a classroom cupboard.

Lee, how do you know Iain?

This is Iain. He is the supermarket delivery driver

who accidentally trapped me in the back of his van

and drove me to his next drop off point.

And, finally, David, what's your relationship with Iain?

This is Iain. He is a sky-diver

who got blown off-course and almost knocked me off my bike.

Right, there we have it. Carol's sheep prankster,

Lee's accidental abductor

or David's diverted skydiver.

David Mitchell and team, where are you going to begin?

Right, well, Carol, let's start with the...

with the ram in the cupboard.

Oh, the old David Mitchell's chat up line.

Er, why did you put a ram in a cupboard?

Well, Iain and I went to school together in the highlands

and often you would see the sheep and the rams just, you know,

meandering into the school grounds and this particular day one came in.

-So the ram wanders into the school grounds?

-Yes.

And you think, "Oh that's fine, it'll be quite docile.

"I daresay it'll agree to get into a cupboard."

Well, what happened was the teacher was late, he was quite often late,

-and we were in a wee Portakabin out the back of the school...

-Are you saying the teacher was a drinker?

No, but, anyway, he was late, so, we thought it'd be quite funny

because he WAS late just to put this ram in his cupboard so that

when he came in the ram would be mad and come rampaging out.

Does Iain look like the kind of man that would grab a ram

-and drag it into a cupboard...

-Yeah, he does.

-..for a laugh?

He does. He looks like a kind of a devil and I think Carol,

being attractive and beautiful, would have done that whole,

"Oh, let's just put a ram in the cupboard, oh."

And Iain'd be like, "Yeah let's put a ram in the cupboard."

So when the teacher eventually arrived,

how long was it before he went to his cupboard for a little look

at his possessions, and what happened?

-It would've been about ten minutes.

-Ten minutes.

-We were all sniggering in the class.

-Sniggering.

-He opened the door.

-Opened the door.

-This angry ram came rampaging right out at him.

Is that where the word rampaging comes from?

That's when you're trying to contact a ram in the 1980s.

Who would you like to quiz next?

-David, could you it describe how Iain...was it

-nearly

-hit you?

Yeah, skydiving. I mean, this goes back to '92 and my...

My family have always been involved in the Scouts of Ireland

and so the big jamboree was in Wicklow, just outside of Dublin,

and I was on a tandem bicycle with my aunt, who is one of the heads

of Scouting Ireland, and we were heading towards the jamboree

and they were launching a comic book character to remind kids

not to start fires in forests. And he was called Fire Dog.

And his catch phrase was, "Don't start a fire. Woof!"

-And...

-LAUGHTER

For the launch, they decided, in the jamboree, they were going to

parachute Fire Dog into the middle of the jamboree

and we were on the tandem, heading towards it

with our little Scouty ties on.

Can I just check - Fire Dog says, "Don't start a fire, woof!"

Is it, "Don't start a fire, woof," or "Don't start a fire... WOOF!"?

Which one is it?

I want to know. I genuinely want to know this is the campaign.

It's quite easy.

This is quite easily solved immediately with a demonstration,

because my understanding of skydivers is, they have a really

good core muscle, so essentially if we do that bit from Dirty Dancing...

You actually didn't get any taller when you stood up!

That was the oddest thing I've ever seen!

I've never seen anyone stand up and remain the same height!

-Yeah.

-It's shocking!

If I just run towards you like Dirty Da...

and you just lift me up like at the end, then you'll be a skydiver.

And if you don't do it, I'll be really hurt and you're...dead.

-So...

-Likewise, in a minute I'm going to ask you to shut me

in the back of a van.

So, what are you planning to do?

I'm seeing whether or not he looks frightened by the prospect

of me running towards him and he's got to lift me up!

He does look a bit frightened, yeah.

Also, Rob also looks frightened.

What if the end of my story is that, "And then he whacked against a wall,

"his legs shot off and he had to have legs made of glass"?

-Is that the end of your story?

-No.

-Back to Plan A, run at him!

How far away from the jamboree were you at the point of impact,

or, sorry, near impact?

He had just missed the landing area by a few fathoms.

Sorry, it was an aqua jamboree?

We swerved. We avoided him.

He went into a hedge

and we pulled him out. I was, what, 14 or 15 at the time

and my aunt and Iain got talking,

and that is why it's nice

to have my Uncle Iain on the show.

APPLAUSE

Oh, that is a...

-Oh, now that's...

-That was a hell of a landing!

-RICHARD:

-That's a bombshell.

-Yeah.

Your aunt met her husband when he nearly hit her dressed as a dog?

Right, what about Lee?

So, Lee, how did you accidentally get shut in his van, what happened?

As you will know, when the man who comes from the supermarket

-delivers your food, he delivers them in like a plastic box.

-Mm-hm.

So he leaves the box and he goes into the kitchen

and he drops off the food, and what I decide to do is that

I'll help. He brings the last box, I said, "Is that it?"

He said, "Yes, this is your last lot," puts the thing, gets the bags,

goes into the kitchen, Mr Nice here

picks the nice plastic things up and takes them to his van.

-Oh, God!

-And so I go into the....

I know. This is like the start...

This is like the start of an episode of Casualty, isn't it?

So I go in, and as I put them in, I looked to my left

-and something catches my attention.

-A lamppost!

-No.

-And it's snowing.

-No, no.

-And there's a fawn.

No, no. A little thing catches my eyes, believe it or not.

Someone had locked a ram in the back of the van.

Believe it or not, the thing that caught my eye...

I don't believe it, by the way.

..was a slightly ripped box of Coco Pops

and I thought, just for a minute, I thought, "Has Iain just had,

"a little bit of a, like I would do, I'll have a little snack en route"?

So I just walk over to it. Now as I walk over to it,

it's only a couple of steps, I'm now hidden behind a box of food.

Oh, you are kidding me.

You know, the boxes that haven't yet been delivered.

And at that moment I hear the noise of tsk, the door shutting,

and the little handle turning.

So why didn't you call out?

-I did!

-What, and he didn't hear you?

-No.

Over the noise of a van engine? It's not very loud.

Not just a van, the noise of Howard Jones on Magic FM.

It was blasting. You try... Yeah, I'm going, "Help, help!"

and he's going, "What is loo-ooo-oove anyway?"

"Arrgggh!!" "Anybody, anybody..."

"Arrrggghhh!" "What is looo-ooo-ooove?"

I mean, it might not be true but God, it was dramatic.

APPLAUSE

So...

So, er, we do need an answer. Is Iain Carol's sheep prankster,

Lee's accidental abductor

or David's diverted skydiver?

The key thing is, I don't want to be fooled by David O'Doherty,

that's the key. Look at him. Look at that face.

Do you remember, you know in the Brownies you had the Brownie Promise

so do you remember anything from your Scouting days,

-your promise or anything?

-It's different in Ireland.

The Scouts don't have anything that you would possibly remember.

No promises, no value system

other than, "If you see a dog go into a hedge, you marry it"?

-I would say Carol.

-I think... I think it's David.

-You say Carol?

-Yeah.

-I think I think it's David.

You say Carol, you say David.

I think it's David.

So you're going, therefore, with David.

-We're going with David.

-OK.

Iain, would you please reveal your true identity?

My name is Iain.

Carol and I frightened a teacher

by hiding a ram in a classroom cupboard.

APPLAUSE

Yes. Iain is Carol's sheep prankster.

Thank you very much, Iain.

Which brings us to our final round, Quick Fire Lies,

in which our panellists lie not only through their teeth

but against the clock. We will start with...

It is David.

I once sent out 30 professional photographs of myself

to try and get a agent.

I got just one reply, advising me to destroy all copies

of the photograph.

What...

David, what pose exactly where you doing in the glossy print?

I mean, I...

I thought a normal, dignified, at the same time hilarious

-and talented one.

-Show me.

-Yeah, can you do it?

-No, I think what it was...

Do it.

I think maybe, in the picture,

my mouth looked a bit wrong,

you know, maybe it was a bit sort of...

-So that's why he thought...

-Or maybe.

-But you didn't bother to change.

-No, it wasn't like...

And when was this? What period are we talking about?

It was, er, in the 18th century.

No, in the mid/late 1990s.

-What kind of places were you sending them to?

-Um...

Or did you just leave them in phone boxes around London?

How were you dressed in the photograph,

was it a casual or was it a smarter look that you went for?

-I'm guessing smarter.

-Maybe he was wearing a leisure suit,

It was the late '90s, you know.

-What's a leisure suit?

-Erm...

Is that a sort of zip-up thing that you can relieve yourself in?

Yes.

It's what they'll be wearing in the future,

it's just so convenient. Just get in and whatever happens, it's fine.

Did this dent your confidence, David?

Yes.

You didn't think, "I'll just get some more done,

"but this time without the stovepipe hat and the cravat"?

I don't think I immediately got some more done.

I mean, I have subsequently had other photos taken.

-You got your confidence back?

-Yeah.

So, what do you think, do you think that could be the truth?

-I think it's true.

-You do?

-Yeah.

-I think it's true.

-We'll say it's true.

David, truth or lie?

It is true.

Oh, true.

-Sad.

-It's sad.

It's true, David did once send out 30 professional photographs

but was advised by an agent to destroy all copies. Next.

It's David O'Doherty.

Possession.

Ah, there's a box under the desk. Just pop the box

on the desk and then there's a card inside it.

Before you take out the possession, just read the card, please.

This is one of the pairs of leg warmers for birds that I've made.

I would've brought more, but birds are using them.

Will you show us these leg warmers?

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

I live beside the canal

and the swans are very unhappy around there.

The swans? You've tried to put a leg warmer on a swan?!

He hasn't tried to, he's succeeded.

How the hell do you...? A swan?!

So you're trying to feed it over the webbing

and he doesn't get cross? He's got a great big beak on a...

Everyone knows about this, but if you befriend the swan,

the first thing... You know you befriend a swan when the wings go up

like that and then generally they go like that, as in,

"Make me leg warmers." That's it.

Are they for swans?

David, they would break your arm if you went near them.

-Famously.

-Famous.

-That's what they do.

What is it made out of?

They break your arm and then the Queen eats them.

How do you get them over the feet?

If you put your hand like that and then try...

Try and get it over there.

It's like OJ Simpson, slip it on there, that's a swan.

-That's a swan foot.

-That's a swan.

With the swan it's all about authority. So watch this.

-LEE:

-Now that... That...

They're webbed, they're webbed.

That's no good. That's going to hurt the swan,

you've just ripped through it's webbing.

-You know when you said swan at the beginning...

-Yeah.

..did you mean sparrow?

David, it's time to take a guess. I mean, I don't know which way

you're going to go on this(!)

Maybe a swan could be able to slip that over its foot

and maybe a swan would derive tremendous warmth from this

incredibly thin and flimsy and short piece of material going

an inconsiderable distance up its really rather long leg.

-I think it's true!

-Don't say that!

Don't, cos that's the sort of...

That's what happens to your mind in this game, you say, and you

start thinking, "Oh, yeah, of course, the fact that he said swan

"and it seems impossible is exactly what's so plausible about it"!

If you people don't start taking this a bit more seriously,

I'm going to bring my Uncle Iain out here again!

So what are you going to go for?

-I think we're going to say lie.

-Lie. You're saying it's a lie.

-I'd just like to say, Rob...

-Yes?

-If it's true...

-Yes.

I don't care.

David, truth or lie?

I'm afraid my tale of swan leg warmers...

..is a lie. Thank God.

Who'd have thought it? Who would have thought it?

Yes, it's a lie, David doesn't make leg warmers for birds.

KLAXON

And that noise signals time is up. It's the end of the show.

I can reveal that David's team have two points and Lee's team has four.

Hey. Well done, team. Well done, Carol.

But, of course, it's not just a team game.

My individual liar of the week this week

is David O'Doherty.

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

Yes, David O'Doherty. He's made the show like a massive bed

and lied in it. Good night.

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