QI (2003) s06e11 Episode Script
Films and Fame
APPLAUSE AND CHEERING Good evening, good evening! Good evening and welcome to QI, where tonight we are obsessed with films and fame.
Parading their false modesty down the red carpet tonight are the very famous David Mitchell.
APPLAUSE The fantastically glamorous John Sessions.
APPLAUSE And, hell's teeth! It's only Emma Thompson! APPLAUSE And who is that bloke getting out of the car behind her? No, not him, the one behind him.
You know, the curly hair? The one off the telly.
Who is he? ALL: It's Alan Davies! So it is! APPLAUSE And tonight Tonight our buzzers have come over all cinematic.
David goes SHOWBIZ FANFARE Emma goes INDIANA JONES THEME MUSIC John goes There is no business like show business Like no business I know And Alan goes Th-th-th-that's all, folks! And so it's lights, camera and action as we roll out the first question.
Now, you're all very good at what you do, but what is this picture trying to tell you? Show business! Oh! Johnny got there first.
Yes? It is a painting by Man Ray of Ingres and it is known as the Violin d'Ingres, because it's a kind of a pun.
But a Violin d'Ingres is actually more than a hobby, because the famous French painter Ingres was a brilliant violinist, so it is like a very, very hotly pursued hobby, a Violin d'Ingres.
Well, what you've done is saved us a lot of time by being completely, 100% right in every particular! That's very good! Yeah.
It's a photograph.
Of course, it's a photograph of a real model, Kiki of Montparnasse, who was a favourite model of a lot of the Surrealist artists.
And this is a painting by Ingres, the neo-classicist French painter who died in - 1864, I think.
- Are you going to be like this all the way through? This is a complicated point we have to get across.
The French have a phrase, which is Ingres's violin, which means somebody who does something they are not famous for, but does it almost as well, i.
e.
they have a whole other side, a whole other string to their bow.
And in the case of Ingres, it was that he was a talented violinist, as well as a great painter.
And so, to a question about a man who definitely, definitely has one more string to his bow.
How would you like to have Cedric Gibbons nude on your mantelpiece? - It's not Stanley Gibbons the philatelist? - No! He's a Hollywood figure, remarkable Hollywood figure, Cedric Gibbons.
He was the premier art director/production designer of Hollywood, for MGM.
And in 1928 he was asked to design something.
What might that have been? - Gone With The Wind? - No.
- The Oscar? Thank you! The Oscar! And not only did he design it, he won 11 of them.
He was nominated for 36 and won 11.
Almost all Oscars, as you know, were won by Walt Disney who won how many? - 109.
- 26! And Cedric Gibbons won 11, and all the rest went to Emma Thompson.
Oh, look! There she is! - A lovely winning smile.
- Do you remember which one that was? That's Sense And Sensibility.
- Or Howard's End? - Howard's Way.
- I nearly said Howard's Way! That interesting boat script I wrote! But you were nominated for three others.
- Yes.
- Do you remember what they were? - Umm - Remains Of The Day.
Remains Of The Day.
In The Name Of The Father.
Best Supporting Actress.
- And you were also nominated for Sense And Sensibility.
- Oh, yes! - OK, I had forgotten that.
- I can remember all the GCSEs I did.
I would definitely remember every Oscar nomination! I think when the rest of my brain had melted and I had to be fed through a tube, those five names of films would still come out.
The best film one year was Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs.
- Do you know what They altered the Oscar to some extent.
- They made him a midget? They made him one big one and seven little ones.
It must have been a grim year because that is a boring cartoon.
I made an Oscar.
I actually made a genuine Oscar.
I went to the factory in Chicago where they were made.
Is it a mould, like a jelly mould? There is a mould, but it is pure metal.
Britannium.
- Or do you have to hue it over weeks? - You give it a damn good buffing.
If you have to hue it, and I'm not being rude, but if I was winning an Oscar this year, I'd say, can I have one of the ones made by the professionals rather than the one Stephen Fry ballsed up! - I was well supervised.
To be honest, I did a bit of buffing.
- On the bum area, I bet! And then dipping You bad You very bad man.
A good buttock flossing! And then dipping him in nickel and then in that gold.
- So, you didn't really make one.
- No, I didn't make him.
- It's like the Queen pulling a pint.
Basically, that's more or less what it was like.
- So, who was the Best Actor in your year you were Best Actress? - Al Pacino.
And your other Oscar, of course, was for Best Adapted Screenplay.
- Yes.
- For Sense And Sensibility.
I should have won that Oscar, as a matter of fact.
- Actually, yes, you should! - Yeah.
- You rescued it.
- Yeah.
Yes.
I had one of those steam powered computers and the screen had done something to the script.
It had transmogrified into hieroglyphs, into just.
Not words, not anything that I could recognise, just funny shapes.
I got the computer bloke round and he couldn't work it out.
So, finally, I took the computer out of the wall, still in my dressing gown, got in a taxi, went with the computer round to Stephen's house, set it down and said, "Please! Find my script!" And I did it like that, because I'm an actress.
If I'm upset, I make sure people know it! - And he said, OK, but it took him seven hours! - Hmm, I did that.
APPLAUSE - Advantages of being a nerd.
- Probably what really happened was he couldn't do it, and he thought, "Oh, I can't let on.
" - "I'll quickly write one!" - "I'll just write it.
"It will be much quicker if I just adapt the novel.
" And I looked at it and I'd forgotten, obviously, because my brain doesn't hold any information for any length of time at all.
Just looked at it and thought, that's my script and I handed it in.
I'll send the Oscar round tomorrow.
Now, time to test your hearing.
What is this a representation of? DRIPPING AND SQUELCHING THWUMP! It's Roy Chubby Brown eating a hobnob.
It's Gladstone being Eating an ice cream and then being beamed up by the Martians.
- It's giving birth.
- Yes! Brilliant! Brilliant! That's exactly what it is.
It is a lamb being born.
God! In fact, this is a sound effect.
We can actually see the sound being made.
DRIPPING AND SQUELCHING THWUMP! Has he listened to lambs being born and then done that, or has he said, "No-one knows what a lamb being born sounds like, I'll do any old crap.
- "I'll drop a towel!" - She is oddly named Lizzie Calf, oddly enough! And she used to do the sound effects for the Archers, amongst other things.
She's now our sound wizard, but there is a name to this science of sound effects, as used in movies.
What sound recordists need is clean dialogue and all the sound effects, footsteps and other noises, guns being cocked and the rustle of clothing, the lighting of a cigarette, almost all that is done afterwards, by someone called a foley artist.
And here is an example of some of the early foley artists making their noises.
All kinds of different things are used.
If you close your eyes, let the audience see how it is being made, you see if Ah! Ah! Alan! When I say close your eyes.
When I open them, you won't all have gone, will you? You close your eyes, we'll let the audience and everyone at home see some more sounds being made.
See if you can see what these are.
SCRAPE! THUD! CLUNK! - So, what was that? - A guillotine! A guillotine, all right.
Very good.
How was it made? With a guillotine and a person! - And a bucket.
- No, they wanted the sound of cabbages being chopped up, and so they had to kill a guy.
Oh! Very good! It was indeed.
I had my eyes shut long after the sound had finished.
- I am so obedient.
- It was indeed a cabbage.
You slide a knife along a scaffolding pole and then chop a cabbage and drop it into the bucket.
It's pretty good.
We've got another one.
Close your eyes.
CLIP, CLOP, CLIP, CLOP - What was that? - Somebody pretending to be a horse! That sounds exactly like some coconut shells.
Oh! You're so cynical! That's a two-legged horse wearing some awkward shoes.
EMMA: It's a horse clapping.
- Don't you think it sounds like a horse? - EMMA: It does! You've seen it many times in films without knowing it was coconut.
If you see the visual thing, then it works.
Close your eyes.
What you think this sound is? - CRACKLING - It's fire.
- Exactly.
They use this for fire ripping through straw.
This is a good one.
This is weird because you see it and think no, bollocks.
It's a plain piece of paper coming out of an envelope.
- Taking off a shirt? - No.
This is what they genuinely used at Elstree.
The electric doors in Star Wars! Paper being taken out of an envelope.
As simple as that.
You watch Star Wars now and you think, oh yes, so it is.
We thank our sound expert and apologise if she's in tears having been mocked by David.
I am perfectly willing to accept with the pictures there you buy the whole effect.
Speaking of ubiquitous sounds, what's the good thing about an English accent in Hollywood? - You are always a villain.
- That's basically it.
Or you're gay.
Often a gay villain! Or people think you are Australian so you get bar work! A high-octane version of the English villain, is to get an English villain to play a German villain.
As in the Die Hard films.
Die Hard has some of my favourite dialogue of our great friend, Alan Rickman.
When he says, after he's shot the man in the head, "Mr Takagi, I will count to three, there will not be a four.
" And then he goes downstairs and says, "Mr Takagi won't be joining us for the rest of his life.
" LAUGHTER That was brilliant.
But he does this thing where he's able to talk without actually letting his lips touch his teeth.
Now I'm going to give you a few English actors, I want you to tell me the villains they have played in Hollywood movies.
Peter Cushing.
- # Show business # I don't know.
- Well, don't buzz! Let other people have a chance.
Yes? Dracula.
No, I don't think he ever played Dracula.
Not in a Hollywood movie, certainly.
- Is it Tarkin? - Very good.
The Grand Moff Tarkin.
Steven Berkoff? - Beverly Hills Cop.
- Very good.
And Rambo, in fact, if you remember.
Christopher Lee? - Hollywood movies.
- Scaramanga, The Man With The Golden Gun.
He did.
That's kind of made in Britain too, but actually He was a bad wizard in the Hobbit films.
- He was an awfully naughty wizard! - A turncoat wizard.
He was very angry not to be cast in the third one.
Furious.
He hardly catches a break.
He was also in Star Wars, apparently.
Was Christopher Plummer British? Canadian, actually.
I had a friend who worked with Christopher Plummer in a film and he arrived at the airport.
The runner was there to say, "Go straight to the bar of the hotel.
"Chris will be there, don't mention The Sound Of Music.
" "OK, OK, OK.
" So he stays around, into the bar, Christopher Plummer comes in and half an hour later he was playing Edelweiss on the piano.
Weird.
What did he see in the Baroness in the first place, she was vile! LAUGHTER She was a bit stiff and grumpy and not very good with children.
Do think it would have been better if they'd made the Baroness obviously wonderful and gorgeous? Why's he shagging the staff?! She could have been Mary Poppins and then they could have had a Maria/Mary face-off.
Like Alien Versus Predator.
"I can get hat stands out of carpetbags!" "I can make a whole outfit out of curtains in two hours for six people.
" "And snap my fingers and make drawers open and close.
" "I can defeat the Nazis.
" That's my trump card played.
The thing that's never mentioned in that film is that he's an old naval captain, presumably from the Austro-Hungarian navy, now living in a country with no coastline.
He'd be quite pissed off turning up for work, first day.
Rowing round the lake! Just signed the Treaty Of Versailles, very exciting, what next? Anyway, the point is if you are an English actor, there is a good living to be made being beaten up by American action stars.
How did the ancient Greeks cover up the naughty bits on their statues? They didn't, did they? That's the point, they didn't.
Then the Victorians chipped them all off.
Earlier than the Victorians.
In the - Chipped them off? - Chipped the willies off.
I collect Greek willies! In some antique shop somewhere, there will be a huge barrel of Greek willies.
Help yourself, I'm giving them free! Spent £40, you get a willy! It's 3,000 years old.
There is a room in the Vatican which contains the chipped off bits.
There is a proud Greek statue.
Is he about to bash himself on the cock?! ARGH! Make yourself attractive, it shows you are really ready.
It was about 1860 they started putting those curvy-looking cabbage leaves round them.
It was really the Reformation and Counter Reformation in Europe.
They had these people like Calvin and Savonarola who was a fierce proponent of all things pure.
Suddenly, having been a wild place, everything became incredibly It was like 1950s America.
Anyway, the ancient Greeks went commando.
It was only in the later Middle Ages and Victorian times that fig leaves were placed on statues.
What's so upsetting about this film? DRAMATIC MUSIC Do you know what's going on here? There are beetles.
Is it a disease? It's not a disease.
It was 1903 and it was a very popular science-ish film, but it outraged the cheese producers of the world.
It's bacillus in cheese.
It's cheese mites.
It is little creatures that exist in cheese.
So that's what cinema was like in 1903? Five hours of footage of cheese mites.
- Sounds pretty good.
- Amongst other things.
I don't know what it did to the sales of cheese.
Possibly it wouldn't have helped them.
But it increased the sales of cheap microscopes.
People became fascinated about the little things that go on.
They could see their own little swimmingthings I remember a documentary that your father Eric Thompson narrated - called something like The Life That Lives In Man.
- Yes.
It was all about the tiny creatures that live like billions and billions of things in our beds all the time even if you do turn your mattress every month.
I don't think turning a mattress is going to kill the things ALL TALK AT ONCE The Titanic of the insect world is coming.
And in your eyelashes We all have little creatures living in our eyelashes.
There's one of those adverts that says there are more germs on your chopping board than on your loo seat.
To which the answer is, clearly that's fine then.
We are not all dying or having diarrhoea We are starting to die because we're cleaning them up too much.
They are saying in the advert the very thing we are selling you is unnecessary.
Exactly! Exactly - That's exactly - Exactly right, cos it's fine.
The fact is there was a big excitement about this, except from cheese producers who tried to suppress the film because it showed that in cheese, which is an organic thing, it contains these special mites which live there and do you no harm at all.
Cheese is a good thing.
Who remembers Charlton Heston? How was Michelangelo lying when he painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel? - INDIANA JONES THEME - Yes? Didn't he not do it? He didn't do it.
He lied about it.
That is the sense of lying we wanted.
He didn't lie down to do it, as he did in the Charlton Heston movie The Agony And The Ecstasy.
Did he jump up and do a bit at a time? Yeah, he stood on the scaffolding and did it that way and cricked his neck.
Vasari writes about it in his biography.
There is apparently some extraordinary little secret joke that Michelangelo painted in the fabric behind God.
There is God with a bit of sort of swaggy stuff behind him.
That swaggy stuff, according to at least four professors, who are neuroscientists, neurosurgeons from four universities They are absolutely convinced that that particular shape, do you know what it might be? Female part? No, it's not a female part.
For once in QI's life we're not in the downstairs lady area.
- Is it a brain? - Brain! It's the transfer section of the sagittal area of the brain.
What it argues is that he was present at some dissections that were very popular, but completely illegal in Italy at this time.
And the suggestion is that his idea of God, one of God's greatest miracles was the human brain which he had seen sliced through and so he has got, literally, if you take away the brain from that superimposition Seems to be a bit of brain.
There's a museum in Oregon, which is dedicated to replications of the brain made of fabrics.
It's an odd kind of museum.
We can actually show you a perfect brain with brain stem - made by some American knitting person.
There you are.
- LAUGHTER - Yeah.
- Including brain stem, which is impressive.
Are you sure that's just not the most unsuccessful attempt at a cardigan ever? LAUGHTER - It's something of a disaster.
- "No, it's meant to.
It's a brain.
" - Some mad granny.
It actually, genuinely, has a po-faced warning on the website showing it, saying it's a perfect reproduction of the brain using applique, embroidery, knitting and crochet.
"While our artists make every effort to ensure accuracy "we can't accept responsibility for the consequences of using fabric brain art "as a guide for functional magnetic resonance imaging.
" LAUGHTER Or indeed, home-based surgery.
- Either you've got a tumour or they've dropped a stitch.
- LAUGHTER Michelangelo may have been lying about his illegal dissecting activities.
Why he'd risk painting a huge piece of incriminating evidence on the ceiling of the Pope's chapel is anybody's guess.
Which brings us blinking out of the darkened theatre and into the blinding light of General Ignorance.
Fingers on buzzers, please.
What happens to a hedgehog if you remove its fleas? - SHOWBIZ FANFARE - David? - It dies.
KLAXON BLARES David! Davidy-wavedy-woo! No, there is a myth to this effect, but it's not true at all.
It's perfectly possible if you covered it with anti-dog flea powder it would die from the powder, but not from the lack of fleas.
They're very happy with their fleas.
It doesn't kill them, with or without.
What mustn't you feed hedgehogs? - Bread and milk.
- Exactly.
People do it and it gives them diarrhoea and they dry out.
You shouldn't really feed bread and milk to any mammal, including humans.
- There is a Radio 4 show - Oh, come off it! - You shouldn't feed humans bread and milk.
- Not really.
- What do you mean, "not really?" It's absolutely, demonstrably fine.
- No, it's not very good for you.
- It's fine! We've been drinking milk and eating bread for ages, why is it suddenly a massive problem? "We're actually supposed to live till we're 250 "but we've been eating all this poisonous bread and milk all the time and can barely limp past 98.
" LAUGHTER It's just ridiculous! Of course we're supposed to eat bread and milk.
Not just bread and milk.
Poor Alan, don't bully him.
Poor Alan.
- You shake hands and be friends.
- Sorry, Alan.
- Despite what you may have heard on Radio 4's programme - Oh, yes! - .
.
presented by David Mitchell.
What's your programme called? - The Unbelievable Truth.
- One of the unbelievable truths turns out to, unbelievably, to be not true.
- You claimed People give you this and you read it out.
- Brilliant! - I've no idea what you mean.
LAUGHTER Anyway, we are very happy to put you right on your otherwise excellent programme.
Hedgehogs don't mind if they have fleas or not, although they wouldn't be happy if you poisoned them with flea powder.
Shakespeare mentions football twice.
- How often does he mention the cricket? - He doesn't mention cricket cos it didn't exist then.
KLAXON BLARES Oh - Cricket certainly existed in the - In 1550, there's a mention of cricket and that's before - Are you sure that's not the small insect? Three times he mentions the insect, you're right.
But not the game.
He never mentions the game, to be honest.
To be honest, that "Never" I said was right LAUGHTER You asserted on the 26th May, Mr Mitchell that the game of cricket didn't exist in Shakespeare's time.
It did - although he doesn't mention it.
- So is this whole round? LAUGHTER Cos radio shows don't have the same budget, you know.
If you want to kill off the medium then that's fine, but it brings a lot of people a lot of pleasure.
Shakespeare mentions the cricket three times though he was, of course, referring to the insect.
But the game did exist in his day despite what you may have heard on The Unbelievable Truth, - the EXCELLENT Radio 4 programme - It is excellent.
.
.
which I'd urge you to listen to.
What hair do head lice prefer? - INDIANA JONES THEME > - Yes? Clean hair.
- Clean hair.
- You say "clean hair"? - KLAXON BLARES No, you see, people thought it was dirty hair.
This was repudiated and replaced by another fallacy that it was clean hair.
Any hair will do to a louse, they don't mind.
As long as there's an adequate blood supply there's no preference for clean or dirty.
- The hair of a living person.
- You have to be alive and have hair.
- Eurgh.
- What are nits? - I thought they were the same thing, a slang term for them.
No, nits are the egg cases and they stay on and you can't get rid of them.
They stay on sometimes for weeks after the actual louse has escaped.
Now, how does a flu jab work? It gives youa minor version of the illness.
- KLAXON BLARES - Ooh, no! That's the point.
It doesn't give you a mild case of flu.
Oddly enough it's not that kind of a vaccine.
Most people think it is and they often think they've been given flu by the jab because it might happen that they get the jab around the time flu's arriving in the country, and it's perfectly possible to get real flu and you assume it's the jab that's given it to you.
It's an inert, inactive virus - so you have no flu.
It doesn't give you flu.
- But even though it's inert, - your body's - It's still enough to get your antibodies prepared for it but only for that particular strain.
Now, the time has come to tot up the box office takings for this evening and see Oh, my word, it's absolutely fascinating! This week's blockbuster, this week's winner, ladies and gentlemen, with +4 points is Alan Davies! CHEERING AND APPLAUSE How about that? Oh! Can you believe it? In second place, a modest success on the art-house circuit, John Sessions with 1! APPLAUSE Garnering a few points at a festival you've never heard of, but a creditable first appearance, -10, - Emma Thompson! - -10?! APPLAUSE And, erI'm afraid going straight to video with -15, David Mitchell! APPLAUSE AND CHEERING And so it's goodnight from Emma, John, David, Alan and me.
And huge thanks to our mothers and agents and everybody who believed in us and made it possible.
You're all wonderful.
You're all family.
And I leave you with this account of a successful family publicity stunt.
The great American showman, PT Barnum, created an exhibit entitled The Happy Family - which consisted of a cage containing a lion, a tiger, a panther and a baby lamb - which was extremely successful.
And one day he was asked about his plans for The Happy Family which had toured everywhere.
"The display will become a permanent feature," he said, "if the supply of lambs holds out.
" Goodnight.
APPLAUSE
Parading their false modesty down the red carpet tonight are the very famous David Mitchell.
APPLAUSE The fantastically glamorous John Sessions.
APPLAUSE And, hell's teeth! It's only Emma Thompson! APPLAUSE And who is that bloke getting out of the car behind her? No, not him, the one behind him.
You know, the curly hair? The one off the telly.
Who is he? ALL: It's Alan Davies! So it is! APPLAUSE And tonight Tonight our buzzers have come over all cinematic.
David goes SHOWBIZ FANFARE Emma goes INDIANA JONES THEME MUSIC John goes There is no business like show business Like no business I know And Alan goes Th-th-th-that's all, folks! And so it's lights, camera and action as we roll out the first question.
Now, you're all very good at what you do, but what is this picture trying to tell you? Show business! Oh! Johnny got there first.
Yes? It is a painting by Man Ray of Ingres and it is known as the Violin d'Ingres, because it's a kind of a pun.
But a Violin d'Ingres is actually more than a hobby, because the famous French painter Ingres was a brilliant violinist, so it is like a very, very hotly pursued hobby, a Violin d'Ingres.
Well, what you've done is saved us a lot of time by being completely, 100% right in every particular! That's very good! Yeah.
It's a photograph.
Of course, it's a photograph of a real model, Kiki of Montparnasse, who was a favourite model of a lot of the Surrealist artists.
And this is a painting by Ingres, the neo-classicist French painter who died in - 1864, I think.
- Are you going to be like this all the way through? This is a complicated point we have to get across.
The French have a phrase, which is Ingres's violin, which means somebody who does something they are not famous for, but does it almost as well, i.
e.
they have a whole other side, a whole other string to their bow.
And in the case of Ingres, it was that he was a talented violinist, as well as a great painter.
And so, to a question about a man who definitely, definitely has one more string to his bow.
How would you like to have Cedric Gibbons nude on your mantelpiece? - It's not Stanley Gibbons the philatelist? - No! He's a Hollywood figure, remarkable Hollywood figure, Cedric Gibbons.
He was the premier art director/production designer of Hollywood, for MGM.
And in 1928 he was asked to design something.
What might that have been? - Gone With The Wind? - No.
- The Oscar? Thank you! The Oscar! And not only did he design it, he won 11 of them.
He was nominated for 36 and won 11.
Almost all Oscars, as you know, were won by Walt Disney who won how many? - 109.
- 26! And Cedric Gibbons won 11, and all the rest went to Emma Thompson.
Oh, look! There she is! - A lovely winning smile.
- Do you remember which one that was? That's Sense And Sensibility.
- Or Howard's End? - Howard's Way.
- I nearly said Howard's Way! That interesting boat script I wrote! But you were nominated for three others.
- Yes.
- Do you remember what they were? - Umm - Remains Of The Day.
Remains Of The Day.
In The Name Of The Father.
Best Supporting Actress.
- And you were also nominated for Sense And Sensibility.
- Oh, yes! - OK, I had forgotten that.
- I can remember all the GCSEs I did.
I would definitely remember every Oscar nomination! I think when the rest of my brain had melted and I had to be fed through a tube, those five names of films would still come out.
The best film one year was Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs.
- Do you know what They altered the Oscar to some extent.
- They made him a midget? They made him one big one and seven little ones.
It must have been a grim year because that is a boring cartoon.
I made an Oscar.
I actually made a genuine Oscar.
I went to the factory in Chicago where they were made.
Is it a mould, like a jelly mould? There is a mould, but it is pure metal.
Britannium.
- Or do you have to hue it over weeks? - You give it a damn good buffing.
If you have to hue it, and I'm not being rude, but if I was winning an Oscar this year, I'd say, can I have one of the ones made by the professionals rather than the one Stephen Fry ballsed up! - I was well supervised.
To be honest, I did a bit of buffing.
- On the bum area, I bet! And then dipping You bad You very bad man.
A good buttock flossing! And then dipping him in nickel and then in that gold.
- So, you didn't really make one.
- No, I didn't make him.
- It's like the Queen pulling a pint.
Basically, that's more or less what it was like.
- So, who was the Best Actor in your year you were Best Actress? - Al Pacino.
And your other Oscar, of course, was for Best Adapted Screenplay.
- Yes.
- For Sense And Sensibility.
I should have won that Oscar, as a matter of fact.
- Actually, yes, you should! - Yeah.
- You rescued it.
- Yeah.
Yes.
I had one of those steam powered computers and the screen had done something to the script.
It had transmogrified into hieroglyphs, into just.
Not words, not anything that I could recognise, just funny shapes.
I got the computer bloke round and he couldn't work it out.
So, finally, I took the computer out of the wall, still in my dressing gown, got in a taxi, went with the computer round to Stephen's house, set it down and said, "Please! Find my script!" And I did it like that, because I'm an actress.
If I'm upset, I make sure people know it! - And he said, OK, but it took him seven hours! - Hmm, I did that.
APPLAUSE - Advantages of being a nerd.
- Probably what really happened was he couldn't do it, and he thought, "Oh, I can't let on.
" - "I'll quickly write one!" - "I'll just write it.
"It will be much quicker if I just adapt the novel.
" And I looked at it and I'd forgotten, obviously, because my brain doesn't hold any information for any length of time at all.
Just looked at it and thought, that's my script and I handed it in.
I'll send the Oscar round tomorrow.
Now, time to test your hearing.
What is this a representation of? DRIPPING AND SQUELCHING THWUMP! It's Roy Chubby Brown eating a hobnob.
It's Gladstone being Eating an ice cream and then being beamed up by the Martians.
- It's giving birth.
- Yes! Brilliant! Brilliant! That's exactly what it is.
It is a lamb being born.
God! In fact, this is a sound effect.
We can actually see the sound being made.
DRIPPING AND SQUELCHING THWUMP! Has he listened to lambs being born and then done that, or has he said, "No-one knows what a lamb being born sounds like, I'll do any old crap.
- "I'll drop a towel!" - She is oddly named Lizzie Calf, oddly enough! And she used to do the sound effects for the Archers, amongst other things.
She's now our sound wizard, but there is a name to this science of sound effects, as used in movies.
What sound recordists need is clean dialogue and all the sound effects, footsteps and other noises, guns being cocked and the rustle of clothing, the lighting of a cigarette, almost all that is done afterwards, by someone called a foley artist.
And here is an example of some of the early foley artists making their noises.
All kinds of different things are used.
If you close your eyes, let the audience see how it is being made, you see if Ah! Ah! Alan! When I say close your eyes.
When I open them, you won't all have gone, will you? You close your eyes, we'll let the audience and everyone at home see some more sounds being made.
See if you can see what these are.
SCRAPE! THUD! CLUNK! - So, what was that? - A guillotine! A guillotine, all right.
Very good.
How was it made? With a guillotine and a person! - And a bucket.
- No, they wanted the sound of cabbages being chopped up, and so they had to kill a guy.
Oh! Very good! It was indeed.
I had my eyes shut long after the sound had finished.
- I am so obedient.
- It was indeed a cabbage.
You slide a knife along a scaffolding pole and then chop a cabbage and drop it into the bucket.
It's pretty good.
We've got another one.
Close your eyes.
CLIP, CLOP, CLIP, CLOP - What was that? - Somebody pretending to be a horse! That sounds exactly like some coconut shells.
Oh! You're so cynical! That's a two-legged horse wearing some awkward shoes.
EMMA: It's a horse clapping.
- Don't you think it sounds like a horse? - EMMA: It does! You've seen it many times in films without knowing it was coconut.
If you see the visual thing, then it works.
Close your eyes.
What you think this sound is? - CRACKLING - It's fire.
- Exactly.
They use this for fire ripping through straw.
This is a good one.
This is weird because you see it and think no, bollocks.
It's a plain piece of paper coming out of an envelope.
- Taking off a shirt? - No.
This is what they genuinely used at Elstree.
The electric doors in Star Wars! Paper being taken out of an envelope.
As simple as that.
You watch Star Wars now and you think, oh yes, so it is.
We thank our sound expert and apologise if she's in tears having been mocked by David.
I am perfectly willing to accept with the pictures there you buy the whole effect.
Speaking of ubiquitous sounds, what's the good thing about an English accent in Hollywood? - You are always a villain.
- That's basically it.
Or you're gay.
Often a gay villain! Or people think you are Australian so you get bar work! A high-octane version of the English villain, is to get an English villain to play a German villain.
As in the Die Hard films.
Die Hard has some of my favourite dialogue of our great friend, Alan Rickman.
When he says, after he's shot the man in the head, "Mr Takagi, I will count to three, there will not be a four.
" And then he goes downstairs and says, "Mr Takagi won't be joining us for the rest of his life.
" LAUGHTER That was brilliant.
But he does this thing where he's able to talk without actually letting his lips touch his teeth.
Now I'm going to give you a few English actors, I want you to tell me the villains they have played in Hollywood movies.
Peter Cushing.
- # Show business # I don't know.
- Well, don't buzz! Let other people have a chance.
Yes? Dracula.
No, I don't think he ever played Dracula.
Not in a Hollywood movie, certainly.
- Is it Tarkin? - Very good.
The Grand Moff Tarkin.
Steven Berkoff? - Beverly Hills Cop.
- Very good.
And Rambo, in fact, if you remember.
Christopher Lee? - Hollywood movies.
- Scaramanga, The Man With The Golden Gun.
He did.
That's kind of made in Britain too, but actually He was a bad wizard in the Hobbit films.
- He was an awfully naughty wizard! - A turncoat wizard.
He was very angry not to be cast in the third one.
Furious.
He hardly catches a break.
He was also in Star Wars, apparently.
Was Christopher Plummer British? Canadian, actually.
I had a friend who worked with Christopher Plummer in a film and he arrived at the airport.
The runner was there to say, "Go straight to the bar of the hotel.
"Chris will be there, don't mention The Sound Of Music.
" "OK, OK, OK.
" So he stays around, into the bar, Christopher Plummer comes in and half an hour later he was playing Edelweiss on the piano.
Weird.
What did he see in the Baroness in the first place, she was vile! LAUGHTER She was a bit stiff and grumpy and not very good with children.
Do think it would have been better if they'd made the Baroness obviously wonderful and gorgeous? Why's he shagging the staff?! She could have been Mary Poppins and then they could have had a Maria/Mary face-off.
Like Alien Versus Predator.
"I can get hat stands out of carpetbags!" "I can make a whole outfit out of curtains in two hours for six people.
" "And snap my fingers and make drawers open and close.
" "I can defeat the Nazis.
" That's my trump card played.
The thing that's never mentioned in that film is that he's an old naval captain, presumably from the Austro-Hungarian navy, now living in a country with no coastline.
He'd be quite pissed off turning up for work, first day.
Rowing round the lake! Just signed the Treaty Of Versailles, very exciting, what next? Anyway, the point is if you are an English actor, there is a good living to be made being beaten up by American action stars.
How did the ancient Greeks cover up the naughty bits on their statues? They didn't, did they? That's the point, they didn't.
Then the Victorians chipped them all off.
Earlier than the Victorians.
In the - Chipped them off? - Chipped the willies off.
I collect Greek willies! In some antique shop somewhere, there will be a huge barrel of Greek willies.
Help yourself, I'm giving them free! Spent £40, you get a willy! It's 3,000 years old.
There is a room in the Vatican which contains the chipped off bits.
There is a proud Greek statue.
Is he about to bash himself on the cock?! ARGH! Make yourself attractive, it shows you are really ready.
It was about 1860 they started putting those curvy-looking cabbage leaves round them.
It was really the Reformation and Counter Reformation in Europe.
They had these people like Calvin and Savonarola who was a fierce proponent of all things pure.
Suddenly, having been a wild place, everything became incredibly It was like 1950s America.
Anyway, the ancient Greeks went commando.
It was only in the later Middle Ages and Victorian times that fig leaves were placed on statues.
What's so upsetting about this film? DRAMATIC MUSIC Do you know what's going on here? There are beetles.
Is it a disease? It's not a disease.
It was 1903 and it was a very popular science-ish film, but it outraged the cheese producers of the world.
It's bacillus in cheese.
It's cheese mites.
It is little creatures that exist in cheese.
So that's what cinema was like in 1903? Five hours of footage of cheese mites.
- Sounds pretty good.
- Amongst other things.
I don't know what it did to the sales of cheese.
Possibly it wouldn't have helped them.
But it increased the sales of cheap microscopes.
People became fascinated about the little things that go on.
They could see their own little swimmingthings I remember a documentary that your father Eric Thompson narrated - called something like The Life That Lives In Man.
- Yes.
It was all about the tiny creatures that live like billions and billions of things in our beds all the time even if you do turn your mattress every month.
I don't think turning a mattress is going to kill the things ALL TALK AT ONCE The Titanic of the insect world is coming.
And in your eyelashes We all have little creatures living in our eyelashes.
There's one of those adverts that says there are more germs on your chopping board than on your loo seat.
To which the answer is, clearly that's fine then.
We are not all dying or having diarrhoea We are starting to die because we're cleaning them up too much.
They are saying in the advert the very thing we are selling you is unnecessary.
Exactly! Exactly - That's exactly - Exactly right, cos it's fine.
The fact is there was a big excitement about this, except from cheese producers who tried to suppress the film because it showed that in cheese, which is an organic thing, it contains these special mites which live there and do you no harm at all.
Cheese is a good thing.
Who remembers Charlton Heston? How was Michelangelo lying when he painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel? - INDIANA JONES THEME - Yes? Didn't he not do it? He didn't do it.
He lied about it.
That is the sense of lying we wanted.
He didn't lie down to do it, as he did in the Charlton Heston movie The Agony And The Ecstasy.
Did he jump up and do a bit at a time? Yeah, he stood on the scaffolding and did it that way and cricked his neck.
Vasari writes about it in his biography.
There is apparently some extraordinary little secret joke that Michelangelo painted in the fabric behind God.
There is God with a bit of sort of swaggy stuff behind him.
That swaggy stuff, according to at least four professors, who are neuroscientists, neurosurgeons from four universities They are absolutely convinced that that particular shape, do you know what it might be? Female part? No, it's not a female part.
For once in QI's life we're not in the downstairs lady area.
- Is it a brain? - Brain! It's the transfer section of the sagittal area of the brain.
What it argues is that he was present at some dissections that were very popular, but completely illegal in Italy at this time.
And the suggestion is that his idea of God, one of God's greatest miracles was the human brain which he had seen sliced through and so he has got, literally, if you take away the brain from that superimposition Seems to be a bit of brain.
There's a museum in Oregon, which is dedicated to replications of the brain made of fabrics.
It's an odd kind of museum.
We can actually show you a perfect brain with brain stem - made by some American knitting person.
There you are.
- LAUGHTER - Yeah.
- Including brain stem, which is impressive.
Are you sure that's just not the most unsuccessful attempt at a cardigan ever? LAUGHTER - It's something of a disaster.
- "No, it's meant to.
It's a brain.
" - Some mad granny.
It actually, genuinely, has a po-faced warning on the website showing it, saying it's a perfect reproduction of the brain using applique, embroidery, knitting and crochet.
"While our artists make every effort to ensure accuracy "we can't accept responsibility for the consequences of using fabric brain art "as a guide for functional magnetic resonance imaging.
" LAUGHTER Or indeed, home-based surgery.
- Either you've got a tumour or they've dropped a stitch.
- LAUGHTER Michelangelo may have been lying about his illegal dissecting activities.
Why he'd risk painting a huge piece of incriminating evidence on the ceiling of the Pope's chapel is anybody's guess.
Which brings us blinking out of the darkened theatre and into the blinding light of General Ignorance.
Fingers on buzzers, please.
What happens to a hedgehog if you remove its fleas? - SHOWBIZ FANFARE - David? - It dies.
KLAXON BLARES David! Davidy-wavedy-woo! No, there is a myth to this effect, but it's not true at all.
It's perfectly possible if you covered it with anti-dog flea powder it would die from the powder, but not from the lack of fleas.
They're very happy with their fleas.
It doesn't kill them, with or without.
What mustn't you feed hedgehogs? - Bread and milk.
- Exactly.
People do it and it gives them diarrhoea and they dry out.
You shouldn't really feed bread and milk to any mammal, including humans.
- There is a Radio 4 show - Oh, come off it! - You shouldn't feed humans bread and milk.
- Not really.
- What do you mean, "not really?" It's absolutely, demonstrably fine.
- No, it's not very good for you.
- It's fine! We've been drinking milk and eating bread for ages, why is it suddenly a massive problem? "We're actually supposed to live till we're 250 "but we've been eating all this poisonous bread and milk all the time and can barely limp past 98.
" LAUGHTER It's just ridiculous! Of course we're supposed to eat bread and milk.
Not just bread and milk.
Poor Alan, don't bully him.
Poor Alan.
- You shake hands and be friends.
- Sorry, Alan.
- Despite what you may have heard on Radio 4's programme - Oh, yes! - .
.
presented by David Mitchell.
What's your programme called? - The Unbelievable Truth.
- One of the unbelievable truths turns out to, unbelievably, to be not true.
- You claimed People give you this and you read it out.
- Brilliant! - I've no idea what you mean.
LAUGHTER Anyway, we are very happy to put you right on your otherwise excellent programme.
Hedgehogs don't mind if they have fleas or not, although they wouldn't be happy if you poisoned them with flea powder.
Shakespeare mentions football twice.
- How often does he mention the cricket? - He doesn't mention cricket cos it didn't exist then.
KLAXON BLARES Oh - Cricket certainly existed in the - In 1550, there's a mention of cricket and that's before - Are you sure that's not the small insect? Three times he mentions the insect, you're right.
But not the game.
He never mentions the game, to be honest.
To be honest, that "Never" I said was right LAUGHTER You asserted on the 26th May, Mr Mitchell that the game of cricket didn't exist in Shakespeare's time.
It did - although he doesn't mention it.
- So is this whole round? LAUGHTER Cos radio shows don't have the same budget, you know.
If you want to kill off the medium then that's fine, but it brings a lot of people a lot of pleasure.
Shakespeare mentions the cricket three times though he was, of course, referring to the insect.
But the game did exist in his day despite what you may have heard on The Unbelievable Truth, - the EXCELLENT Radio 4 programme - It is excellent.
.
.
which I'd urge you to listen to.
What hair do head lice prefer? - INDIANA JONES THEME > - Yes? Clean hair.
- Clean hair.
- You say "clean hair"? - KLAXON BLARES No, you see, people thought it was dirty hair.
This was repudiated and replaced by another fallacy that it was clean hair.
Any hair will do to a louse, they don't mind.
As long as there's an adequate blood supply there's no preference for clean or dirty.
- The hair of a living person.
- You have to be alive and have hair.
- Eurgh.
- What are nits? - I thought they were the same thing, a slang term for them.
No, nits are the egg cases and they stay on and you can't get rid of them.
They stay on sometimes for weeks after the actual louse has escaped.
Now, how does a flu jab work? It gives youa minor version of the illness.
- KLAXON BLARES - Ooh, no! That's the point.
It doesn't give you a mild case of flu.
Oddly enough it's not that kind of a vaccine.
Most people think it is and they often think they've been given flu by the jab because it might happen that they get the jab around the time flu's arriving in the country, and it's perfectly possible to get real flu and you assume it's the jab that's given it to you.
It's an inert, inactive virus - so you have no flu.
It doesn't give you flu.
- But even though it's inert, - your body's - It's still enough to get your antibodies prepared for it but only for that particular strain.
Now, the time has come to tot up the box office takings for this evening and see Oh, my word, it's absolutely fascinating! This week's blockbuster, this week's winner, ladies and gentlemen, with +4 points is Alan Davies! CHEERING AND APPLAUSE How about that? Oh! Can you believe it? In second place, a modest success on the art-house circuit, John Sessions with 1! APPLAUSE Garnering a few points at a festival you've never heard of, but a creditable first appearance, -10, - Emma Thompson! - -10?! APPLAUSE And, erI'm afraid going straight to video with -15, David Mitchell! APPLAUSE AND CHEERING And so it's goodnight from Emma, John, David, Alan and me.
And huge thanks to our mothers and agents and everybody who believed in us and made it possible.
You're all wonderful.
You're all family.
And I leave you with this account of a successful family publicity stunt.
The great American showman, PT Barnum, created an exhibit entitled The Happy Family - which consisted of a cage containing a lion, a tiger, a panther and a baby lamb - which was extremely successful.
And one day he was asked about his plans for The Happy Family which had toured everywhere.
"The display will become a permanent feature," he said, "if the supply of lambs holds out.
" Goodnight.
APPLAUSE