Episode 8 Would I Lie to You?

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Good evening and welcome to Would I Lie To You?

The show where honesty is never the best policy.

On Lee Mack's team tonight, a comedian who studied

quasi-zero dimensional and mesoscopic electrical systems at university.

Just to explain that to Lee.

University, it's like a school for grown-ups.

Ben Miller!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

And a comedian who used to work in a German sausage factory.

He said the "wurst" part was delicious.

LAUGHTER

Henning Wehn!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

And on David Mitchell's team tonight, an actress

currently starring in the sitcom Plebs, set in ancient Rome,

where she enjoys being attended to by slaves and taking part in orgies.

I'm afraid tonight it's just a box of Twiglets.

Doon Mackichan.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

And a man who has a degree in sports journalism. It's a 2-2.

It would have been a 2-1 but they equalised in the last minute.

From The Last Leg, Alex Brooker.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

And so to Round One, 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,

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.

Ben is first up tonight. Please reveal all.

Aside from my friend Mark Park, I have...

LAUGHTER

-HENNING:

-I think we can end it there.

LAUGHTER

..I have three other good friends whose names rhyme.

LAUGHTER

Let's not rush any questions, David. Just, never mind rushing about.

-I'm sorry, Ben, I'm going to have to ask for the names of the friends.

-Very quickly. Right now.

-You take your time, you take your time.

-Uh...

LAUGHTER

Richard Pritchard.

LAUGHTER

That rhymes, to be fair, that is one.

-That was a good one.

-Mark Park.

No, we've had Mark Park. There's three, three other friends on top of Mark Park.

Richard Pritchard.

You need two more.

Dave Clave.

Dave Clave.

Yeah.

Angie Ranji.

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

And what's Richard Pritchard's job? How do you know him?

He's... Oh, I know him from school, and he's a quantity surveyor.

How do you know Angie Ranji? Where'd you meet her?

LAUGHTER

Well, funnily enough, she was in an acting class with me

on the Isle of Wight.

Where did you run into Dave Clave?

Please say at a rave.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

I was in a band with him, he played drums.

So, all of these people have lived their lives with matching

forenames, surnames. Have none of them ever, like, said,

"Do you know what, I think this sounds ridiculous, I might change it"?

Well, Richard hasn't because, you know, it's a common Welsh name.

It is particularly common to have the first...same first name as your surname.

-Yes. Hugh Hughes.

-Evan Evans, Thomas Thomas.

-Yeah.

Bet you're wishing you thought of them earlier.

LAUGHTER

These friends of yours, are they in a small social circle?

For example, has Richard Pritchard ever met Angie Ranji?

Dave Clave has met Richard Pritchard.

LAUGHTER

-Under what circumstances?

-My 40th birthday party.

-DOON:

-Why didn't Angie Ranji go?

I was in a production of Twelfth Night with

Angie Ranji on the Isle of Wight

and we only knew each other for the period of one summer in about 1991.

She was a friend of mine,

but she wasn't at my 40th birthday. Whereas Dave and Richard were.

And why did Mark Park not make the birthday party, then?

We're just not that close a friend.

So why do you think you and Mark have never really...?

LAUGHTER

Well, Mark, quantity survey... You know, I guess...

-So Mark's a quantity surveyor?

-Yeah.

I thought Richard Pritchard was a quantity surveyor.

What's Richard Pritchard again?

He's a chartered surveyor.

-Chartered surveyor, yeah.

-Which one? Are they both?

Are they in a practice, Park and Pritchard?

LAUGHTER

Does this have the ring of truth?

Do you know, it did before the quantity surveyor. I think...

I think he said Richard Pritchard was the quantity...

was the something surveyor.

He said chartered surveyor for Richard Pritchard.

Now we've got a quantity surveyor.

For Mark Park. But if the surveyors thing is...

If Ben has planted that surveyor doubt in our minds,

then that's so brilliant it deserves a point.

-I agree.

-So I think...

-So you're going to say?

-Shall we say lie?

-Lie, lie.

-Lie. Saying it's a lie.

Ben. Truth or lie.

It is...a...

lie.

APPLAUSE

It's a lie. Ben doesn't have four good friends whose names rhyme.

And, Henning, you're next.

I was once arrested by border guards for illegally entering

another country.

LAUGHTER

David's team, what do you think?

Which, which country?

LAUGHTER

It was in the mid '90s.

That's not a country.

LAUGHTER

And it was in Eastern Europe, so they changed names very quickly.

So I'm not sure,

it was either Czech Republic or Czechoslovakia, I don't know which.

-You don't know what stage of its...

-Yeah, exactly.

..dissolution it was at. Yeah. And what was the problem?

-I didn't have my passport.

-Right.

Where had you left your passport?

At home.

LAUGHTER

Who were you with, by the way? Were you on your own or...?

No, I was with a friend from back home. Pit.

A friend from the pit?

No, with a person called Pit.

Is that his real name, or is that a nickname?

-Pete.

-Oh, Pete?

-No P... P-I-T.

-Oh, Pit.

-He's called, he's called Pit.

Like, like Brad Pitt, but Pit as his first name.

-Otherwise I would say Pete.

-DOON:

-Yeah.

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

We were travelling on something that was called

Schnes-Wochenende-Ticket and...

That's German for National Express.

LAUGHTER

No, it is German for

"You can use any train you like...as long as it's a slow train."

LAUGHTER

We have that system with all of our trains.

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

-OK, so you get off the train at the border.

-You do.

-Is it at that moment that you realise you don't have your passport?

-Yes.

So we wanted to go into Czech...Czechoslovakia. So I didn't

have my passport, so the obvious thing to do is don't go across where

the border guards are...

but go a mile off into the fields...

LAUGHTER

..and cross there. If then someone wants to see your passport, you say,

"Oh, I must have lost it."

LAUGHTER

Roughly how far into Czechoslovakia, in whatever form it was, were you?

I was about, give or take, a mile.

I see in the distance, I see like two lights, two white lights,

they're getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

And then I realised it's a Jeep, and then they're driving towards us.

Oh, I'm quite gripped by this story.

The Jeep then just stopped, and then there is four people jumping out

with automatic rifles and dogs.

Automatic dogs?

LAUGHTER

What sort of dogs were they?

I didn't ask for their names.

Neither did Alex.

LAUGHTER

They were terrifying dogs, probably Alsatians or something.

What happened, they're all around you? So what did they say?

They all jump out with their rifles, don't they? And then saying,

"Oh, ve, ve, ve, ve" of whatever their language is, so...

LAUGHTER

Yeah, and then we had to get in the Jeep and...and we were

driving off into Czechoslovakia and then we ended up in some woods.

One of them jumps out, opens a gate that

I didn't even see was there. Then there is some little wooden hut.

And there was someone in there that spoke German.

We got on well with that fella, and our excuse was, let me say,

"We had no idea that we'd crossed the border."

So then they didn't fully buy it,

but they knew there was little point executing us.

LAUGHTER

What happens then?

And now the funny story begins.

LAUGHTER

They said,

"You'll have to pay a penalty."

-Oh, the Germans and penalties. Not again.

-That penalty...

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Never again, please.

Then the Czechs drove us back

to the German border, handed us

over to the German border guards,

and then they congratulated us on

being the first illegal immigrants from Germany into Czechoslovakia.

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

Well, there we are.

David, what are you and your team thinking?

It's the travel card thing.

LAUGHTER

It's just, it just seems right.

I think, on an emotional level,

having spent so long hearing that story...

LAUGHTER

..we need it to be true, we need something.

We need it to be true

because a lot of our life went into that.

-So you're going to say true.

-On that emotional level, I think we have to say true.

You're saying it's true. Henning, truth or lie?

Well, that story is actually...

true.

APPLAUSE

Yes, that was true,

Henning did get arrested for illegally entering another country.

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, Nicola.

APPLAUSE

So, Ben, first of all, what is Nicola to you?

Ah, this is Nicola and she taught me how to talk to crows.

Henning, how do you know Nicola?

This is Nicola, and I told my parents to sack her as my baby-sitter

because she failed to read my bedtime stories with enough emotion.

And finally, Lee, your relationship with Nicola.

This is Nicola.

I once chased her for 40 miles down the M3

because I thought she'd stolen my phone.

David's team, where to begin?

So, Ben, why did you need to talk to crows?

Um, because... Well, I'm writing a book...

and...

And my publisher is a crow!

LAUGHTER

And it's a book about aliens, so I got interested

in the idea of communicating with other intelligences.

Then I thought, "Are there any animals on Earth that we can already,

"that we can...can communicate with?" And I found out that Nicola

was an expert on crows and had discovered they're very intelligent.

So what sort of thing have you learnt to say to crows?

Um, well, we're only really at the basic sort of introductory...

What, like greetings, like, "Hello, how are you?"

"Take me to your leader."

LAUGHTER

How to present yourself to a crow.

How do you present yourself to a crow?

So you go...

-IN HIGH-PITCHED VOICE:

-.."Hello, crow. Hello, crow.

"How are you, crow? Hello, hello."

That's what Nicola has been teaching you?

LAUGHTER

That's... That's how you talk to crows?

You do that with your head and you go, "Hello, crow, how are you?

"Hello."

When's your next lesson?

When you'll be learning how to say goodbye to a crow.

LAUGHTER

I've got a hunch about what it might be.

LAUGHTER

Right, David, who would you like to move on to?

Henning, what was wrong with the bedtime story?

I didn't enjoy the way she read the bedside story to me.

What sort of stories? Give us an example.

She was reading Hansel And Gretel to me, and then the witch ends

up in the oven. And she read that in a very compassionate way.

-Towards the witch?

-Yeah.

And the good thing at that point is all about the witch got what

she had coming, and that's how I liked the story read to me.

LAUGHTER

You didn't like any complexity in the character...

No, I like the complexity but I don't like the compassion towards

the witch because she's a witch.

LAUGHTER

OK, so Hansel and Gretel shove the witch in the oven,

slam the door, turn it up to... gas mark six.

No, no, always, always preheat the oven before cooking in it.

LAUGHTER

-Let's assume it's preheated.

-OK.

Slam the door, turn it up, and then walk out into the forest.

-Mm.

-How did she mis-deliver that line?

Well, it was in German so it was like...

Is she German?

-Nicola? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

-Ah.

-You mean, ja, ja, ja.

-Yeah.

LAUGHTER

Nicola's a classic German name, innit?

Nicola. Nicola Schmidt.

LAUGHTER

So she was... What, she was just,

she was what, weeping for the witch or what?

LEE LAUGHS

What's...

LAUGHTER

I don't want to have to say this now but I just didn't overly like her.

LAUGHTER

That's obviously not how I told it to my parents, innit?

I said to my parents, I said,

"Yeah, she didn't put any butter on the bread and all that business,

"and didn't give me anything to drink," so I mean, ah...

LAUGHTER

I stuck her in the oven.

LAUGHTER

OK. What about Lee?

Oh, Lee's is not true.

LAUGHTER

So...

how did you come to the mistaken belief that she'd stolen your phone?

Well, it's an interesting story.

LAUGHTER

I was on the border of Czechoslovakia.

LAUGHTER

I was... I was in a restaurant with my wife and children

and we left the restaurant and we got back to the house

and I suddenly realised my mobile phone was missing.

So I thought... We came to the conclusion that my two-year-old

who's always picking things up and running round tables

cos, you know, I'm not a good parent

and they can run around in restaurants,

had picked it up and done something with it

and so I looked at my iPad

which has a thing on it where it tells you

where your phone is.

An app if you've lost your phone, so I pressed that.

You looked at your tablet, didn't you, as opposed to a specific...?

Oh, as opposed to a specific one?

Sorry, I looked at my "tablet",

which I'd previously bought from Currys.

LAUGHTER

So I decided... I've got one of these hand-held devices,

let's call it a tablet,

and on this tablet it tells you where your phone is.

-Like, like an iPad?

-Can I...?

LAUGHTER

So I checked the app and, sure enough,

my phone was doing the little blinky thing

and it was in a street not too far from the restaurant.

So I thought, "Oh, well, maybe my child hasn't taken the phone at all,

"maybe it's been stolen."

So I rung my mate up straight away

because I'm a coward, I didn't want to go on my own.

So he held the iPad.

We drove off, we followed the little dot

but then when we got close, the dot started moving,

so we have to follow the dot,

the dot gets on the M3 and we're following the dot on the M3

and we travel for about 40 miles.

But Nicola could have noticed you in the rear-view mirror saying,

"I'm being followed by two weird men."

I think you'll find on motorways,

you're often followed by the same car for quite a while.

How paranoid are you?

"He's been behind us for the last five minutes."

"We're on a motorway, David." "I know, but something's not right.

"There's one beside me now!"

LAUGHTER

-I wasn't right behind it because the dot was moving.

-You were...

And I was chasing the dot for a long time.

When we were probably about five miles away from the dot,

because the dot was racing off ahead, we raced after.

Stopped, and we sussed out that it was a service station on the M3.

So we pulled into the service station

and that's when the next thing happened.

Give me a minute.

LAUGHTER

How could you tell which of the many cars parked in the service station?

-That's a very good question.

-Thank you.

I wish I had a very good answer.

-I phoned the phone.

-Ah.

-Good, eh?

-Very clever.

And it's at that point we see a woman getting out of a car

looking confused and then looking inside a bag, a shopping bag,

takes the phone out,

and at this point I think, that's my phone,

and she looks innocent cos she's looking all confused.

To which I go over, I say, "That's my phone,"

and she said, "I honest to God have no idea how it got in there."

And then I start thinking, the two-year-old did pick it up

and put it in a bag and so ends the case for the defence.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Thank you. Thank you.

Right, we need an answer.

So, David's team, is Nicola Ben's bird botherer,

Henning's boring baby-sitter,

or Lee's phone pincher? What do you think?

I've got a funny feeling about the crows.

Yeah, I love the idea that you're spending your free time wiggling

-your head in front of a crow.

-LAUGHTER

Talking in a high-pitched voice.

So, sorry, you two are leaning towards believing the crow story?

LAUGHTER

I'm finding the crow story the least convincing.

-OK.

-At the moment. I'm not saying it's impossible.

Do you believe Lee?

As a matter of principle, no.

LAUGHTER

I think it's probably Henning.

I think Henning's the sort of...

could have been the sort of vicious little child...

LAUGHTER

..who would have a baby-sitter summarily dismissed

for no good reason at all.

Which way are you going, Alex?

Do you know what, I'm going to stick my neck on the line.

-I think Lee.

-Am I even getting a look-in?

-You think it's Lee?

-Yeah.

Doon?

Er...I initially thought it was Lee.

Completely from the very beginning

when I heard the three things, I went, "It's definitely Lee."

I'm not going to overrule.

I wouldn't be surprised if it was Henning.

-We'll go for Lee, we think it's Lee.

-You're saying it's Lee,

with a little suspicion that it's Henning. OK.

Nicola, would you please reveal your true identity?

My name is Nicola,

and I taught Ben how to talk to crows!

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Brilliant.

-Thank you very much, Nicola.

-Yes, whooo!

Which brings us to our final round, Quick Fire Lies, and we start with...

It's David.

I recently shooed a fox out of the garden by squirting it with water.

Five minutes later,

I watched in horror as it returned with its brother

and ate my plimsoll.

LAUGHTER

Lee's team, what do you think?

I've never heard anything so middle-class in all my life.

LAUGHTER

I want to picture it,

so you're in your house, and you see the fox in the garden.

Now you don't, with the greatest respect,

you don't strike me as overly nimble.

LAUGHTER

No, I'm not overly nimble,

but I'm just nimble enough.

Between 1 and 10, how quickly were you in the garden?

I went out in the garden at top speed for me,

which I'm afraid is now 6.7.

LAUGHTER

Anyway, you come out into the garden, you've got the hose, you see the fox.

And he sort of moves away a bit, shows some,

a certain degree of fear of the alpha predator.

He sees me and thinks, "Do you know, I think I'm safe with this guy",

and I thought, "Well, I can't have this,

"I can't have the fox thinking it's won.

"If I lose my power to frighten off foxes, what am I?"

Can I answer that?

LAUGHTER

So I, you know, I grabbed, I grabbed my hose,

and I, you know, swizzle some water at them.

I don't want to soak the poor creature.

Did you put your thumb on the end?

So I did put my thumb on the end and I directed some water,

sort of towards the lawn just kind of between him and me,

and that's enough.

He's off.

I bet he went, after the fox went off, I bet he went...

Yeah, yeah.

-And forgot he hadn't turned it off.

-LAUGHTER

Look round sheepishly and thought, "I better get those plimsolls."

Are you in your pyjamas?

I was wearing normal clothes.

Well, David, we have a different opinion of what normal clothes are.

LAUGHTER

It was black tie, not white tie.

LAUGHTER

So in a nutshell, you had a fox in your garden, you come out,

water the thing out the garden,

then a little while later it comes back.

-Two of them come back.

-Two of them.

-Now, where are you at this point?

-I'm in the kitchen.

-Right.

Noticing they've come back in the garden, thinking, "Dear, oh, dear."

There was deer there as well?

LAUGHTER

And then the fox...

And then one of the foxes goes and grabs this plimsoll

-that I keep by the shed.

-Why?

-For walking around the garden.

-What?

-One plimsoll?

-LAUGHTER

-There's two!

Tiny suggestion. Why don't you keep the plimsolls near the back door

so you don't have to get your feet wet if it's raining?

You're full of...

home improvement ideas!

And I don't, I don't know, cos I'm a moron.

-LAUGHTER

-What happens to the plimsoll?

-One of them savages this shoe.

-What's the other one doing?

I don't know. I don't speak fox.

LAUGHTER

If you wanted to do a proper impression of a fox,

I know a woman, who, providing you're a tad gullible,

will show you exactly...

LAUGHTER

-So go on, so...?

-So I said...

-HIGH-PITCHED:

-.."Hello, Mr Fox!

LAUGHTER

"I'm trying to communicate with you.

"Perhaps you could stop pooing on my lawn."

LAUGHTER

Right, Lee, what are you thinking?

Fundamentally, no Englishman leaves a pair of plimsolls

as his garden footwear and keeps them by a shed.

-So, you're saying it's...

-It's a lie.

-It's a lie.

-HENNING:

-Yeah, I think it's a lie.

Well, I'll go with my team, even though I think it's true.

Saying it's a lie. OK, David. Squirting foxes in the garden.

Truth or lie?

It is...

a lie.

-APPLAUSE

-I thought so.

LAUGHTER

Thought it was a lie.

Yes, it's a lie. David didn't squirt water at a fox

only for it to return and eat his plimsoll.

Next...

It's Doon.

On the advice of an optician,

I often walk with one eye open

and one eye shut.

That way one of my eyes is always having a rest.

LAUGHTER

Lee?

Well, it's sensible.

-Is it?

-Even if she isn't doing it, she should.

I will from now on.

LAUGHTER

When you say a rest,

you mean just to give your eye a rest

or because you're having problems with your eyes?

No, just to rest the eyes, so, because I don't wear glasses

and I don't want to wear glasses, so to exercise the eyes,

it's good to just cover one eye.

Now I have worn a patch,

and just thought I look ridiculous.

But that doesn't make sense. A doctor wouldn't say to me,

"I don't want to end up in a wheelchair." "Oh, in that case, hop on different legs."

LAUGHTER

Don't you feel you strain your one eye that's still open?

Well, apparently not, if you've got a slight stigmatism,

so I didn't... Yes, I have got a slight stigmatism in my left...

-Which eye is your stigmatism?

-In my left eye.

I thought it was called an astigmatism.

Oh, well, then I heard it wrong.

Yeah, but you call it "a sausage," the thing isn't "asausage," is it?

There's sausage, a sausage. Stigmatism, a stigmatism.

-Is it, have I got an astigmatism?

-It's astigmatism.

You've got astigmatism.

You've got asausage.

LAUGHTER

No, no, no, Ben is right, Ben went to Cambridge, it's an astigmatism.

It's an astigmatism.

-What I'm saying is...

-I went to Cambridge once!

LAUGHTER

So what?

We all know where Cambridge is.

LAUGHTER

Can I ask a question? How long do you do each eye for?

If I'm walking out, probably only about two or three minutes

whereas if I'm inside, do it like that, when you're working.

Oh, do you cover? You actually walk along like that down the street?

-LAUGHTER

-I have walked along like that.

As I said, I did wear a patch at one point and felt stupid.

People must think you've forgotten something, when you're...

LAUGHTER

When did the optician give you this advice?

Probably about eight years ago, when I started to get headaches.

Maybe he was busy. Was it like 4.55 and he was locking up?

LAUGHTER

Just put your hand over zis and go away.

-Was it like that?

-LAUGHTER

He's one of the leading, you know...

He's one of the leading...?

Eye specialists on Harley Street.

OK, what do you think, Lee?

I think she should have gone to Specsavers.

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

What's it going to be, then?

Well, I think that's the sort of thing people might do.

I want to know what you mean. Do you mean the optician might say that?

No, they have got a reputation to lose.

If you don't believe that, then it's got to be a lie.

Cos she's saying he said that.

-No, he wouldn't have said that.

-Then it's a lie!

LAUGHTER

-It's a lie, then.

-LAUGHTER

-And, Ben, you think it's a lie, don't you?

-It's not true.

I mean, apart from anything, you go to Harley Street,

you're paying a lot of money,

the man's going to sell you some glasses, isn't he?

-LAUGHTER

-He's not going to say, just walk down the street...

LAUGHTER

You're saying it's a lie?

Saying it's a lie. OK. So, Doon.

The eyes, the optician, Harley Street.

Truth or lie?

It is...

..lie.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Yes, it's a lie. Doon doesn't walk with one eye open and one eye shut.

BUZZER BLARES

And that noise signals time is up,

it's the end of the show,

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

APPLAUSE

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

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

Ben Miller.

Really? Oh. How lovely.

Yes, Ben Miller.

When it comes to lying,

I'm ashamed to say he's so shameless it's shameful, which is a shame.

LAUGHTER Goodnight.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE