Episode 8 Would I Lie to You?

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

The show with dedication to fabrication.

And on Lee Mack's team tonight

a TV chef who co-wrote The Hairy Dieters book.

I bought it last week and I've already lost nine pounds,

well, £8.99 to be precise.

It's the Hairy Biker, Dave Myers.

Thank you.

And a woman whose working day starts at 3.00am

so put your hands together, very quietly so you don't wake her up,

it's Susanna Reid.

Now, on David Mitchell's team tonight,

a man who is one of the few comedy geniuses who can do the vital

but thankless task of hosting a comedy panel show, Jimmy Carr.

And a comedian and actor with a line in saving nature

and restoring homes but tonight we'll be after a little less

conservation and a little more action, it's Griff Rhys Jones.

And so we begin with Round 1, Home Truths, where our panellists

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

Now 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.

Jimmy Carr is first up.

As a baby, I was regularly fed coffee in my bottle.

Lee Mack's team, what do you make of that?

From...from birth?

I thought you were going to say, from your mother's breast?

You were given coffee in the milk?

Well, milky coffee from a very...from about the age of three.

This is not hot coffee, obviously.

Yeah, no, it would have been quite warm, warm milky coffee.

And when you got older did you ever say to your parents,

-why did this happen?

-Yeah.

My children like coffee.

Nowadays you can have what they call a kiddychino, a babychino.

Sorry, babychino. I got it wrong, kiddychino.

Actually, a kiddychino is just a very small pair of trousers.

You probably do use them.

If they were putting coffee in your milk for a...

No, they weren't putting coffee in my milk, I was having coffee.

Slightly milky coffee.

Well, that is the same as putting coffee in milk.

Well...

No, no, there's distinction between putting coffee in milk

and putting milk in coffee.

What is the distinction?

It's like the distinction between having a glass of water

and going swimming.

In one case you're putting water in yourself,

in the other case, you're putting yourself in water.

Did they give you other more adult foodstuffs at a very young age?

I think I was...

I think I was allowed a modicum of booze as a child.

Oh, were you? At what age were you allowed booze?

Like, as a baby.

It was to offset the coffee buzz.

Lee, what, what, what were you given as a child?

Evostick.

But that's glue.

Yeah, but that was to stop me getting out the cot.

David, as a small child, what were they bringing you in your quarters?

Just a port and a cigar.

You took the words out of my self-parodic mouth.

No, the blood of a pheasant.

Did you say pheasant or peasant?

Lee, what are you thinking, is there any truth in this?

Which way are you leaning?

I don't know, what do you think, guys?

I think we're skirting on the edge of giving out really bad child care advice.

That is true, but I can't help thinking that any parent

that's looking at Jimmy and thinking, I want to raise

a child like that anyway, is a dodgy parent in the first place.

You know what I mean?

-I think it's nonsense.

-You think it's nonsense.

Nonsense, OK.

-I think it's a lie.

-You think it's a lie.

-We'll say it's a lie then.

-Pretty conclusively.

-Yeah.

Jimmy Carr, were you telling us

the truth then or were you telling a lie?

I can tell you it is absolutely true.

It's true.

Wow, wow.

Yes, it's true.

As a baby, Jimmy was regularly fed coffee in his bottle.

Dave, you're next.

I once spent an entire Christmas locked in a bank.

David's team.

By an entire Christmas, what are we talking? All 12 days, I'm assuming.

No, Christmas Eve until about 7.00 on Boxing night.

-On Boxing night?

-Yes.

When the bank opened for the usual Boxing Day evening.

-No, somebody came to let me out.

-Which bank?

It was a merchant bank. I was working as a security guard

and I'd elected, due to personal trauma, that I'd spend my

Christmas working overtime, guarding Hill Samuel in Victoria.

And then they forgot about you.

No, because there was a rush on at Christmas,

I never got relieved on Christmas morning.

-A rush on.

-Oh, we all look forward to that.

I mean, in the Brydon household, I have to say,

it's my one Christmas treat.

It was the Christmas after John Lennon got assassinated.

And you had to go into hiding?

I don't ever remember you being implicated in this.

-You see, I was living with a girl in Streatham.

-Yeah, Yoko.

No. And we split up because she was seeing somebody else.

John Lennon.

So I needed to get a job and, you know, I wanted to be a bit of

a martyr so I said I'd work the Christmas shift as a security guard.

Like many of the great martyrs through history.

-Dave, answer me this.

-Yes, certainly, Griff.

You went through a period where you were so lonely and down

that you didn't have any family of any kind whatsoever

who were saying, come home for Christmas and come and...?

No, but they laughed themselves silly when I phoned them

up on Christmas Day and told them where I was.

How did you do that?

There was a phone in the bank.

What sort of bank is this, with a phone in it?

I, honestly, I've tried to phone a bank over and over again.

So there's a phone in the bank,

why did you only use it to phone your family

and not to phone someone who could have released you from the bank?

Oh, I kept phoning. I kept phoning. It was a firm in Croydon that

had employed me and I kept phoning them and they said

they had nobody in to hold on.

So I held on right through, like, four shifts.

-And you accepted that?

-Oh, no, I was locked in the bank.

-So at 8.00...

-And I couldn't get out.

When you're a guard in the bank, they lock you in.

They don't lock you in surely, in the bank?

Well, they wouldn't give me the keys. I was only 22.

Sorry, that's how a merchant bank ensures its security over Christmas?

It locks a 22-year-old in there and they go,

it's all right if anyone breaks in, the 22-year-old will handle it.

No, but I had a phone, you see. I could have phoned for the police.

What were you supposed to do if the burglars all come in?

Ring Croydon, they say, we'll have someone there in the next 36 hours.

How did you actually celebrate Christmas?

I mean, what did you do to mark it?

Before I went to work, I did take myself a small capon,

I stuffed it, little sausages and everything and I put it by my,

you know, away, and I looked forward to it.

But when I got back on Boxing night,

the cat had had my capon cos I forgot to put it away.

The cat was wearing your cape?

No, a capon, it's like a type of chicken.

-Oh, sorry.

-I didn't even have a Christmas dinner.

-The cat with a cape on.

-The cat wasn't wearing the apron.

-He said...

-The cat's there taking over doing the frying going,

well, he's gone I might as well look after myself.

-No, no, no, no, no.

-It's like a big chicken.

He clearly said, I came back and the cat had my cape on.

So, David, what are you thinking?

There is only one person who can answer this question

here in this room, so we're going to have to turn to you, Jimmy.

I wouldn't have thought there were many merchant banks in Victoria.

I don't really know much about banks in Victoria,

if it was in Jersey I'd...

LAUGHTER

..I'm your man.

So is it the truth?

-I think true.

-Do you?

I like the detail, the cat,

the capon, I love the story, I'd like to buy the rights.

-We think it's true.

-True, we think it's true.

-You all think it's true.

-Absolutely true.

Dave, truth or lie?

Sadly, it's true.

Yes, it's true. Dave once spent an entire Christmas locked in a bank.

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.

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, Ray.

So, let's start with Susanna how do you know Ray?

This is Ray.

I stole his title for downing a pint faster than anyone

else on the BBC Breakfast team.

Dave, what is Ray to you?

This is Ray, and as teenagers we spent two weeks

building a 35 foot long airship in his back garden

for it only to be popped by his pet cat.

What about you, Lee, what's your relationship with Ray?

This is Ray he taught me to drive in a hearse.

So there we are.

Susanna's pint drinking opponent, Dave's airship building buddy,

or Lee's hearse driving instructor.

David's team, who do you want to start with?

How quickly can you drink a pint?

I can drink a pint in six seconds.

-Six seconds?

-Yes.

How quick was Ray?

Seven seconds.

Thank God you said a number bigger.

And how long had Ray held the record?

Three years.

And how much less a man do you think he felt?

Well, it was a tough phone call because I had to call him

to tell him that his record had gone.

Sorry, you just did this at home, did you?

"I've had another one, Ray, I'm really getting through it tonight."

-Sorry, no Ray....

-If you're drunk, why do you turn northern, Jimmy?

-Because of the alcohol.

-Oh, right.

I don't mind. When I'm trying to fiddle the government,

I always put on Jimmy's voice.

We all, we all do different things, we all do different voices.

Susanna can you just fill me in,

what was his role in the Breakfast team then?

-Ray was a floor manager of Breakfast.

-Right.

In Television Centre.

I mean, Ray is famous for having the record of

Seven seconds for downing a pint.

But that was when we were at Television centre in London

and then, of course, the Breakfast team moved to Salford

and Ray didn't come with us.

Oh, I see, so the Breakfast team start downing pints when?

I've seen the show, I think they start before they finish.

-Do they?

-I'm confident.

What's the context for this pint drinking, is it an annual?

It is the annual Christmas party.

What is your pint drinking technique?

You have the pint.

And you drink it.

Quickly.

-I tap it once.

-Yeah.

-And I do it in four glugs.

Four glugs?!

You can't do a pint in four glugs? How big are your glugs?

I'd like to know about the phone call.

Did you want to call him straightaway,

-did you wait till the next day?

-It was the next day.

Did you HAVE to ring him?

Cos he's already lost his job, the place he works has closed,

and so he'll be going, on top of that, you may think you're remembered

fondly as the fastest beer drinker here, well no not even that,

you've been beaten in that by one of the female presenters of the show.

He didn't care, he got a new job teaching people to drive in hearses.

Let's move on to that, so you, he taught you to drive,

why in a hearse?

Because that's the vehicle he owned, because he was a funeral director.

So what does the sign on his shop say?

Closed, when he's teaching me.

Why did he teach you to drive if he was a funeral director?

Because he was a friend who was a funeral director,

-he just so happened to own a hearse.

-Where did this all take place?

-In the hearse.

-No, I meant...

LAUGHTER

I sometimes said, can I have a lie down in the back

if I was tired, but he wasn't.

-Where does he come from?

-Southport.

-Southport, the streets of Southport?

Yes, how do you know I'm from Southport?

-I told him.

-How do you know?

Because we've been doing this programme for a thousand years.

Right so you're in Southport.

Is that you David? Is that David?

I know everything about you, including the fact that you

did not learn to drive in a hearse.

Nevertheless, we have to go through this.

What age did you get your driving licence?

-About 22.

-Wow!

-About 22?

Wow, what? I was a late developer.

I don't think you...

Didn't have a first girlfriend till 46 and I'm only 44.

Give me a call in a couple of years.

Actually, I'd like to ask you something, what's

the name of this funeral directors?

-What, Ray's Funeral Directors?

-Ray's Funeral Directors.

No, no, that's not my answer, I said, what? Ray's funeral directors?

Yeah, what was Ray's funeral directors called?

I'll tell you now,

-I'll tell you what Ray's funeral directors was called.

-Yeah.

Jones' Funeral Directors.

Jones, how does he do it, how does he come up with it so fast?

When he took you out for these driving lessons, did it ever

happen that you had, how shall I put it, a passenger in the back?

No, but the, he did teach me once with a coffin in the back

that didn't contain a body.

It didn't contain anything before you go, what was in there?

DAVID: Did he, did he?

Ocado have got a bit more protective over their fruit and veg.

-Should we move onto the airship.

-Yes, this is Dave.

So you built an airship...I mean, this seems entirely plausible

to me, you built an airship in your back garden?

No, in Ray's back garden, we had a mutual love of dirigibles.

And how um, how, how old were you when you, when you did this?

-16.

-What did you build your airship out of?

Well, it's mainly air.

No, no, no, it was plastic sheeting but it was sculpted

so it did form the shape of an airship.

How can you sculpt sheeting?

Because the way you cut it and you put it together,

when it's blown up, it will assume that shape.

And was there anything underneath it?

There was meant to be, but it never got that far, really. Um...

When the cat jumped on it, it was kind of went out of commission.

With his cape billowing in the wind.

It was a different cat.

You had terrible trouble with cats. How did you inflate it?

-With a vacuum cleaner put on blow.

-So you blew with a vacuum cleaner?

Do they have a blow function? I don't know.

-Do you do any vacuuming very often?

-God, no!

-No, what about you, Jimmy?

I don't know I'd have to ask my people but I imagine someone does.

It's terrible to see three grown men

who've never picked up a vacuum cleaner.

Oh, I have picked one up.

-Oh, I've picked one up, yeah, but not for vacuuming.

-Yeah.

So the idea was, you actually get the shape formed, and then

you heat the air that you put in and hopefully it would have flown.

How do you heat the air once it's already in there?

Crafting a gondola with two camping stoves on.

-It wasn't to carry people.

-You said, "Crafting a gondola."

-We never got that far.

-I know what all three of those words mean,

but I can't get a concept out of them.

In airship terminology, in dirigibles, it is a gondola

that's suspended underneath the bag of gas.

Do you know what, that fact alone - true.

Have we changed channels?

Where were you going to go?

Venice.

Just flying really. It was just...

He was thinking,

next time I get locked in a bank, I want an escape plan.

You, see I'd been on an inflatables course where, where...

Yeah, spin on it.

Hang, hang, hang on, hang on, what is an inflatables course?

It's for people that keep letting down their girlfriend.

It was just learning how to make things out of plastic

and blowing up, it was kind of a sculptural thing.

Now, let's go back to this cat, did he jump from a tree or a wall?

-Back yard wall.

-Back yard wall.

-Yeah.

So the cat saw this huge inflated thing and thought...

-DAVE: Bloody hell, I'll have that.

-I'm going to jump on it.

Yeah. No, it just jumped on the top and we were in it at the time.

You were in it. Why had you gone inside?

To work out where to put the heat shield.

-You honestly...

-That's true, that's true.

Couldn't be any more true.

To work out where to put the heat shield, true.

Right, chaps. We need an answer. So, David's team -

is Ray Dave's airship building buddy,

Susanna's pint drinking opponent, or Lee's hearse driving instructor?

Let's, let's go through, OK. So the hearse story, nonsense.

I could imagine BBC Breakfast having a drinking competition.

I remind you of the phrase,

we were in there to see where to put the heat shield.

You think...you think he'd make that up?

And let's not forget the phrase, Jones's funeral directors.

I think he's a mate of Dave's.

I think he looks so much like a mate of Dave's, if we stood them

face to face, it would look like a vase.

So you are saying, therefore...?

Airship. Airship.

Airship, right. OK. Ray, please reveal your true identity.

I'm Ray and I built an airship with Dave.

Thank you very much indeed, Ray.

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

in which our panellists lie not only through their teeth

but against the clock. And we start with...

It's Susanna, off you go.

My dad used to keep a coconut in the car because holding it was

the only thing that would cure my travel sickness.

David's team.

Where did the coconut come from?

We used to go on this very long journey to Devon

cos that's where we used to go on holiday.

One year, when the fair came to the village where we were staying,

we won a coconut and because I was sitting with it in the car on the

way home, cos I was so fond of it,

it was the one journey where I didn't get sick.

And you hadn't opened the coconut, you hadn't given

in to the temptation which most of us when we get a coconut,

really the thrill is the smashing open with the hammer of the coconut.

I disagree.

It's the drilling and the sucking the milk out with a straw.

Some of us like to drill and suck, some of us like to smash.

This is what it says on Rob's match.com website.

So talk us through the benefits, I mean,

what was it about holding the hairy little fella that...?

You got excited then, didn't you?

I did. Thought it was me for a minute.

That brought you such, that brought you such comfort?

I think it must have just been the texture of it

and also the sheer distraction because...

This could be the best night of your life, Dave.

It would help me to visualise if you could put your head in her lap.

Can we do that? Can you just, you have your head,

just so we can get a feel, if you could just...

Wow, do you know what, he didn't take much persuading, did he?

So how would that look, is this something we could believe in?

Yeah, just slightly higher so we can see.

I tell you what, I'm glad he faced that way.

-That could have been awkward, couldn't it.

-Well...

You don't look as delighted with the coconut as I was expecting.

Can I just say, with my slightly spiky hair,

I probably am slightly more coconut-esque. I'm just saying.

Too late, the coconut's been cast.

So, David.

Marvellous.

-David, what are you thinking?

-What do you think, Griff?

I don't believe the old hairy coconut story.

I think, definitely true.

Well, I'm saying true, Griff's saying, not true so,

who ever your favourite is, just go with that.

This is, it's like I'm, you know, a nasty dad

with two children of very different ages.

-My instinct is it's true.

-You think it's true.

OK, Susanna, they say it's true.

Were you telling the truth or were you, in fact, telling a lie?

It is...a lie.

Yes, it's a lie. Susanna's dad didn't used to keep

a coconut in the car to cure her travel sickness.

Next, it's Griff.

I pretended to Princess Margaret that I was deaf.

-You pretended to Princess Margaret that you were deaf?

-Yeah.

Why did you pretend you were deaf?

Because...because I needed to...

I needed to explain that I didn't understand what she was saying.

What did she say?

She said, "What are you going to say?"

And how did you find out that's what she'd said?

Because I pretended to be deaf.

-She said...

-So she then said it loudly and clearly.

-So did you have, did...

-What?

-So did you have someone signing to you then?

-What?

She came up to me and, if you remember, she spoke in a

sort of very Princess Margaret sort of voice and so she said...

We met and we were introduced and she said,

"Oh, you going here at the end?"

And you said?

And I said, "I beg your pardon, Ma'am."

And she said...

UNINTELLIGIBLE SPEECH

Yeah.

And I said, "Yes." And she said, "What do you mean, yes?"

And I said, "I'm terribly sorry.

"I didn't quite catch what you said then, Ma'am. I am a little deaf."

And she said?

"What are you going to say?!"

-And what were you going to say?

-What?

What was the answer to the question? What were you going to say?

-What is the answer to that question?

-"I haven't thought it through yet."

You mean, you talking to me now or to Princess Margaret?

No, no, to Princess Margaret.

The answer should have been, I haven't thought it through yet.

-Yeah.

-But what did you end up saying?

-That's what I said to her,

"I haven't quite thought it through yet."

But...no. But what...the answer...no.

No, I'm asking, she said, "What are you going to say?"

He said, "I haven't thought it through yet."

What I want to know is,

what were you going to say in the thing that you were supposed to say?

-Oh, I was going to make a speech.

-And what were you going to say?

He hadn't thought it through yet.

I hadn't thought it through at that stage.

-What did you say?

-Something about art.

-Pardon?

-Art.

Sorry, I didn't understand what you said.

I was making a speech.

You can hear better with your classes on, can you?

Yeah. I can see you, cos I can see your lips moving now.

And probably, I might be able to read 'em.

-It was an art competition...

-A competition, were you in it?

..And I was giving prizes to the people.

-You were giving prizes.

-Yeah, and she'd been invited along.

-Right.

-As the, you know, royal member of royalty.

And so I met her and I couldn't understand a word she was saying,

-so I had to lie.

-And pretend you were deaf.

And it all went horribly wrong.

Lee, what are you going to say? Is that true, do you think?

-What do you think, Susanna?

-I think it's true.

Think it's true.

I think it's true. You can't stand there going, eh? You what?

I think Griff would try just to smooth his way out of it.

Just try and yeah. He's a smoothy, isn't he?

-Yeah, I think it's true.

-He's an old smoothy. I think it's true.

You think it's true?

Griff, were you telling the truth or were you telling a lie?

What?

It's true.

It's true.

Yes, it's true.

Griff did pretend to Princess Margaret that he was deaf.

Next...it is Lee.

I have hidden in a cupboard to escape Anthea Turner.

-David's team.

-Where were you when this happened?

-In the cupboard.

-In the cupboard.

Where was the cupboard?

In the room I was hiding from Anthea.

-Where was the room?

-Just away from Anthea Turner.

What was the occasion?

And do not define the occasion or the geographical space

in relation to Anthea Turner, what else was it?

It was on a TV show that I was doing...

Hide In The Cupboard From Anthea. I remember seeing it on BBC Three.

That's very good. I don't think Lee was ever on it though.

-Oh, that's a lie.

-What was the show called?

Pet Power.

Pet Power.

-Pet Power. It was about...

-What was the premise?

Cats with capes.

What were you doing on the show? What was your role on the show?

My role on the show? I was the warm up man, like a TV warm up man.

Pet Power was the show where the pets would come on

and there would be interesting stories about pets.

And some of them, this particular incident,

was a budgie goes up into the rafters.

And I'm upstairs in my dressing room and I'm watching it on the monitor.

I hadn't been doing comedy very long and I was running out

of things to go back and say to warm the audience up.

And I saw the budgie go up in the rafters,

panicked and there was a knock on the door.

-KNOCKING

-Hid in the cupboard.

And they actually came into the room but I was hiding in the cupboard.

-You mean the floor manager...

-If you will.

..Turned to Anthea and said, Anthea, I need you to pop upstairs...

-No, no.

-..To get the warm up man.

I don't think it was Anthea that personally came to get me.

-Oh, I see, you didn't hide from...

-How will I ever know, Griff?

-They knocked on the door of your dressing room.

-Correct.

Then what happened?

As the door opened, I thought oh, my God, they're going to come

and get me and say, come on, get out the cupboard

and do some jokes, even though you've none left.

And at that point, this is the bit you're not going to believe,

I thought they're going to find me, and then I saw a lion, a witch,

and I was able to escape into the forest and never was seen again.

-No.

-I'll tell you what I'm interested to know.

-Yeah.

You didn't stay in the cupboard indefinitely.

No, cos that would have been ridiculous.

-You came out and you must have chanced upon Anthea.

-I did.

It wasn't really Anthea that went to look for him, it transpires.

Just the floor manager. It was a normal professional relationship.

He's rather building up his intimacy with Anthea Turner.

I don't think they've ever exchanged any words at all.

Even in the lying world, where any of this happened,

which is not the world we're living in at all.

Narnia is more believable.

David. Could that be true?

-Griff, do you think it's true?

-It's not true.

-Jimmy?

I think it could be true. I know Lee used to do TV warm ups.

I used to do TV warm ups as well, it's how a lot of comics start.

-When you start out, you run out of material.

-You do.

-You think it's true.

-It could be true.

-You've talked yourself into thinking it's...

-Yeah.

I listened to you earlier in the show and it didn't work

so I'm going with Griff. It's a lie.

You think it's a lie?

OK, Lee, was it the truth or were you telling a lie?

Of course, it is absolutely true.

Yes, it's true.

Lee has hidden inside a cupboard to escape Anthea Turner.

BUZZER SOUNDS

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

I can reveal it's a draw.

But it's not just a team game,

and my individual liar of the week this week is Dave Myers.

Yes, Dave and the truth, like his hair and a brush,

they just don't go together. Good night.

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