Gags to Riches Funny Business

This programme contains some strong language.

Comedy is big business and the top acts are worth a fortune.

But in the shadows, beyond the TV shows and stadium tours...

Hello, corporate people!

..there's a hidden world.

Where comics can trade their profile and catapult their earnings

into the financial stratosphere.

# Supercalifragilistic expialidocious #

I don't see it as a pact with the devil,

but in a way it is a bit of a pact.

Even talking about it now almost brings a tear to my eye about how I felt inside doing that.

To some it's selling out.

It's kind of high-end prostitution without the actual sex.

I'm so old.

I don't know how long I've got left. I don't even buy green bananas.

To others it's just another creative challenge.

I've played towns smaller than this.

There are many occasions on which I've gone out to an audience and there's an audible sigh of despair.

Hosting corporate events.

You can get Viagra for women these days. I don't know about you guys,

but I've been using it for women all along!

LAUGHTER

Fronting ad campaigns.

Seconda pay me over £1,000 a second for this imitation.

And taking home a big fat cheque for their trouble.

That act might get paid a million pounds a year for their TV contract,

but they could earn 100,000 a month at least. That's just four corporates.

Clocking up nicely!

Who are the middle men who persuade the talent to go for broke?

I'm just booking accommodation for Gyles Brandreth.

The lovely Gyles Brandreth. Where are you sending him?

-Birmingham.

-Lucky man.

-Yes.

I don't think many people in the comedy business would imagine

that we're actually managing to book Jimmy Carr for a large company dinner.

Tick, nicky-nicky nick. I've got the time if they've got the money.

I am part of this and so are you!

And what's at stake...

Mmm! Buy this!

..once comedians put themselves up for sale?

You're fine. Why are you doing this? Why are you grubbing around?

Given that a lot of comedy is about cynicism, a cynical audience

will say, "He's doing it for the cash,"

which is the opposite of what comedy is supposed to be about.

It's a Monday evening in the heart of London's Chelsea.

And the biggest night of the year

for top corporate booker, Jeremy Lee.

This lavish show is this way of enticing custom

from a specially invited audience of his corporate clients.

My name is Elvira. I work for the Subway office in London.

My name's Ken McCloud. I'm a director of Advantage travel centres.

I'm Mark Britton, and I'm managing director of an events company called Creating Sunshine.

The sort of client that we'll deal with - financial services, retail, IT companies...

I'm not aware of there ever having been a physical fight

to get on to the Real Variety Show.

But an awful lot of people have expressed their keenness to do it.

And audiences know that they're being offered pretty much the best

of what's just about to be talked about.

It's a really big night for us and I'm hugely excited.

Bookers like Jeremy Lee are experts.

Paid to match a client's event to the right performer.

At the luxury end, a 20-minute set

from Ricky Gervais will cost you in excess of £25,000.

Michael McIntyre could be a budget-busting £40,000.

In the middle range, a recognisable TV face, like Ed Byrne or Tim Vine,

commands around £5,000- £10,000.

Less than five grand gets you

a comic yet to establish their TV profile.

Tonight it's all about selling those up-and-coming acts

to the corporate world.

A few years ago we saw Michael McIntyre before he was famous and that happens quite regularly.

Alistair McGowan, Bill Bailey,

Jack Whitehall...

Rhod Gilbert...

It's a long, long, long list of pillars of the comedy scene who've done the Real Variety Show.

Ladies and gentlemen,

take your seats, please.

I have no voice left.

Thank you, darling.

Jeremy had dreams of becoming an actor.

But because he felt his height was against him,

he turned to talent booking instead.

Hello, corporate people!

LAUGHTER

There's plenty of cash to be made, but the corporate experience leaves some comics cold.

Some of those gigs can be lovely. Great fun.

I've had a great time in most of them, actually. 90%.

The other 10% have left me so scarred and horrified by the whole process

that I never want to do another one as long as I live.

This is heart attack territory for a dad.

You walk into a room, everything's on and no-one's there.

They're becoming energy assassins, the kids.

Just turned everything on full blast and left.

There's always a lot of corporate bullshit attached to them obviously,

because it's a corporate event.

And in a sense, if you're a comedian, you're meant to react against that.

You're meant to cut through the bullshit.

But you're not. You can't, really, cos you're getting paid by them,

so you know, you're a hypocrite.

You go mental. You're there shouting at the telly, going, "Why's the telly on?!

"The window's open with the heating on! One counteracts the other!

"Who's listening to this iPad? Help!"

I don't personally feel that when I do corporates

I have to be in love with them. In fact completely the opposite.

I tend to go in and relentlessly take the piss out of them.

And I find that quite a lot of people like that.

Available for bookings. I also host. Thank you very much.

APPLAUSE

Good night, god bless, take care!

I didn't want to look too desperate.

My angle was, "Hey, I'm just having fun and I don't really care," but deep down I cared massively.

Lovely to be here. I'm in a good mood.

I'm pleased to be out on a Monday night, cos I'm at that age now.

I got offered drugs on the street the other day.

And I was just immensely flattered. That's the age I've now reached.

LAUGHTER

I was walking down the street, this guy goes, "You want Charlie, skunk?"

I said, "No, I don't, but thank you very much for asking!"

LAUGHTER

It went pretty well. It's quite hard to do these things cos you are sort of a rolling...

It's like livestock. "What do you think of this one?"

"What do you think of this one?" They're there for business,

so it's hard not to have that feeling in the room of, "Am I what you want?

"Would you like to pay me lots of money?"

I'm trying to control my weight. My weight goes massively up and down.

I'm addicted to eating. I am.

It's worse than being a heroin addict,

cos at least they look good in skinny jeans.

Well, in terms of career, in terms of artistically, obviously it's not...

of any real...you know, any real importance,

though I do enjoy it artistically as well.

I'm kind of possessed when I eat. I'm kind of... GRUNTS

And I cannot concentrate on anything else.

'There are very few comics who won't do them,'

but at every level you're at, they always pay so much more

than you're usually getting, that they're very handy.

I'd be rubbish on MasterChef.

On MasterChef you've always got a guy going, "Mm, that's slightly overcooked,

"but... mmm... That's a beautiful fusion of different flavours."

We've all become a bit Thatcher's children. I think people go, " Good on you if you can make that money."

Cos you don't know how long you'll be in the spotlight.

"Hal, what do you think?"

HE GRUNTS AND CHOMPS

LAUGHTER

'It's lovely to get a call at 9am the next morning'

saying, "Who was that chap? We want to book him for 12 gigs."

In practice it's much more slow-burning than that,

but generally speaking, if they get the show right,

then I would expect that they would pick up 30-plus gigs as a result.

You've been a delight. Thank you very much. I've been Hal Cruttenden. Thank you!

APPLAUSE

Jeremy Lee is an industry heavyweight.

But he's got competition fighting for their share of the business.

Search the web and you'll find a host of sites

all offering the chance for companies to book top-drawer comedy talent.

With prices to match.

I'll just remain calm...

Geoff Whiting runs his outfit,

Mirth Control, from his home in Bath, booking comics throughout Europe.

I must be the least well known person

that knows the most well known comedians.

It's a strange thing. The perception probably is that if you want a big name,

you go to a big agent with a big reputation, West End office,

track record for 20 years for booking the biggest names.

Ironically, I can book the same acts as them, probably at the same price,

but the client doesn't understand that.

A big round of applause and please give a warm welcome

for Geoff Whiting, ladies and gentlemen!

APPLAUSE

Hello!

Thank you!

Because I'm a working comic, I do believe I understand the dynamics

of what you need in a room, better than a booker who is not a comic.

Has anybody here got a pet? Any pet-owners in the audience?

FAINT RESPONSES Enthusiastic pet-owners!

"That pet's drained my finances,

it's there now, scratching my furniture..."

I go out on stage two or three times a week - doesn't sound much,

but I've done over 4,000 gigs since I started.

I think cats ARE more intelligent than dogs.

And I've got proof - cos you never see a cat with a homeless person.

LAUGHTER

Jimmy Carr. I gave Jimmy Carr his first-ever paid booking.

Russell Howard gave me my second-ever gig.

Rhod Gilbert did loads for me as a new act.

Michael McIntyre I used to gig with a lot.

It's quite nice.

Nice to see a guy on TV and think - I remember giving him some gigs,

early days, you know -

five minutes for nothing in a pub, see what you can do.

Like Jeremy Lee, Geoff used to have stars in his eyes.

But by the time he was 30,

he was a travelling salesman flogging cakes and biscuits.

Suddenly made redundant,

he spotted an advert for wannabe comics,

in the Daily Telegraph.

Cos I was at rock bottom, I did it.

If I'd been in that job, I wouldn't have done it.

Geoff tried his luck and stumbled into a new career -

as a comedy booker.

Uh-huh.

There it is. Well, this was my office, in effect.

I had no phone. No mobile. No landline.

I operated from this phone box.

I used to come here every morning, between 10 and midday.

Spend a couple of hours in here - and I do mean two hours -

with about 20 pound coins which I'd feed in as I needed to.

I'm amazed it's still here, really.

Look at the beautiful surroundings -

I can't think why they've maintained it.

I'd like to think they heard my story and think they ought to keep it.

Yeah, so, this was my office for the first four months in my career of a comic and comedy booker.

Today Geoff's become one of the best connected bookers in the business.

Every week he finds acts for the UK's network of independent comedy clubs,

as well as dozens of corporate gigs.

Geoff's outfit is no-frills, minimum overheads.

Jeremy Lee has offices in the heart of the West End

and an entire team behind him.

So this is a room full of journalists.

everybody here has to know quite a lot about quite a lot.

The point being that their relationship

is with the organisation who wants to book the talent.

So they have to know who's going to work in front of any audience.

So, what's going on here?

-At the moment?

-At the moment.

Apart from looking at the BBC news website to find out what's going on.

I'm just booking Hugh Dennis.

-The lovely Hugh Dennis.

-Yeah.

Unlike an agent or manager, who is trying to sell a particular turn,

we are more interested in who's going to be in the audience.

Who have they had before?

Where do they come from? How senior are they?

It's similar, I suppose, to casting, more than anything else.

So we will then say, look, here's half a dozen suggestions,

we've put whoever it is in front of hundreds of similar audiences

and we can turn around and say - this is the best one for you.

And, hopefully, they'll take our advice.

Oliver, what are you up to?

Just looking through some recent inquiries, trying to come up with some suggestions.

-What's the audience?

-An electronics company.

-They've got a few hundred of their employees.

-With their partners?

Um, I presume so. That's something I don't actually know.

He doesn't know. He needs to find out. Thank you, Oliver.

If you can crack the market and win repeat bookings,

there's big money to be made.

Big money, but not easy money. Watch out for the pitfalls.

Corporate gigs, you never quite know.

Occasionally, they can be very good.

If the audience is the right amount drunk...

But often they can be awful.

-Alan, what are you doing?

-Climbing over a fence.

-Watch it, you're nearly f...

-Were you gonna say I was nearly fifty, then?!

-I might be nearly 50, but at least I'm able t-eeeeuuuuhh...!

-What?!

Lyn, I've pierced my foot on a spike!

And it ruddy, frigging hurts like bugger.

Get yourself into a recovery position.

You're just going through bits of Casualty now!

Oh, look at you...! You should be in hospital!

I doubt there is one comedian in the world who hasn't died on his or her arse at a corporate gig.

They can be dispiriting events.

They're good for the soul.

It's great to have successes,

but every now and then You must have a failure.

AH-HA!

What a year it's been for Dante...Fires.

May be you're here to tonight with a wife, or an old FLAME.

The thing about corporate gigs

that I actually think is quite good for comedians -

and it's not the money -

it's the fact that actually 90% of the time,

they don't know who they're going to get.

But what is the burning issue?

Hit your targets or you'll be...fired!

I drove past a hotel last night that where I did a corporate about seven years ago.

And I had butterflies in my stomach.

And as I drove past at about 40mph

all of that horrible tension, that anxiety,

that awful feeling I got before those gigs came bubbling back up.

I could taste it, practically.

I apolo-HURRRGGG...!

ALAN VOMITS

FANFARE

Sorry... I was supposed to hit that later.

I'll just wait for it to finish.

..a glittering year ahead.

There are many occasions on which I've gone out to an audience

and there's an audible sigh of despair

from the audience when they've seen it's me,

because they were hoping it was going to be Jimmy Carr or Alan Davies,

or anyone but me.

And so from that point of view, that's very good for someone like me,

because it means I have to work my arse off.

A normal gig, things are on your side.

You go to a corporate gig, people are on a round table -

half that table's got their back to you,

they're not there to see comedy, they don't care about you, don't give a shit about you!

If you do corporates, you certainly get the message that not everyone loves you,

and it makes you really work hard.

Most turns - there's an old fashioned term for you! -

most turns LOVE the experience of storming a corporate gig.

Cos how would you not?

You come away with 1,200 more fans. What could be better?

-And now...

-Show him the meat and liver.

..a commercial break...

-Teletext with full remote control.

-This is dull.

-It's about time I got into the stock market.

-Dull...

'A man who wears good clothes.'

This man...

knows Hodges.

Aspirational?

# What about a bit Of British lamb? #

No idea.

Why, yes!

A touch of comedy and just feel the difference.

Don't look now, it's Pamela Anderson!

Advertising has always relied on comedy

and its stars to sell products.

That's not Pamela.

THEY SIGH

SIREN WAILS

'Virgil, get down to the club right away!'

They often say the best weapon advertising has is truth.

Fraud Squad! Tonight's episode...

Terror In The Night.

And because comedy is about honesty,

it fits extremely well.

An award-winning writer and producer of shows, from

Not the Nine O'Clock News and Spitting Image,

to Blackadder and QI...

Who's behind it?

I found the bartender's palm prints all over the place.

Very pretty, you know.

..John Lloyd is also the brains behind some of the most successful

ads of the last 25 years.

By heck! You smell gorgeous tonight, petal.

'There's an inherent honesty built into comedy, because if people don't'

believe you or they don't buy into the proposition, they won't laugh.

I've bred men for 30 years, now.

Dave was my first

and since then I've bred two more, Stephen and Greville.

It has to be interesting. You have to be intrigued.

Hark, how they lap it up.

I am impressed by the lack of marrow bone and

lumps of rabbit.

Given the choice, my men go for it every time.

This makes a very powerful weapon for more or less anything.

People often ask me how I keep my hair

so thick and curly.

It's a perm.

Simple. I use Abbey National savings advisers.

'It can be applied to the most tedious advertising proposition and'

transform it to something delicious and user-friendly and, "Oh!"

'Saving with Abbey National keeps my hair'

a part of me.

-Perm.

-Not a perm.

A lot of people say, "Advertising doesn't work on me."

These people are fools.

Advertising works on everybody.

Where I come from,

Mr Brain's Faggots

prized as powerful aphrodisiac.

JOHN: 'It's just the question is

'which bit works on you.

At the bottom end, you can destroy a brand

so that people will never want to buy it again.

It's very odd.

I don't even know your name,

but after this one Campari and soda,

I feel I almost know you.

'Famously, Campari,'

that was a disaster,

cos although they made incredibly funny ads

and won all the prizes, the brand Campari was basically

the sort of thing that brigadiers had one bottle of, cos of that lovely...

"Do you remember that holiday in Taormina, darling?"

Yes. Nice colour, ennit?

They decided they wanted to take it from being classy to mass-market.

Well, you truly wafted here from paradise.

No. Luton airport.

So all the secretaries in the world went out

and tried a glass of Campari instead of Babycham and hated it

and all the brigadiers then suddenly think, "Oh dear. How ghastly.

"Campari's drunk by working people. We can't have that anymore."

So nobody bought it.

Those awfully nice Sony people want me to tell you

what makes my Sony Trinitron so unique.

We'll help you find the service you want.

John Cleese is one big star who's been happy to front ads for years...

Thanks to Sony's miracle ingredient,

the fiendishly cunning Trinitron system,

which improves the whole family's watching!

In fact, I think I will eat one.

..provided he's happy with the quality.

It's becoming ever more difficult to surround oneself with

absolute uncompromising quality.

Which is why I take such extraordinary pleasure

in telling you about Schweppes.

With its unique Schweppervescence

and distinctively refreshing taste, it may be the last oasis

of true excellence in an otherwise vast desert of compromise.

Cheers.

Commercials were a fantastic way

of buying oneself writing time.

What on earth is going on?

'First of all the product.'

You've got to check the product out. So when Compaq came to me,

I rang up my old prep school friend who taught people computer skills

and said, "What sort of a company are they?"

He came back 24 hours later and said, "I've been checking them out.

"I think they're first-class."

All under control here!

Nothing to worry about! What?

The second hurdle is, was the commercial actually funny.

Rein them in, boy!

HE WHINNIES

I felt that if I stood there saying, "Hmmm, buy this!"

it would be death for my career,

but if I could do something that was witty and amusing

and there were some very good commercials being made at that time,

then I thought it was harmless.

Oh, Colin. You're so precocious.

I'm 52 years old, mother, and I'm a High Court judge.

'When it amuses people and intrigues them,'

it's utterly harmless

and I think that's legitimate.

All you can do in a commercial, in my opinion,

is draw someone's attention to something.

Nobody's going to run out and buy it, but they might think,

"I'll have a look at that next time I'm in the store."

That's all you can hope to achieve and that seems to be

a reasonable thing to aim for.

'When I started in advertising,

'what was brilliant about it is that

'instead of struggling by on about'

'the same money that, say, a cab driver might make,

'you get immense budgets and, in those days,'

a lot of freedom...

CHEERING

'..to do things that'

really, really stood out.

CHEERING

PEOPLE GASP

'But, on the other hand, there's not a great deal of integrity.'

'Get lucky.'

'Sometimes you would thirst to go back to the BBC and work for very

little money on something you really believed in

then you'd run out of money, and go and do something you didn't

particularly believe in, but try and do it as well as you can.

If ads mean trading your principles,

creative tension is inevitable.

So, you're in advertising, yes?

Yeah.

Sorry, that was a reflex action.

-That's all right.

-In that case...

-Sorry.

-That's fine.

But, for an up-and-coming double act,

a British theatrical legend gave them

all the excuse they needed to climb aboard the advertising gravy train.

I remember, as a kid, watching on the TV

Laurence Olivier, the greatest living actor at the time,

doing a cigarette advert and I was stunned.

I thought, "Sod it. If he's doing it, I'll do it."

I bet he drinks Carling Black Label.

'And the clincher was, it was beer.'

-Yeah.

-Which we're both fans of, and still are.

Who?

The next bloke through that door.

'The Carling campaign was one of those that typified that

'era of massive creativity.'

MUSIC: "O Fortuna" by Carl Orff

'Agencies used to tell clients they were going to handle'

their advertising for them, and, "This is what we're going to do."

Woo! Whatcha.

Give us a pint of aftershave.

Straight glass, sir?

'Make sure you get paid'

25 years in advance, cos we're still selling flipping

Carling Black Label, as far as I'm concerned.

I walk into a bar, they say, "Hey, the old Carling..."

# Carling Black Label. #

'We were young and just started out'

and it was great exposure for us.

Bob, if I'm not mistaken,

you've just come back from

a romantic weekend in Brighton.

APPLAUSE

'We were endorsing a product on nationwide TV that'

A, we liked, and B, people thought was funny, and we were comedians. It was a win-win situation.

-Here.

-Yes, I do.

Your best bet for a fuller flavour.

We weren't overwhelmed with dialogue, know what I mean?

# ..to make me blue

# With some other guy You knew before

# Between the two of us guys, You know I love you more...

Hey! I bet he drinks Carling Black Label.

No. He doesn't wash his underpants.

'They cut that bit out'

where I turn the page without moving my hands, though.

MASK GARBLES SPEECH

'The ones we did with Roger were just epic.'

'I mean, these were big film studio numbers.'

'The Dambusters script'

was to die for, really.

MASKS GARBLE THEIR SPEECH

-ROGER:

-'It was a bit of a contentious subject,

'because the widows of some of the pilots who

'were on the Dambusters mission are still alive and...'

MASK GARBLES SPEECH

'The agency, I think, ran it for the Dambusters Association.

'They thought it was very funny, but all they were really'

interested in was where did we get the Lancaster bomber from.

MASK GARBLES SPEECH

I bet he drinks Carling Black Label.

HIS SPEECH IS GARBLED

Roger. Over and out.

The campaign ran seven years

and the big challenge was keeping up the standard.

We're pushing on to Car-ling.

What? 30 miles through this jungle?

New people came and started doing what we thought were offensive stuff,

racist and sexist stuff, wasn't it?

On foot? Overnight?

With no chopper cover?

ALL: Count us in, Sarge!

Sarge? Count me out.

We're supposed to go, "Oh, I bet he drinks Carling Black Label."

HE SPEAKS IN ANOTHER LANGUAGE

'No way!'

They'd written the jingle, it was # Car-ring Brack Label... #

'And we stopped the gig and we said...'

"Can we have a word with the director?"

And the whole thing stopped for hours.

HE SPEAKS IN ANOTHER LANGUAGE

Is it possible for your comedy to survive

the commercial imperative?

In the end, it's about that, lucre.

And advertising has always been...

that's been the arrangement, you know?

Do you drink Guinness?

'I always liked that quote'

by George Orwell who said that

"Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket."

Oooh!

'You know, Bill Hicks has the line'

on commercials that the hard-minded young stand-up follows, which is

if you appear in a commercial, "you're off the artistic roll call."

The summer temperature here at the Domecq vineyards

can reach 100 degrees.

JO: 'The biggest problems for me

'with advertising is that you sort of become'

someone's verbal gimp.

Nature's very wonderful.

There's a delicious wing of soft cheese.

'But I kind of figure, especially with voice-overs...'

Cap-wice.

'It allows me the'

money to do other things that may lose money.

That's my story, anyway.

I do understand, when someone says,

"I want you to do seven minutes work for what you'd

normally earn in a year."

The floor's got a carpet.

Why can't I have some nice wallpaper like this?

Or this?

JO: So many people say to me,

"What does that matter, you silly cow?

"They're offering you half a million for this, or whatever it is.

"You know, just take the money and shut your gob."

-Have you noticed the hat I'm wearing, Hugh?

-No.

It's a very special kind of hat. It's called a Panama.

Who cares? But I do care.

I care that I can't say what I want.

Panama have six marvellously mild cigars in every box.

I would say that, on balance,

it's not easy to recover from a hit to your image,

where as a hit to your bank balance, you could probably get by.

Sirocco.

The suit to wear when things get hot.

I'm not decrying people who do the advert.

If you've got no money and you're an actor...

Virtually uncrushable, because of the terylene that's in there,

along with the wool and mohair.

'Go and do the advert. That's what you do. OK, that's fine.

But if you are a comic who's on a panel show or you're on TV...

Hey, Mr museum man! How old and how much is that vase?

It's 1,000 years old and worth £10,000.

..you're fine. Why are you doing this? Why are you grubbing around?

Ha ha! This Curly Wurly, with all its miles of chewy toffee,

covered in creamy Cadbury's chocolate,

is ten minutes old, only costs 3p.

It's just greed at that point.

Savings like this cheeseburger.

Only 59p.

People have two live with themselves, OK?

Themselves and their own conscience.

There's free delivery,

within a two foot radius.

If your moral compass is in place, and you have taken

lots of money from somebody maybe inappropriate...

I don't think it's particularly appropriate

for sporting people to be sponsoring crisps,

but if they can live with themselves, then good luck.

Nein. Nein.

Play for Pepsi.

What do you do if you come across the chief executive of Tesco's

drowning in a canal?

Well, you whip your old chap out, pee all over him and shout,

"Every little helps!"

After I started doing this joke,

I got a call saying would I do a

"Every little helps!" strapline video

and I said no.

To my great credit and smugness, I declined.

Although I could have done with the

easy money, in a way.

Hello, Nobby.

I bought you some Holsten Pils.

I remember getting phoned up to do an advert...

Most of the sugar turns to alcohol, you know?

"Would you come and do an audition for Holsten Pils?"

Look at the head on that.

It's too big.

Maybe I should slant the glass a bit more.

And I said, "I don't do adverts and I don't drink."

And they went, "Uh... uh... But you wouldn't have to drink."

I said, "No, I don't drink alcohol."

They said, "You wouldn't have to. It wouldn't be beer. We'd just put something else in."

I said, "No, you don't understand. I don't drink."

Keep your hair on, Nobby.

I'll save this for you till you get out.

I said, "Look, how much is it worth?"

And they said, "It's going to be about 70 grand."

When is that?

Nine more years and six months in this hole.

An enormous sum of money.

And I went, "Look, this is the best no I've ever said."

I have a really useful system, called 'Look yourself in the eye.'

If I get an offer, I go to a mirror, look myself in the eye and go,

"Do you want to do this?"

And the answer comes back immediately

and it saves a lot of toing and froing and umming and ahhing

and calculation and the very rational response of

thinking about money versus what it will do for my career. All that.

I just go to a mirror, I go, "Should you be doing this?" It's usually no.

If I've gone to the mirror in the first place, the answer's usually no.

But for Rhod, there was one ad that

meant he didn't have to sell out.

Supposedly, holidays have changed!

'The Welsh Tourist Board adverts'

are the only adverts I've done. They're the only adverts I would do.

Absolutely no idea that we had wine in Wales.

If I've got any brand, any value, I do not want to attach that to

a product, a meaningless thing that I don't... I don't.

It's me off the telly!

CHEERING

I am the man in the Visit Wales ads!

CHEERING

But, I'm happy to say to people, "Come to Wales on holiday."

Because I think, with a bit of luck from that,

tourism is good for Wales and we all benefit from it, collectively.

How many of you have been to Wales as a direct result of seeing my advert?

A FEW PEOPLE CHEER

LAUGHTER

Piss off!

LAUGHTER

Why haven't you been? Two of you?

Why haven't the rest of you been? Wales is all right,

it's not shit anymore, we've done it up!

LAUGHTER

Welcome.

This room, where I slept last night, what exactly is local?

You've got the blankets, the art on the wall

and the bed that you slept on last night. That's why you slept so well.

It was all about what a wonderful time

I was having in Wales, how well I slept on a lovely Welsh bed.

Wooo!

Woo!

The reality was, they picked me up in Sheffield after a gig at midnight, drove me to a hotel.

I got there at 4am and we started filming at six.

I was absolutely knackered.

I've never wanted to be anywhere less in my life.

That's TV. Just stick a bit of slap on and get out there.

I've never felt so Welsh.

Ads and corporate make a huge difference to a comic's earnings.

As they start to appear on TV, their price tag skyrockets.

But it all starts with the hard graft of the stand-up circuit.

I know people have got mixed opinions about Jimmy Carr,

'but, you see, he was the hardest working comic on the circuit.

'What happens is, some people want to be comedians, it's like wannabe musicians.'

They look at the X Factor.

But, as we know, people want it too quick and too easy.

This is quite typical of what you'd get on a Friday night show

at an independent comedy club.

They've converted the room, we're normally just part of the bar.

But it's often the sort of rooms you play,

which is sort of halfway between the pub gigs people do

when they're starting out in the back room of a little pub,

to the higher end, into that middle ground.

If you aren't willing to drive to Cornwall and back,

five hours each way, to do ten minutes for nothing, you won't make it.

I did it and now I earn a living from comedy, and Jimmy Carr does.

Russell Howard went round the country for nothing.

The acts that are now doing TV would have played exactly these rooms over the last eight years.

If you name anybody on telly,

they killed themselves on the circuit for years.

Michael McIntyre was on the circuit for nine years before he did

any telly at all, working night after night after night in little pubs

in gigs, bars, anywhere.

Michael McIntyre famously had this little Rover. Hardly enough money for the petrol.

What I'm saying is, these guys have made it through being good,

but coupled with relentless, relentless work rate.

If they hadn't, no way they could be where they are.

Like all the comedy big hitters,

Jason Manford had to start at the bottom of the heap.

He's worked his way up,

and now commands, for a single corporate event,

£25,000.

If Jason's out of your price range,

there are alternatives.

Right, hello. Firstly, welcome to comedy night at the casino. Hey?

A FEW PEOPLE CHEER

Well, only three of you are excited about this. Come on.

We can do better than that, can't we?

Colin Manford is particularly interesting, cos he's Jason's brother...

You're single? Let's have a little chat with you, then.

..which is a very interesting sort of dynamic,

cos I've known Jason since he started.

Listen, I'm going to be pretty forward with you, right?

I'm only here for one night.

LAUGHTER

I've got a free bar and a Travelodge.

LAUGHTER

It's a difficult thing with Colin,

cos Colin wants to be judged on his own merits.

-That'll do.

-That'll do?

Fuckin' love this place already, man.

I've been asking that question for about a year, right?

But then again, if you're managing him and someone says,

"We'd like someone at our Christmas party."

I'm looking forward to this, Rachel. I'm a gentle lover.

"Can we get Jason Manford? But we only have £500," you think,

"Perhaps you'll like Colin Manford?"

You keep drinking until I look attractive, right?

LAUGHTER

If Colin makes it to the very top of the corporate comedy pile,

he'll need to handle something a bit bigger

than 35 people in a provincial casino.

This is The Great Room at Mayfair's Grosvenor House.

Roomy, isn't it?

For decades, this was the toughest corporate venue in the business.

West End booker Jeremy Lee named his own office after this place

and he knows just what it means to many of his high earning acts.

Just give you some idea how popular and how important

this room is in the business.

We've put 120 people onto this stage this year.

Interestingly, this used to be known as "the mausoleum of comedy."

MACHINE BEEPS

That's not just because when you're saying something a cherry picker

suddenly makes a lot of noise.

What happened was, in the old days there was a hydraulic dancefloor

and that meant that people didn't used to put tables onto it,

because they'd have to move them.

So the comic will be playing across an acre of empty dancefloor

with a top table miles in the distance.

An audience over there, an audience over there.

And, if it was busy, then they'd be way up on the balconies too.

And very, very difficult to engage with them.

One famous comic who fell foul of the curse of The Great Room

was Rhod Gilbert.

I can remember doing the PFA,

Professional Footballers' Association, and it was

the most money I'd been paid for a corporate at that point in my life.

The most money I'd been paid for any gig.

There were 1,000 people there and I can remember standing there

and doing half an hour to...

..almost silence.

And even talking about it now almost brings a tear to my eye

about how I felt inside doing that.

I can remember Rio Ferdinand, Giggs.

I could see the Man United table.

Paul Scholes, people like that.

I could see them there and I could see some of them

just looking at me sort of head down,

avoiding eye contact.

And then, I can remember...

I'm doing my set as I'm thinking this.

I can remember looking at Alex Ferguson's back.

Looking at his back - he was chatting to the guy next to him

with his back to me while I was doing my stand up set. I just...

I just wanted to cry.

Never has somebody's back been so oppressive,

such a symbol of this awful experience. It was just...

I don't do them any more and I've got genuine shakes

and visceral gut reaction just talking about it.

# I know a fellow policeman

# He's always on our street

# A fat and jolly red-faced man... #

The Great Room doesn't frighten after-dinner veteran

Barry Cryer, the stalwart star of Radio 4's

I'm Sorry I haven't A Clue,

he used tried and tested techniques

and power hair to deliver the goods for his corporate clients.

He knows his audience, he does his research.

There aren't many on the circuit who can really relate to us

in the way that people like Barry do.

Tonight, Barry's been booked to entertain an audience of

industrial engineers at their annual dinner at The Dorchester hotel.

They won't remember what I said, but they'll remember some of Barry's jokes.

And I'm sorry, but I haven't got a clue what he's about to say.

'I don't call it nerves, I call it'

creative apprehension.

It's like a runner waiting for the gun, drumming your fingers.

"Come on, let's do it, let's do it."

So, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Barry Cryer.

APPLAUSE

'You never know. I mean, once you stand up, they're like a jury.

'You've got to get motoring in the first'

two or three minutes. It's all unpredictable.

You know your status as an after-dinner speaker

by the amount of notice you get.

The late Peter Ustinov used to get six months,

David Frost gets three months, Jeremy Paxman gets a month.

So you can imagine how thrilled I was as I was sitting at home

watching television last night...

LAUGHTER

..and Amelia rang me up.

Amelia, an old friend,

not of mine, but...

LAUGHTER

I wish she was.

I get very few specific briefs.

Frankie Howerd, at the peak of his fame, got one of these,

in the old days, a letter saying,

"Bad language is not appreciated and da, da, da,"

and he read it out to the audience.

They loved it.

Naming the man who'd written it.

Jokes, jokes, jokes.

The doorbell of a brothel rang and a madam opened it

and there was a man with some 80 summers and even more winters.

He said, "I want Natalie, please."

She said, "Natalie is the most expensive girl in the place.

"She's £1,000." "No problem," he said.

Money changed hands, business was done.

Oh, yes, if it goes well, it's a great sensation,

because you have to win them over.

Next day, the doorbell rang again, there he is again.

"Natalie, please." She said, "Nobody's had Natalie twice.

"She's still £1,000." "There it is."

Couple of years ago, I did an after dinner...

And I'm well aware - and of course, it's increasingly so,

a younger audience of a company, who've probably no idea who I am...

Next day, third day, doorbell.

"Natalie, please."

Everybody's now intrigued, including Natalie.

And she said to him, "You interest me.

"Your accent, for instance.

"Where are you from?" He said, "I'm from Budapest."

She said, "I've got a sister in Budapest."

He said, "I know, she gave me £3,000 to give you."

LAUGHTER

'And I had a really good night, a really good night.'

And the man who booked me, my contact, rang me the next day.

He said, "A young guy at our table said,

"Who's the old fart at the top table?""

And he said, "To reassure you, I heard him

"in the bar afterwards saying, 'He's quite funny, isn't he?'"

Oh, I'm a realist. I'm a realist.

Word of mouth counts for more than anything.

No matter what any of the agents or managers you're talking to

tell you, and no matter how much

I might like to think that JLA

carries a lot of influence,

in the end, word of mouth trumps everything.

Intelligence is everything in the corporate world,

but you need to know where to look.

Try the pavement outside.

He's a really good fun guy, actually, Jeremy.

And I hope he's stopped smoking. He's a chain smoker.

So, welcome to the pavement outside Grosvenor House.

And this is where you find out how well

a speaker or an act has gone down.

-RHOD:

-He's the only man who smoked more than me.

At corporate gigs, I'd be out the back door of the Dorchester,

getting through 40 cigarettes in the hour and a half before the show.

He's the only man who would match me and then beat me

for fags, because he'd be smoking while I was on stage as well.

It used to be that you went to the loo

and just sort of overhear somebody

saying whether they liked him or not.

These days, it's straight out onto the pavement with fellow smokers.

Of course, that means you only get to find out what smokers think,

but they have an opinion.

Meanwhile, in his Monte Carlo apartment, John Cleese is working

on his autobiography, looking back over 50 years in the business.

During his time on The Frost Report,

Cleese met the writer Anthony Jay.

I wanted to work with Tony and I always said if he'd said,

"Let's open a dolphinarium in Oxford Street,"

I would have said, "OK, I'm on board."

Jay had spotted a gap in the corporate market.

He said, "I have this idea of making training films.

"The stuff out there is so dull."

It's not just boring, but they didn't tell you anything.

I mean, the whole point of a training film is that after it

you do something better.

And I didn't see with any of them

what I was supposed to do any differently from what I was doing.

And I thought, "Yeah, we can do better than that, that's for sure."

Together, they found a middle way of making money from the

corporate world, using their talent and profile to sell a product

they believed in, but one over which they had complete creative control.

I was a National Serviceman in the Signals, 1952 to 1954,

and one of the things in our training included films.

You may have met a few people who like doing this sort of thing.

They're a nuisance, I agree, but pretty harmless.

You have certainly seen thousands like this.

They're not a nuisance, they're a real danger.

'One of the ones I remember'

particularly was one

about training people not to get ill

or do things that risk their health.

-Stop it, you!

-HE SNEEZES

Stop it! Stop it!

Come here, what do you think you're up to?

'And it was terribly memorable'

and people laughed like anything at this chap

doing all the wrong things.

And so I realised that actually

you could use film as a positive training instrument.

Now, handkerchief. Sneeze.

HE SNEEZES

Sneeze, handkerchief.

HE SNEEZES

Got it? Fine.

Cleese was one of the 1960's comic glitterati.

But, back then, he wasn't earning as much as you might think.

You've got to remember that they now, the young comedians,

make a fortune. We never did.

I remember writing about myself, "He does a lot of work for charity,

"most of it for the BBC."

I mean, the fees were very, very tiny.

This was the era of runaway inflation, huge eyebrows,

punitive budgets and super taxation.

'When I started in '66,'

the income tax levels were 83%.

And the tax and on unearned income was 98%.

39, take one.

And this was a way of making a bit of

stashable cash under a tax regime,

under Harold Wilson,

where it was almost impossible to stash any cash.

In 1972, they launched their company from a friend's kitchen.

In the early days, it was hilarious, because dear Maggie Tree,

who was basically in charge of the production all those years,

she cleared the stuff off her

breakfast table in the flat and...

HE LAUGHS

..and moved the marmalade and

pretty much, we start business.

-Yes, but your Majesty.

-Walsingham, are you disputing my decision?

-Well...

-Right!

-That's the yellow card for you, then.

-Look!

No, I don't, sir. I mean, I can't.

It is a physical impossibility.

It's not a physical impossibility.

I'm not asking you to defy the laws of the universe.

'If these films weren't credible, they'd be useless.

'It was only if people went away saying, "Oh, yeah.'

"I've seen that happen. I've met people like that.

"Oh, God, I've done that myself."

That's the sort of thing that

makes people actually change their behaviour and become

better at their job, which is the only purpose of a training film.

There are four main traps at our disposal...

The key to it was this,

the humour in our films always arose out of the teaching point.

You shut up! You come barging in here

under false pretences, wasting our time

when we right up against it

getting ready for a very important visit!

Mr Graham, I think your visitors from the Palace are here.

Oh, another one from the Palace, hey?

I suppose you'll be wanting to see the drains, then!

Let me guess, you're the royal sanitary inspector, hey?

Well, I've had it with you lot!

Over the years, the company had a strict policy of only hiring

Britain's top comic talent.

Do you want a light, Tim?

Oh, thanks.

And this man, who's now unheard of.

In fact, yes! You're both...

f...f...f...f...f...

First class. Absolutely fabulous.

I think the casting of the films was very much a part of our success.

You really should be careful. It's a very wet morning.

We did take a lot of trouble.

We made absolutely sure we got top-class people.

Did you ask Sale or Accounts or Production exactly what

-their requirement were?

-But I thought I knew.

We got the best actors because we paid the same as television.

It was lower profile, so there was much less sort of anxiety and stress.

If the film didn't work, a training film didn't work,

your career was not in jeopardy, you know?

-I'm very grateful, but Peter and I talked about it over the weekend...

-Listen.

Let me tell you something about people. They don't like change, OK?

But they soon get used to it.

After a few weeks, they don't even remember.

And we used to - I insisted on this - give them good lunches.

So they got their normal day's pay, they got a good lunch

and it was more relaxed, so we could get anyone we wanted.

Video Arts remains of rare example of creatives in total charge

of their own commercial affairs.

-Hail Caesar.

-Hail Caesar.

Hail myself.

Some feel 21st-century advertising is a very different story...

DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYS

You see, we're not on price comparison websites.

You have to come to us directly.

Oh, why so timid, scaredy-cat?

No, it's not that. We like to deal with you directly...

CLUCKS LIKE A CHICKEN

Sorry I'm late. Is this yours? I found it on the door.

..that the age of comedy brilliance in advertising is over.

Cook, you villain!

I think that now there's more of a fear.

Sliders. That's how we roll here.

'The feeling I get is that'

the clients are very dominant

and the agencies are quite frightened of them.

See? It's now Earl's turn on the music player.

DANCE MUSIC PLAYS

My kids have been watching my ads since they were babies.

They just bemoan the fact that there are no funny ads on telly anymore.

This is Charlie Brooker's take on the creative pressure

involved in making commercials.

Perhaps you could start by telling us exactly what sort of

-BLEEP

-is attracted to advertising in the first place.

Well...a lot of people have the idea that working in advertising gives

you some kind of creative freedom. We don't!

They siphon off any interesting thoughts you might have

and use them all to sell boring, everyday objects like cat food.

so, any creativity is hamstrung?

Well, that's assuming there was any creativity in the first place.

When you're shooting, a cable runs out of the

back of the camera, to a nearby room

where the image you make is being watched by anything up to 30 people.

It's a bit like writing a book while the editor, publisher and printer

stand over your shoulder, nudging your arms, saying,

"Don't push that key, push that one! No, that one!"

Funny enough, I think funny ads

are less and less seen, because

advertising is a serious business

and so we're sometimes a bit flippant

that the answer could be a gag.

When I worked in advertising, the process would be that the

scriptwriters or the copywriters would come up with something

they thought was downright hilarious and then, bit by bit,

the client, the dullard suits, would come in and chip away and chip away.

And so, if you're writing a funny ad, it really has to

have the stamina to get through a really difficult process.

Slowly but surely, everything averages down

and you end up with something that's lowest common denominator.

What happens is, when people lose confidence,

when they get scared,

that's the end of almost anything good creatively.

Because, first of all, they want to know what you're going to do

and you haven't discovered yet, because the essence of creativity

is you're going to go somewhere that you can't predict.

They want to know about that and then they want to control.

You have this insane situation where people who have never written,

never directed and never produced...

..are telling people who can do these skills

what they should be doing.

I've got people above me telling me what to do all the time, which

I didn't used to have and I don't need anyone to tell me what to do.

I've been doing it a long time.

So, television has co-opted some of the worst things

about advertising - focus groups and asking other people

what they think, instead of doing what we like.

EERIE ELECTRONIC SLIDING NOTE

But for comics dreaming of the golden days of creative freedom,

there's a glimmer of hope for the future.

EERIE ELECTRONIC SLIDING NOTE

It's a growing trend in comedy - branded content.

PHONE RINGS

-G'day.

-Hi!

It's Lucy from Lancaster.

Comedy was always part of the DNA of the brand.

It's very popular with our target audience,

so 18 to 34-year-old men watch a lot of comedy.

-'He always leave the toilet seat up...'

-Keep going.

'..he never helps around the house. I always have to pick up after him.'

Branded content means that companies pump their money

into sponsoring the work of writers and performers who fit their image.

It works a bit like a TV show,

except that the comedians are in complete charge of what they do.

It's one part of the marketing mix which advertising's a part,

sponsorship's a part,

but also a content-driven engagement platform.

Yes, this is what a content-driven

engagement platform looks like.

In the Europeans, the French,

they think they're going to have it all their own way.

They probably are!

We're not looking for trouble, but if you sent it our way,

we could certainly come to do something about it.

# I've got to say

# You made my day... #

So long as they don't slag off the product, that's it.

There's no hard sell

and it's all about creative freedom.

You want to join us on Twitter.

Twitter dot jump the fuck out of your environment.

Deffo going to win, urban style, because my mum's a prostitute.

'So, we are not here to censor or write comedy in any form.

'We're working with the best in the industry'

and we trust their judgement on what's going to make people laugh.

This has been extremely urban.

Graffiti!

'With Vic and Bob, for example,

'they were creating new characters just for those

'short shows that we did and I think,'

as comedians are becoming more and more savvy to this whole area,

'then they'll want to use it as a way of breaking new shows altogether.

Broadcasting legend Alan Partridge

was a high-profile coup for the company.

# North Norfolk

# Digital! #

We've got to give great credit to Steve Coogan's company,

Baby Cow, and particularly a guy called Henry Normal,

because he was very, very progressive

and forward-thinking in making this happen.

Steve was totally into it, right from the start.

-We've got John on line two. Hello, John.

-'Hello, Alan.'

Where are you calling from?

'Home.'

OK. What have you got for us?

'The idea that Alan Partridge's'

career has got to the stage

where he would do an Internet show, it seemed to work creatively.

'Well, I'd like to stick with Cromwell, please.

'I think he would drive a Golf 1.6 turbo diesel.'

Better. Much better.

'He'd appreciate the economy,

'but also the build quality and

'would go for the standard interior,

'because he wasn't at all flashy.'

We live with brands. Everybody lives with brands.

Some people have brands on their clothing.

We're surrounded by it, so I don't think we can depart from it.

'I also think that being a Puritan, he'd approve of the functionality,

'while, as a leader, he'd appreciate the turbo engine.'

If we're going to have brands in the shows,

then why not get the money? It seems logical.

I'm liking this, John. I'm liking this a lot.

I think this is the best

call I've ever had.

-GAYLE:

-'I can't imagine there won't'

be other brands that will see this as an opportunity. It's massively expanding.

MATT: I'll quote the chief marketing officer of Coca-Cola.

"It's no longer about paid for media, it's about entertainment content."

That's how marketing messages are going to be

communicated in the future.

It's not a journey.

Every journey ends, but we go on.

I don't think it's for every brand.

Plans disappear, dreams take over.

I think if you're a brand that has

no sense of humour about yourself, it will not work.

My luck, my fate,

my fortune.

So I would advise Chanel never to do it.

Chanel No 5.

Inevitable.

LAUGHTER

Whether it's the VIP world of corporate entertainment,

all the more public face of advertising...

Hello, Colin.

..even in a recession, companies are still spending a fortune.

Roger, come on.

And business forces will continue

to shape the future of British comedy,

whatever the impact on comic creativity and innovation.

Comedy's such a rare thing.

If you can do it, I think it's right

that comedians should earn a lot of money.

I mean, they really, really do earn it. They all suffer in the writing.

It takes a long time to get anywhere.

Something in my old-fashioned heart sort of feels that

comedians shouldn't be businessmen, but, you know,

you have to get into bed with these things.

I mean, when I think I could probably

earn more in a week as a comedian

than I could in a year when I was a nurse, it's utterly ridiculous.

Yeah, it's ridiculous.

If somebody's not worth that money, and people don't want to

watch that person, they don't get paid that cash.

I mean, it really is supply and demand, really.

Well, my honest summing up of it all

is that wherever you look now,

money's spoiled it.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd