Episode 2 Would I Lie to You?

APPLAUSE

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

the show with fabulous fibs and terrifying truths.

On David Mitchell's team tonight, a comedian who says

he looks like a cross between Miss Piggy and Boris Johnson,

so part puppet with the face of a pig,

and part Miss Piggy, it's Rob Beckett.

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

And a presenter of Newsnight, who attended an all-girls school

that she describes as being a bit like St Trinian's.

I say forget the quiz, let's talk about that. It's Kirsty Wark.

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

And on Lee Mack's team tonight,

a dancer who's been in the business for 40 years -

quite an achievement, considering he says he's 37, Bruno Tonioli.

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

And an avant-garde comedian and broadcaster who redefines "cool".

Cool now means having a beard and living in Norwich.

It's Adam Buxton.

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

And so we begin with Round 1. It's Home Truths,

where our panellists each 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.

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

Bruno Tonioli, you're first up tonight.

I once caused a fire in a hotel

while making pasta sauce for Bananarama.

David's team. Bananarama, I should say, David, are a popular pop group

from the 1980s - all-girl, three-piece band.

Yeah. I should point out, girls are...

I mean, the key question here, Bruno, is

why were you making pasta sauce in a hotel for Bananarama?

Because I'm Italian and, you know, people like my pasta.

Who was your favourite member of Bananarama?

Ah, oh, they're all my favourite, they're all friends.

LAUGHTER

Perfect answer. If he's lying, he's good.

One of them is married to Andrew Ridgeley.

-KIRSTY:

-What, really?

-Wasn't one of them married

-to the Eurythmics bloke?

-Yes, yes.

-Dave Stewart, yes.

-That's Annie Lennox.

-Annie Lennox wasn't in Bananarama.

It's so difficult working with such music experts(!)

Anyway, back to the story. When was this? When was it?

Er, it was in the '80s.

The 1980s.

Wait a minute, you were just... Were you very young in the '80s?

I was extremely young, I was practically a foetus.

And why were you with Bananarama?

I was, er, I was shooting a video, I was shooting a video.

-Were you dancing?

-You were directing it, were you?

Choreographing a video.

-You were choreographing a Bananarama video?

-Yeah.

I have to say, having seen Bananarama videos,

I don't think there's an overreliance on choreography.

-IN ITALIAN ACCENT:

-You-a point-a your hand like this,

you go-a like that, you go up in the air,

you come-a down. You go to that side.

It's-a wonderful, I love it.

Now, where is the kitchen and my sauce-a-pan...?

So anyway, I was working with a lot of pop groups at the time.

Bananarama was one of my clients

and I was in Los Angeles, shooting a video,

and after we finished filming

I went to the hotel, they asked me to cook a pasta for them.

Is cooking dinner at the end of the day

-part of the choreographer's job description?

-Um...

Because some hotels, I believe, at the very top end,

will actually provide a food-making service for you.

And, in fact, I've heard it's even frowned upon

if you attempt to cook your own meal on the premises.

Ah, but there are some hotels,

rock'n'roll hotels, which actually have villas,

so you don't go through the...where everybody goes through.

So how did the fire...? You say there was a conflagration?

Well, what happened is that I kind of started, er,

this tomato sauce and I said, er, to Sara,

"I need to get some extra ingredients,

"so you just watch the onions.

"Make sure that once they become golden, you remove

"the pan from the stove.

"And wait for me to come back to finish."

-Very clear instructions.

-Very clear, it's very simple.

An idiot could follow those instructions.

After a day of trying to choreograph Bananarama,

you knew they couldn't follow any instructions.

So, anyway, so I come back and there is, like, fire engines,

smoke everywhere. "What the hell is going on here?"

Basically, she washed her hair, and the kitchen was on fire,

everything was black. I mean, the whole thing was a terrible disaster.

Was Bananarama all right?

Who cares? My pasta was ruined.

Did the fire brigade come?

-Yes.

-Was that nice?

"Was it nice?" did you say, Rob?

Was it nice?!

-IN WELSH ACCENT:

-How was the fire engine - was it nice?

They are nice, because in America they're always very nice.

They're, "How are you doing, sir?

"Is this your villa? Is it burnt down to the ground?

"Well done, good job, good job!"

You know they're, they're lovely, I love it. Good job!

They're so nice. Everything in America is lovely. "Good job!"

Good job.

David, what are you thinking?

-What do you think?

-I think it's a lie.

-Really?

-Yeah.

I think he's telling the truth cos it's so ridiculous.

I think we're going to say true. I think it's true.

OK. Bruno Tonioli was it true or was it a lie?

It was the truth.

Ah, wow.

Yes, it's true, Bruno DID cause a fire in a hotel

when making pasta sauce for Bananarama.

Adam, you're next.

If my wife and I are having a row, to help us think more rationally,

we go into separate rooms and continue the argument over Skype.

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

I should say, before we kick off here,

if anybody in Wales is watching, Skype is, um...

It's a sort of telephone call with pictures. David.

Adam, where did this idea come from?

Er, well, it first started

when we were not in the same physical space,

like, we weren't in the same house, we were, er...

On Skype already.

We were on Skype, we were in different countries

and we were having quite a difficult conversation

that I was anticipating was going to get out of hand, and I was

surprised by the fact that Skype enabled us to stay relatively calm.

-What was the difficult situation?

-KIRSTY: I was going to ask that.

Did it go along the lines of,

"What's that person doing in the background?"

What was the last row you had that required Skype's intervention?

Er, well, I mean, this is kind of personal.

You brought it up, mate.

I mean...

It was sparked off by, er, drawers being left open.

-THEY GASP

-I mean, I was very irritated

because it was something that I'd pointed out a number of times.

-And I was disappointed to see that, er...

-Disappointed!

-The conversation...

-Classic!

-Oh, yeah, "I'm not angry, I'm disappointed."

-Disappointed.

I was VERY disappointed to see that the tip

that I had given about keeping the drawers closed,

especially the ones at a low level, so I don't bark my shins -

is that really unreasonable?

I was disappointed to see that that chat hadn't been actioned.

Ah, oh.

How do you go from arguing...? Which one of you will then say,

"OK, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, timeout, um, let, let's, let's..."?

I mean, that's enough to start a divorce.

If someone goes, "OK, timeout." "Right, that's it!"

I do that with my wife when we have an argument,

I go, "Make us a cup of tea."

That doesn't help. Just...just a tip for you.

How do you...? Who makes that decision?

How does it move onto the Skype stage?

Yeah, I'm the one who makes the decision

because originally I thought that it would be

a sort of funny way of defusing some tension.

Is this a system you could see yourself implementing, David?

-No.

-You and Mrs Mitchell, perhaps,

if tempers are ever - heaven forbid - raised.

Well, I think it wouldn't work for us

because I think we find computers more annoying than each other.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

So, David, what are you thinking? Has Adam been telling the truth?

Um, what do you think, Kirsty?

Um, I think it's really, really possible.

What do you think?

He does like computers, don't he? Look at him.

I've got one last question.

Come on, then.

The first time, you know, you had the row in real life,

when you had in the back of your mind that maybe

if you could get onto Skype, the row would be defused,

was that not, to your wife, and incredibly annoying suggestion?

Ah, yeah, it was, yeah.

I would have thought that the de-escalating effects of Skype

would be overwhelmed by the escalating effect

of suggesting Skype.

-It's heavy-going, isn't it?

-It is heavy-going.

-It's very heavy-going, that one.

-Eight years, eight years of this.

Get to the point!

LAUGHTER

"Get to the point" is not an exhortation

you can fairly make during a parlour game.

I don't care.

There IS no point. This is a pointless exercise.

We are whiling away our finite time before the grave.

What are you going to say? Truth or lie?

I think it's the truth.

I think, and I think it's so weird, it's true.

OK, my team says true. I'm certainly not sure either way

so I couldn't overrule them.

-So it's true.

-We're saying it's true.

You're saying true, right, OK. OK.

Adam Buxton, were you telling the truth or were you telling a lie?

Er, Skype-conducted arguments, that is...

-a lie.

-Oh, brilliant!

-Very good.

I'm not insane!

Yes, it was a lie, all along.

Adam and his wife don't go into separate rooms to argue over Skype.

OK, 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, Hayden.

APPLAUSE

So, Adam, what is Hayden to you?

Er, this is Hayden, he is the human statue

that I once had to give a massage to

because he got cramp in his leg.

Bruno, perhaps you could explain how you know Hayden.

This is Hayden.

When I choreographed a dance routine

for a troupe of JCB diggers,

he drove digger number three.

And finally, Lee, what's your relationship with Hayden?

This is Hayden, he used to be

the lead singer of Bananarama...

..until a fire tragically burnt off his hair.

Actually that's not true.

Lee, what is your relationship with Hayden?

This is Hayden, he once stopped a cow charging at me

by throwing an app...

Oh, this one's true!

Oh, hang on, let's listen cos this one's true!

Now you're starting to think the Bananarama one's true.

I will continue. This is...

Lee, what is your relationship with Hayden?

This is Hayden. He once stopped a cow charging at me,

by throwing an apple pie in its face.

LAUGHTER

There we are, there we are.

Adam's stiff statue,

Bruno's dancing digger driver,

or Lee's bovine basher.

David's team, where would you like to begin?

Um, well, Adam, what was the situation

in which you had to give a human statue a massage?

-Er...

-Why was his cramp your problem?

Well, we were in London, me and my family -

my three young children and my beautiful wife -

and we were on the South Bank, er, right next to the London Eye,

and we saw Hayden there, he was dressed as a golden robot man.

My daughter wanted to pose for a photograph with him,

cos she thought he was adorable-looking,

she loves gold, anything gold.

And, um, in the middle of the photograph

he sort of started making pained robot noises.

How did you become certain enough

that a massage of an intimate part of his body would be

gratefully received?

I just asked. I said, er, would you like me to rub your calf?

Funnily enough, that's interesting,

because that's the exact phrase I used when the cow charged at me.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

-Were there many people there? Cos quite often...

-No, no.

..a crowd gathers round someone like that.

No, it was a rainy morning, a cold, rainy morning.

When it was rainy, why was you walking round London

with your family? It sounds stressful.

Sometimes - I don't know if this is true - you can leave the house

and it's not raining and it starts raining.

-I'm only going by the rumours I've heard.

-Yeah.

But what I normally do is,

go in a coffee shop, not wander round looking at robots in the rain.

Yeah, and what I would say to you, Rob, is, do you have children?

It's not often a five-year-old says, "Caffe Nero, please.

"This weather is intolerable."

-Do you have children, Rob?

-No children, no.

So you live a life of unalloyed pleasure and hedonism,

not having to think for one second about another living person.

If you have children, it is not uncommon

to trudge around the South Bank in the pouring rain

with the drudgery of your life pressing down on you,

and these voices coming at you from every damn side.

You don't know you're born.

And the fact that you're stood still looking at this loser...

..is blessed relief from listening to them giving this all the time.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Right, David, right, who else would you like to quiz?

-Bruno. Um...

-Yeah.

There was a digger dance.

A digger, er, it was a dance routine in which we had many,

many, like, a group of diggers.

And how many diggers, sort of 20?

I think it was, no, 12.

And what was it for?

It was for these fairs, you know, these kind of country fairs

where they have all sort of products in relation to farming.

And what was so special about Hayden's digger?

Well, I mean, they're all the same, the diggers,

but he was number three.

Did he have to do a particularly difficult pirouette or something?

They all had to do very, very difficult manoeuvres.

Can you imagine? They're huge, they're tonnes,

and they have things moving up, down, so everything was to music.

What was the music?

-It was a medley.

-Oh, I love that.

I love medley, don't you? Of Andrew Lloyd Webber tunes.

Oh, I've gone off it.

Is it your favourite? Your favourite.

-Right, Lee, um...

-Yes.

A cow was charging at you and then, Hayden...

-KIRSTY:

-Hayden had a pie.

-..saved you.

Luckily Hayden had the apple pie and threw it in its face.

-So why was he carrying an apple pie?

-Good question.

Um, because, er, we were going to a wedding.

-Oh, you knew him.

-Oh, I know Hayden, yeah.

-So you're on your way to a wedding.

-With an apple pie.

Across a field. With an apple pie.

-We're in a car park.

-Right.

We're going to some sort of country wedding,

there's lots of marquees and things and we've got to walk through

a bit of land with lots of farmers' land round it, and there was a cow

that started approaching, and he was carrying, bizarrely, an apple pie.

So it was a bring-your-own food wedding.

No, hey, just cos we're northerners, don't be like that.

Er, no, it was his children...are very picky eaters,

and he knew that the children wouldn't eat

any of the fancy food at the wedding,

and so he didn't want the stress of the child not eating...

But why did the cow charge you?

Cos cows are normally quite timid. Bulls charge.

It started coming towards me

and as a joke I started, sort of enticing it a little bit.

Showing it a nipple.

And the cow went, "Call THAT a nipple?"

Have a look at these.

So you're with your family,

you're not on your own, you're with your family.

I'm with my family, I'm with my wife and three children.

And I, like Rob, was weeping, going, "Why can't I be on my own for once?"

You're walking across the field, the cow has noticed you.

The cow, well, I wouldn't say "noticed me" - it didn't go...

-Lee Mack!

-That's Lee Mack!

To be fair on me, Lee, I did say "noticed", not "recognised".

-The cow sort of looked up, right?

-Yeah.

-And...

-Noticed you?

Was it Friesian, Belted Galloway?

I don't know what the temperature was like. And, er...

The cow, the cow it was actually one of those ones

that looked like Mick Hucknall.

-Oh, the ginger ones.

-A Highland cow!

-Ginger one.

-Ginger cow.

You know the ones that

look like Mick Hucknall wearing a Viking's helmet?

-Yeah.

-One of them.

-What, a Highland one of those?

-A Highland cow.

In Cumbria, where were you?

Believe it or not, it was actually on the Isle of Mull.

OK. Now we're getting somewhere.

We're on the Isle of Mull now, aren't we?

You were dressed in a kilt?

No, because I've got some self-respect.

And so the cow noticed you, starts coming over...

I don't think the cow was charging us

in the sense of it's gonna kill us,

but it was walking very fast towards us.

I foolishly had picked up a load of grass and was sort of doing that.

-You waved the grass as a joke.

-I got the grass, it started getting

a little bit out of hand because it started getting aggressive,

and then we sort of walked away a bit and then it walked very fast

towards us. He went like that and sort of threw it in the cow's face,

and the cow got a bit of a shock.

How far away from the cow was, er, was Hayden

when he launched the pie?

-I would say...

-Did he actually press it into the cow with his hands?

No, no. I think you're mixing up this incident

and something that happened with the Chuckle Brothers. He didn't go...

and it didn't drip down slowly and the cow went...

So how far away were you when you...

was he when he threw the pie?

It was all in a bit of a panic, but I would guess at somewhere

in the region of, sort of how far now I am from Hayden.

So it was one of those sort of...

So did it get in the horns and all down through its hair?

To be honest, we were sort of facing the other way going at speed.

So...I didn't say, "Kids, come back, see how it's landed."

So, David's team, is Hayden Adam's stiff statue,

Bruno's dancing digger driver, or Lee's bovine basher?

What do you think?

I'm just not sure about the idea that he looks

the kind of guy that is a golden robot.

Look at his golden robot head.

No. I don't... I don't think he's a robot.

It doesn't show Lee in a good light because

he's acted incredibly stupidly and then couldn't repair his own damage.

Yeah, absolutely. He's lured...

He's literally put his children in danger.

-No, whoa, whoa, hang on.

-You put your children in danger.

I'm not having another one taken into care. I didn't...

I did not. I simply said, "Look at the orange beast,"

and waved a bit of...

I remember last series, where you brought in a video of you

making one of your children cry.

Yes, I remember that. Yes.

I think Bruno's... I think he looks like a guy

who probably would be very precise with a digger.

I'm siding on digger over robot, definitely,

and don't know about the cow pie.

Yeah, I think we're leaning towards Bruno's story being true.

-You're all thinking it's the digger.

-Yeah.

OK. Hayden, would you please reveal your true identity?

My name's Hayden.

I was digger number three in Bruno's dance routine.

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

Yes, Hayden is Bruno's dancing digger driver.

Thank you very much, Hayden.

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

and we start with...

It is David.

As a child I was scared of the sun.

What-what age?

Um, I think this would probably be

when I was four, five, six, seven,

that sort of age.

When I was 4,567.

I, you know, I was still in my infancy as a god.

What was it about the sun that you found frightening?

-Er, it was, er, looking at it.

-Oh, yeah.

Did you just go out at night or something -

you never went out during the day?

No, I did go out during the day but I would, er, sort of obsessively

keep my eyes towards the ground.

The problem was that someone said, someone used the phrase,

"If you look at the sun, you will go blind."

Funnily enough exactly the same advice for me as well,

but it was Page 3 of The Sun.

So you would still go out but you'd avoid in any way glancing at it.

Yeah, and then occasionally you sort of turn your head

and the sun goes through your vision

and it can create that slight...

you know, when you blink, you can still see it.

-And you thought that was burning your retina.

-And I thought,

"What's that? Is that the beginning of great eternal darkness?"

You really had a happy childhood, didn't you, David?

We were all playing on our Raleigh Grifters

and you were thinking about the eternal darkness.

Did anything else scare you as a child?

Oh, yes, yes, most things.

What else scared you?

Well, the trouble is that some children are timorous

and some children are reckless.

Yeah, and Sagittarius.

And in order...

In order to save the lives of reckless children,

warnings are calibrated for their safety,

the result of which is that the timorous

live in a state of perpetual terror.

What I needed to be told is,

"Do you know what? Most days you won't die. It's fine," you know?

You know...

I wasn't ever going to tear across a three-lane motorway.

You know, the very existence of a three-lane motorway

in the same postcode as me made me not want to leave the house.

And, um, presumably you would wait for about three weeks

before swimming after a meal.

Oh, absolutely.

Yeah, yeah!

Not only that, and having an ice cream in the afternoon

then thinking, "I should probably not swim for the rest of the holiday."

And then someone says, when I was an adult,

"You don't have to wait at all - it's all a myth.

"You can swim AND eat."

While looking into the sun.

-So what are we thinking?

-Adam?

-I'm thinking true, true fact.

-BRUNO: I'm going truth.

-You're saying it's the truth.

-Yeah.

-We'll say it's true.

You're going to say that it's true. OK, David, truth or lie?

It is...

true.

It's a heart-warming story.

Yes, it's true. As a child, David was scared of the sun.

Next.

It's Kirsty.

Jeremy Paxman didn't talk to me for a week

after he caught me drinking from his Snoopy mug.

Lee.

I'm sorry, I'm very ignorant, what's a Snoopy cup?

You know who Snoopy is?

Snoopy is a rapper and...

-No, he's a cartoon character, a comic strip.

-Snoopy the dog.

-Snoopy the dog.

-Snoopy the dog.

-Charlie Brown.

-Charlie Brown.

Jeremy Paxman has a Snoopy mug?

Mug. Cup mug thing.

And how did he come about finding out you'd had...?

Was there lipstick on the coffee cup?

No, he caught me.

-He actually caught you, you were lips on cup?

-Yeah.

What did he say? So picture the scene, right. I'm Jeremy Paxman.

No, no, you have to play him, otherwise...

I wouldn't be able to say it because I wasn't there.

I'll be you, right?

-IN SCOTTISH ACCENT:

-News, news, news, news. News.

-That's you rehearsing.

-That's me?

-News, news, news.

-News, news, news.

All right, I need a little break.

I need to go and see, news, news.

News, news. Paxman! Paxman's in.

Isle, Isle of Isle of Mull, Highland cow.

Hang on, you're both doing you now.

-Don't do you.

-He's doing you.

-I'm doing you.

-Right.

-He's doing you.

-Are you?!

-No. Let's be very clear.

-I'm at my desk.

-Lee is doing you.

-I'm you.

-You are doing Jeremy Paxman.

-Jeremy Paxman.

You're at the desk.

I'm rehearsing. So I'm saying, "News, news, news, news, news.

"I want to go independent but I'm not allowed to say it publically."

And then I get...I get my lips... I get my lips on the cup.

"Or I might not want to go independent,

-but I'm not going to say. I get my cup.

-No, no, no. Stop!

-I get my cup.

-I'm left-handed.

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

So there you are, you're doing the drinky thing,

and it's got to your lips, the cup, like that. Paxman!

What does Paxman say?

"Kirsty, you're not drinking out my Snoopy mug."

So he said, he said, "You're not drinking out my Snoopy mug."

What's he doing this for?

"He said, 'You're not drinking out of my Snoopy mug, are you?'"

-And you're me.

-Oh, yeah, sorry.

-You're me anyway.

-I'm you, sorry.

-I had it in my left hand.

-Are you doing Paxman now?

-No.

Why is he talking like...? I don't understand why.

Because the microphone's broke, he's a long way away, it's a big room.

-He's a long way away.

-"Are you drinking out of my cup?"

It's a small room.

So, you've got the cup and Paxman walks in and then YOU say...

I can't do you because I wasn't there, you have to now be you.

So you said... I'm now Paxman.

"Oh, Kirsty are you drinking from my Snoop whatever?" And you said...

"It's only a mug. What does it matter?"

-And he said.

-"It's MY mug."

-And you said.

-"OK, have your mug."

And he said.

"Wash it first."

Oh, I've been through that conversation with a woman before.

So, er... OK.

-But then he didn't talk to you for a week?

-A week's a long time.

What is it about Paxman that he wouldn't talk to you for a week?

-Who said that?

-That was in your...

-You did when you read it out.

-You said that at the beginning!

-Did I?!

-You did!

I think we're at the nub of it.

"Who said that?!" Oh, now, who was it that said that?

Was it you who said that?

Somebody said it.

I suspect you're edging towards her telling a lie.

I think it's a lie.

I think it's a lie.

Do you know what? I believed her until the "week" mistake.

Until the unravelling.

So you say it's a lie.

Kirsty, was it truth or was it a lie?

Tr...lie.

-BUZZER

-Oh, and that sound signals time is up, it's the end of the show.

I can reveal that Lee's team have won by three points to two.

APPLAUSE

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

and my individual liar of the week this week

is Adam Buxton.

-APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

-Yes, Adam's got more flannel

than the John Lewis bed and bath department. Good night.