Live at The Apollo (2004) s20e03 Episode Script

1
MUSIC: Are You Gonna Be My Girl
by Jet
Oh, yeah! ♪
Ladies and gentlemen, please
welcome your host for tonight,
Dara O Briain.
AUDIENCE CHEERS
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,
and welcome to Live at the Apollo!
My name is Dara O Briain.
It is a pleasure.
And I'd like to be back here doing
this. I love doing this.
I've had to pause, by the way,
doing things like comedy tours
because I'm, you know
Just got an acting job.
Pretty big acting job, so
AUDIENCE MEMBER WHOOPS
You're very kind.
I'm playing the lead role in the new
Gregg Wallace biopic.
It's been on the cards for a while,
but we had to postpone it just to
rewrite the ending
So
No, it is a delight to be back
doing this, because I'm on the tour
bringing you exciting news
of all over the place.
Firstly, Dublin, where I'm from
Anyone here ever been to Dublin?
But of course, I know you've
all been to Dublin, right?
There is a part of Dublin, by the
way, called Temple Bar, right?
They
WHOOPING
A lot of you are familiar with it.
Of course, you SHOULD be familiar
with it because we built it for you!
Honestly, it was very much built
with British tourists in mind.
It's like a big ball pit that we
drop you into,
and then we go off and have pints
somewhere else.
And every so often we come back
and go, "How are you doing?"
And you're always thrilled.
But this is a genuine
thing that I noticed
when I was in Dublin
earlier in the year.
An amazing thing, an amazing
business that I've not got into
for reasons that will become really
obvious, but it's incredible!
It's down a genuine
lane in Temple Bar,
right in the middle of
Dublin called Crane Lane,
and I've never been to
it, but you can see it
You can see, sideways down the lane,
a neon sign, a magical neon sign,
that has three wonderful words
buzzing away in neon every night.
It just says "Lap Dancing Casino."
And I've never gone in because
how can it REALLY live up to
what's happening in my imagination
Every time I see that sign?
Where men furtively walk in going,
"Yeah, hi there. I'd love
a lap dance, please."
And the guy goes, "Certainly, sir."
IMITATES CARDS BEING DEAL
"Huh?" "Sh."
"Duck, duck, duck, duck, duck
..Jake."
"What?" "Sometimes you win,
sir, and sometimes
"..so if you could just
sit there, please."
"Yeah. Are you in Dublin
for work, are you?"
Ah, Lord! I love doing this thing.
I love doing it.
But there is an element of
You're bobbing around, you know.
I'm not getting any
younger, you know.
Aching a bit here and there with it
all. I occasionally get back pain.
I'm a big guy. I'm a big guy.
You know me.
I'm a like I'm a big guy, but
I'm also a BIG guy, right?
I'm six-foot-four. And by the way,
long term
Interesting note, doctors have said
that actually, long-term,
the greater determinant of my
long-term health
will be my height rather than my
weight.
Because, of course,
I will die the death of a tall man
..which is, of course, to
be hit by a bus mirror.
I love that joke, right?
Because tall people really
get that joke, right?
Because we've all
had that moment and go,
"Jesus! Where did that come from?"
Right?
But short people "Whoosh!"
No. When you get older
When you get older, yeah,
your attitude changes.
For example, electric bikes.
I love electric bikes.
I use electric bikes all the time.
Like, when I was younger, I
wouldn't have used electric bikes
I was in my 20s
Oh, I'd be insulted by the thought
of using electric bikes, OK?
But now I think they're great.
And, in fact, studies have shown
that, if you use electric bikes,
you'll ride for longer and
you'll enjoy the ride more.
Sorry. Do I keep saying
"electric bikes?"
Viagra, actually.
If you're watching at home now,
rewind and rewatch the joke.
It is watertight. It is absolutely
No, but occasionally you get things
like little twinges in the back,
for example.
Hey, we all get these
little problems in the back.
I used to do a thing where
I'd go for a massage
every so often just to relax the back
and all that, like, whatever.
And I remember talking to a
friend of mine, also in his 50s.
He went, "Well, hang on,
have you actually
"Have you actually hurt your back?"
And I said, "Yeah, yeah,
no, it's quite bad."
He said, "What are you doing?
You going to a massage."
"Oh, yeah, yeah, I do. Yeah, yeah,
it's all right, you know."
He said "No, you don't. No, no.
"If you've genuinely hurt yourself,
don't go to
"You mean with the whale music
and the towels and the whole?"
"Yeah."
"No, no. You go to a physio.
"That's who you go to if you've
genuinely hurt your back."
Are there any physios in the room?
WHOOPING
A few of you. This is the difference
you should know, by the way.
People don't know the
distinction of these two things.
That is NOT the same situation.
I went to the physio instead
of going for a massage.
Holy shit! It is a different
situation entirely, right?
I was trained on, like,
"Oh, how would you How relaxing
would you like it to be?"
Not with a physio.
A physio couldn't
give a shite which
What oil you prefer.
Doesn't give a damn.
When the massage person goes,
"I'm just going to go down your arm.
"I'm just going to go down the other
arm."
No, not the physio.
The physio just goes,
"Walk to there. Yeah. Turn around.
Yeah. Walk back again.
"Yeah, I know what the problem is.
Lie down. Yeah.
"It's here. It's right here!"
And you're on this plank going,
"Jesus, could you at least do me
shoulders just to ease me in,
"for Christ's sake?"
But no. There's no easing in.
It's like, "Nah, this is what I do!
This is ALL I do.
"I do this for 20 minutes and then
you get up,
"you pay me £60, and you piss off."
And it's
And it is amazing! Oh, yeah.
No, once you've had that, you can't
go back to the fluffy towels
and the essential oils.
Once you've had the heroin,
you can't have the chamomile tea.
That's
That's an old saying
from the streets..
..of Hammersmith.
But, no, it's an amazing
And I feel bad about this because
now I never go and get a normal
"massage",
right? And now I feel bad about
that, like Whatever.
Because a massage, as we know,
massage is a wonderful thing.
It's very, very physical.
It helps people.
It's very, very comforting for
people.
But it's also really
unfortunate, massage,
and to anyone who works in massage
it's the only bit of
the health care industry,
of the whole health care world,
that has sort of been adopted
or stolen by sex workers
for some reason.
And that's really unfortunate
because that does, you know
People have made them Look,
I I am that soldier, right?
I was in Australia
and I twanged me back
and I walked around this
place in Adelaide going,
"Jeez, is there anyone here
that does massage?"
And a young woman in the
newsagent, my own age,
like, went, "Oh, yeah, there's
a massage place over there."
And I presumed this was
going to be legit.
She's in her 20s, I'm in
my 20s. That's grand.
She must be sending
me to somewhere good.
Went into the place, walked in,
there's a woman there,
and I said, "Hello. Do you do
massage?" She goes, "Absolutely."
And she shows me the board and
the prices are on the board.
She said, "It's $60 for a massage
"or $100 for fantasy."
I'm a young and innocent man abroad
for the first time and I'm going,
"I'm sorry, what is fantasy?"
Presuming she's going to go, "Well,
in fantasy, we dress up as orcs
"..and we stomp around
you reading out runes
"and incantations in an
ancient Elvish language
"and then we have a huge sword fight.
"And at the end, we take a 20-sided
dice and we roll the 20-sided dice.
"And if you score 18 or more,
"we wank you off."
But she did not say that.
And I said, "I'm sorry?
What is fantasy?
She says, "Well, in fantasy,
the masseuse takes off her top,"
and I instantly turned into every
innocent 1930s Irishman abroad.
And right in front of her,
I started going,
"Oh, Jesus! No! Stop!
No! Oh, Sacred Heart!"
"No, I can't be Argh, stop!"
And started backing out of the room.
"No! God, nono judging, no
judging!
"You do youyou do whatever you
have to do, right?
"But, oh, geez, what
would my mother say?
"Ah, God, she's not even dead!
Why am I looking to heaven?"
"Oh stop it, stop it, stop it!"
Like, whatever I was absolutely
not "Argh! No, no!"
..she said, "What's wrong?"
And I said, "I know" I said,
"Oh, no, no, I've misunderstood,
I've misunderstood."
I said, "No, no, no!
I've genuinely hurt my back
"and I genuinely need somebody to do
some work to help me, you know?"
Because I've hurt my back, right?
And God love her, this woman running
a rub and tug joint in Adelaide
genuinely looked at me and said,
"We can give it a go."
With a real Australian can-do spirit.
"No-one's ever asked for that before,
you pervert!"
God, massage is the only field
that you could mix up
with the sex industry.
You've never gone for
a dental appointment
..and a new dentist.
And then you walk in and the
woman at the desk is going,
"Oh, the 2.30? Yeah, absolutely.
You just wait in there."
And you sit, you know, on that,
like that vinyl, sloppy chair
with the weird shape and
you're just sitting there going,
"OK, I hope I can sort out me tooth,
me tooth really hurts
"and I hope you can do something
about me tooth, like, whatever."
And the dentist goes,
"OK. Yeah. Are you my 2.30?"
And I said, "Yeah, OK. Well,
we'll just get started."
And then the music starts
and he starts going
IMITATES SEXY MUSIC
"What?! Are you a sexy dentist?"
And the dentist goes, "Yes. Is this
not what you're looking for?"
"No! I've genuinely hurt my tooth."
"I can give it a go."
No. Hold on
Look, the one thing we should
And I feel pride in telling you
this as an older person to
a broadly younger audience.
You should know this, like, whatever.
People worry about their
health in many different ways.
One thing you should
know is none of us
reach the finishing line
of this race intact.
None of us, no matter
how healthy we are,
none of us are 100%
what was promised
by the time we finish our lives.
Bits have either fallen off,
been cut off, never arrived.
All of us have an inventory
of stuff that we SHOULD have,
but we don't have and
sometimes it's very simple.
Hair, there's a good
one to start with.
I, for example, only
have three wisdom teeth.
The first three came up normally
and the fourth one.
They all The first two had to be
removed when they came up
because they were causing all
sorts of misshaping of the teeth,
like, whatever. And the fourth one
clearly saw this happening and went,
"Oh, no, that's a bit of a bother."
And then just disappeared into my
body and never appeared again.
Much more dramatically, though,
right?
When I was 18, I went into hospital
for a procedure
called an orchidectomy.
Now So, many people will know that
an orchidectomy is a surgical
They'll open you up, basically,
to search and remove
an undescended testicle.
Because orchid, unbelievably
Orchid - makes no sense whatsoever -
is the medical word for testicle.
Orchid, testicles, there's
no reason. You can't
There must have been
some weird meeting of
the Royal Society of
Medicine back in the 1700s,
when they're naming
body parts, right?
And there's all these
gentleman doctors
with long beards
and frock coats going,
"Well, gentlemen,
we've done wonderful work today.
"We've named the medulla oblongata,
"the Glutaeus Maximus
and the clavicle.
"But now I'm afraid we must name
"a more delicate part of the body.
"A more private part of the body.
"A genital part of the body."
And all the 17th-century men go,
"Humm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-murmur."
And then at the back,
one voice goes
FAUX FRENCH ACCENT:
"Ah, perhaps I can 'elp."
And they turn around and go,
"Oh, Doctor Foufou Le Floof."
"Is there something you
wish to add at this stage?"
"I would merely say if we were
"to name zis most delicate
region of the body,
"we should name it after
ze thing it most resembles,
"which is, of course
HE SNIFFS
"..a flower."
"Because, like the flower,
this part of the body,
"at the start of the day,
its petals are closed.
"But slowly,
over the course of the day,
"its petals open,
"releasing its sweet
perfume into ze air,
"drawing you in until you bury your
face within the folds of the flower.
"And then you taste it
upon your tongue,
"the sweet nectar.
"If we are to name it
after the flower,
"we should name it after the most
beautiful flower of all,
"which is, of course, the orchid."
"Uh, OK. Well, uh, sure.
"Big hairy balls, orchid.
Let's go on."
"What?! I wasn't
talking about ze man.
"I was talking about the lady.
This is a terrible mistake."
"Oh! We've already pressed send."
So orchid stuck, right?
And I, at that age,
had to go into hospital to have a
conversation with a doctor about it.
And this is kind of a scary
thing to tell in front of a crowd,
but I tell it for a good reason,
because I'm going to repeat
a conversation here
that other men may have
to have in their lives,
often because of cancer,
but you should actually
know how this conversation goes.
I, a very scared 18-year-old stood
in front of this doctor and said,
"Jesus, if I'm missing
one of my testicles,
"how is it going to affect
major things in my life?"
He said, "What do you mean?"
I said, "Well, how is this going
to affect my sex drive?"
And he says, "It doesn't affect
your sex drive in any way,"
and it does not.
I said, "And how is it
going to affect my fertility?"
He said, "It doesn't affect
your fertility in any way,"
and it does not.
Draw your own conclusions from that.
But I said, "So, it doesn't
affect it in any way?"
He said, "No."
I said, "You mean you can lose 50%
of the system and it makes"
He said, "It makes no
difference whatsoever.
"There is a lot of redundancy
built into the human body.
"It makes no difference at all."
I said, "That's amazing.
"So having one testicle
is no different to having two?"
And I will always remember this.
The doctor looked at me and said,
"No," he said.
"Unlike people
who have two testicles,
"if you only have one testicle,
"you'll have no depth perception"
"..in your testicles.
"And when you jizz,
you'll have no idea
"if you've jizzed big and far away
"or small and relatively nearby."
Can I step out of the
show for a second and go,
that is totally my favourite joke
of my entire career, OK?
By no means the biggest
guaranteed laugh,
but the people who get it,
get it big, right?
And the people who don't - hello.
They're going like, "I didn't get
that joke at all."
Two eyes, one eye. Look it up.
Anyway, here's the actual punch line.
They opened me up. They looked
and they couldn't find anything.
So, for 35 years,
I've had a testicle and a tooth
wandering randomly through my body
..having God knows what adventures
they've been having over the years.
They've probably joined up and go
around solving crimes together.
"Oh, no. There's been
a murder in the spleen.
"We better call Bitey
and the Shudder.
"They'll know what to do."
Hey, boss.
Why do you call him the Shudder?
"Ah, give him a poke.
You'll find out soon enough."
Look, I'm going to leave you
with one very, very simple story,
which I quite like.
This is again, a totally true story.
Not long ago, I was sitting
at home with the kids, watching TV.
Watching TV, minding my own business,
when my wife called from the room,
the room with the dryer,
the washer, dryer,
tumble dryer, utility room,
whatever you want to call it, right?
There. And she stuck her head
in the door and said, "Dara,
"can you come in here, please?"
So I walked in and said,
"What? What is it?"
And she said, "Can you help
me fold these sheets?"
I said, "Are you out of your mind?"
"Folding sheets?
Are youare you crazy?"
"Are you gone in the head, woman?"
Like, whatever.
If you're going to ask me
to fold sheets,
you say, "Dara, can you come
in here and fold sheets?"
You do not go, "Dara, can
you come in here, please?"
Which is the international
code for grown-ups to say
"I found something terrible.
"We must discuss it away
from the children.
"Can you come in here, now,
"where we can have a proper
conversation about it?"
"Geez, I said, I shat myself on that
walk from the television to here
going, "What has she found?!"
"What has she?" When I walk in,
she'll be holding a bag of banknotes
that she discovered
behind some towels over there,
or she discovered a door to a cellar
she never knew that the house had.
I said, "At the very least,
"be holding my laptop
if you're going to say"
"..Dara, can you come
in here now, please?"
She said, "What about these sheets?"
"Uh, another time,"
I said, and walked away.
Anyway, so
You don't know
that you were part of a test there,
and you passed it more than
you could possibly imagine,
because one of the joys of
doing this job is
you find a cultural difference
that you never knew existed,
and then you uncover it in a gig
by total accident, right?
Know this.
I told that joke a million times,
both in the UK and Ireland.
Every single time I get
to that line in Ireland,
"Dara, can you come in
here now, please?",
an Irish audience erupts into,
"Oh! You're in trouble now!"
"What have you been up to?
Oh, you devil!" Right?
And every audience in Britain,
including tonight,
including 3,500 people tonight,
all went, "Oh, I wonder
what she needs him for."
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Every night.
Every night in Ireland,
the crowd are going,
"Ya hound! Ya filthy hound, ya devil!
"You've been up to no good.
Oh, you've been caught!
"You've been caught
and deservedly so,
"you mad monkey," right?
And every audience,
including that in Britain, goes,
"Oh, the rest of this anecdote must
take place in the other room."
So congratulations
for falling into my trap.
Anyway, we have a glorious
evening of comedy ahead of you.
Looking forward to seeing our acts,
ladies and gentlemen?
CHEERING
Ladies and gentlemen,
you're going to have a
whale of a time in his company.
Could you please lift the roof from
the Apollo for Jack Skipper?
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Apollo, how are we doing?
We all right?
CHEERING
Yeah. This is nice, innit?
Out enjoying a bit of comedy,
having a laugh?
You know, actually, I've noticed this
thing with comedy lately, though.
When people go see comedy
shows nowadays,
they don't just want to laugh,
do they?
They want to learn something,
you know?
They want to walk away going,
"Ooh"
"Ooh, he really made me think."
"I was rolling around
on the floor thinking."
But just to let you know, you're
going to learn fuck all from me.
Yeah, you're going to walk out
thicker than when you came in.
So I hope you enjoy my comedy,
but just to make you aware,
I am popular with thick people.
You might have that moment
of realisation when you walk out,
you know?
"I enjoyed that."
"Hmm."
I'll be honest, mate,
you look overqualified to be
in the audience.
You'll be all right.
Ah, but I do, I love comedy, man.
I love doing it.
I haven't always been a comedian,
though, no.
I used to be a carpet fitter.
CHEERING
Cheers.
I weren't just any old carpet
fitter, though. No, no, no.
According to my Checkatrade rating,
I was the 14th best carpet fitter
in the whole Croydon area.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Yeah!
He's star struck, look.
I've just noticed a few
people going like that -
"I told you it was him."
But it was. The very first job
I had when I left school,
the very first carpet
shop I went into,
the geezer gave me a job
because he saw something in me.
He did. He looked at me and went,
"You've got it.
"You've got it."
And all my fitters here,
they've all got it.
And do you know what they've got?
No qualifications.
Cos I ain't got. I've got none.
Got no GCSEs.
Like, I even failed the exams
I thought was gonna be easy,
you know?
Like, I failed RE.
Religious education, man.
I couldn't believe when I found out.
They was like, "You've failed RE."
I was like, "Oh, Jason Christ!"
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
HE SIGHS
I just found school pointless,
though, you know?
It was like pointless lessons
teaching me pointless skills
that I didn't need.
Like, I'd be doing gymnastics
and they'd have some
teacher telling me off,
shouting at me, going,
"Point your toes!"
I don't need to point my toes.
There's no job that requires me
to point my toes, you know?
It's not like I'm gonna be, like,
an estate agent or something.
As you can see, here's the kitchen.
Two bedrooms.
As I say, it's nice
to be out, isn't it?
Nice to be out enjoying a show,
having a few drinks.
I'm actually trying to cut back on
the drinking lately because
Basically, what it is,
I've got two small children, right?
And I'll tell you something about
these small children that I've got.
They've got absolutely
no respect for hangovers.
Little bastards.
If I've had a few beers
on a Friday night,
Saturday mornings,
they're getting me up early.
Like, proper early.
It's still dark.
We're still watching
sign language on the news.
You can't tell them off, can you?
So I just sort of get up
and do what I'm told.
But I just sit there
looking at them from
the other side of the room, thinking,
"Yeah, I'll get you back."
Yeah, because one day they'll grow up
and they'll start drinking.
And then I'm going to do back some of
the weird shit they've done to me
when I've been hungover.
I've got it all planned out, right?
What I'm gonna do, I'm gonna wait
until they've had a big night out,
then I'm going to storm
into my daughter's bedroom
at 6:00 in the morning
dressed as Elsa from Frozen.
And I'm going to demand
that we make jelly.
And then I'm going to go
into my son's room,
and I'm going to do roly-polies
on his bed bollock-naked.
Let's see how HE likes it.
Put my bum in HIS face.
Cos it's hard, modern parenting.
Like, I grew up in the '90s.
It was easier for my parents.
Like, with parenting nowadays,
there's rules.
I do my kids' packed lunches, right?
With packed lunches nowadays,
there's rules.
It's got to be healthy.
It's like no crisps,
no chocolate,
a certain amount of fruit and veg.
Like, when I look back,
you could have put ten
Benson in my lunchbox.
No one would give a shit.
When I look back on my diet
in the '90s,
it just feels like one
relentless montage of ham.
Shit, cheap ham.
Came in a wad.
You'd pierce the film
and that gas would come out.
They've farted in the ham!
So much of it, as well - every meal.
Ham sandwiches,
ham salad, ham, egg and chips.
Like, if my mum had a party,
she'd use the same shit ham,
but to make it look a
little bit more fancy,
she'd roll it up.
Like people should be impressed
that she spent all her
afternoons skinning up ham.
Just
Some of the shit she
used to feed us.
Like, she'd do this thing, right,
if we was going on holiday,
the week before the holiday,
she refused to buy any food.
So you have to start surviving off
stuff in the freezer.
And then she starts
concocting these mental dinners
like oven chips
and Yorkshire puddings.
That one fish finger that got loose
and stuck itself to
the back of the freezer.
Had to dig that off.
It's like, "Mum, can't we
just buy some food?"
"Shut up and eat your wedding cake!"
I'll tell you what, though, the '90s
feels like a long time ago now.
I'm feeling
I'm feeling a bit older.
I'll tell you what's making me
feel a bit older.
I don't understand
young people any more.
I don't understand
what they're saying.
They've got their own
little language, ain't they?
No matter where they're from.
They can have, like, a privileged,
middle-class upbringing,
but they all sort of talk like
they're gangsters
from the ghetto, innit?
AFFECTED ACCENT: "You don't
know what it's like for me
"growing up in a semidetached, man.
"Man's had to survive on
two holidays a year, you get me?"
I had one of them come up to me
outside a gig recently.
He was like, "Oh, you're
that comedian, innit?
"I've seen your stuff, man.
You are jokes.
"I'm not gonna lie."
I was like, "Where are you from,
mate?"
He went, "Windsor."
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
"I'm not gonna lie."
They love, "Not gonna lie",
don't they?
"Not gonna lie."
You know they've abbreviated it?
They put it in their text
messages now.
NGL - "Not gonna lie."
I didn't know that was for ages.
And I used to work
with this young fella,
And he'd text me things like,
"Yeah, I'll be honest.
"I'm not gonna make it
into work tomorrow, NGL."
And for ages, I was like
..does he think I'm called Nigel?!
But do you know what?
I don't think I'd want
to be young nowadays.
Young people nowadays,
they're boring, aren't they?
When I was about 16,
I was out making a nuisance
of myself, you know?
They're all in the gym now.
There was these 16-year-olds
in the gym the other day
discussing their diet.
When I was growing up, 16-year-old
lads weren't on diets, you know?
That was for my mum
and her friends.
They'd go Weight Watchers
and eat jacket potatoes.
That's all it was.
Tuna and sweetcorn jacket potato.
Cheese and beans jacket potato.
Ham jacket potato.
But there was this one young lad,
he was so boring, he was
talking about his breakfast.
He was going,
"Yeah, I had four eggs.
"I had four eggs for breakfast."
And I was thinking,
"Mate, sort it out."
Like, when I was 16,
if I had four eggs,
I'd throw them at a bus.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
But I do feel sorry for him
growing up in this world, though,
because it's a weird old world
out there at the moment, innit?
Like, like you get the impression
that everyone's struggling mentally,
but at the same time,
we've never lived
in a time of such privilege.
We've never had
so many services available to us
we don't even need.
I just think that
parallel is mad, isn't it?
Like, everyone's down,
depressed, anxious,
but at the same time,
if you wanted to, you COULD
get your anus bleached.
You know, so YOU might be
in a dark place
So, yeah, man, late 30s now,
and I'm trying
I am genuinely trying to
cut back on the drinking,
but it's not going well.
Because basically, what it is,
drinking is how I unwind.
And I haven't found anything
to replace it with.
That's the problem.
Like, I spoke to a mate about it.
I asked him how he unwinds,
because he doesn't drink,
and he said he has a bath.
I was like, "That's not
the same as drinking, is it?"
Like, you can't imagine
being at home,
the missus goes to bed early
and you're like
.."That's handy.
"I might have a couple of baths."
Or you can't imagine bumping
into an old friend, you know?
"Hello, mate!
"Yeah, give me a call sometime.
"We'll have a bath together."
But it's a shame, man, cos it's
my favourite hobby, drinking.
I used to love it. I used to
love a sesh all day, you know?
All day down the pub.
Then someone would have
an after party, you know?
They'd go, "Come back to mine.
My missus won't mind."
I'd go back there.
She WOULD mind.
But I wouldn't let it stop me, man.
I'd keep partying on through.
Keep going through till, like,
7:00 in the morning.
Wait for the off-licence to open.
Go back down there, crack on.
Wouldn't even question it.
Fast forward to your late 30s,
I was indoors the other evening,
about half eight,
and nowadays half eight is
too late for me to eat cheese.
I can't do late-night cheese
any more, man.
I had a bit cheese the other night.
Come out of my house the next day.
My neighbour saw me.
He went, "Cor, you look rough.
"Been on the packet?"
I was like,
"Yeah, mate. Cathedral City.
"You know what it's like
after a couple of baths.
"Thought I'd cool down.
"Woke up the next day,
I'd done three bottles of Radox,
"a couple of grams of Parmesan."
Right old session.
APPLAUSE
Apollo,
you've been absolutely wonderful!
Thank you very much.
Thank you. Thank you!
CHEERS AND APPLAUSE
Ladies and gentlemen, Jack Skipper!
Now, keep that applause going
as we bring on your second act.
Raise the roof for Felicity Ward,
ladies and gentlemen!
CHEERS AND APPLAUSE
Hi! Hi!
Oh, my God. Hello!
How are you? You good?
AUDIENCE CHEERS
Hello. My name is Felicity.
I'm very, very excited to be here.
I'm Australian, but I've lived over
here for a long time,
and I have just got my
British driver's licence.
CHEERS AND APPLAUSE
Thank you. And look, it's great.
I'm having a wonderful time.
But I just think, as a foreigner,
it would be very helpful,
when we pass our test,
if you just give us a couple
of tips that aren't on it,
but are absolutely imperative
to drive in the UK.
So, what I would have liked to have
happened is,
he would have given me my licence
and he would have said,
"Congratulations."
Well, he wouldn't. He's English.
So he would have said
SHE MUMBLES INDISTINCTLY
And then
..he would have said,
"Just before you get in the car,
do you know about indicators?"
And I would have said,
"Yes. You indicate left to go left,
indicate right to go right."
And he would say, "Do not use
them under any circumstances.
"They are considered a sign
of weakness in our culture."
And then he would say,
"Do you know about mini roundabouts?"
And I'd go, "Yes, same principle as
a regular roundabout, only smaller."
And he would say, "You know what?
"They're just some circles that we
painted on the ground in 1975.
"What I want you to do
"is approach it like a four-way
game of deathly chicken.
"I'm talking pedal to the floor,
close your eyes.
"Wrong side of the road,
doesn't matter.
"Whoever gets there first wins, and
whoever gets there seconddies.
"Now, do you know about
using high beams?
And I would say,
"Yes. When there's no oncoming
traffic, no on-street lighting."
And he would say, "Yes.
"And we have also created
our own Morse code system
"with which we use to
communicate to each other.
"So we flash once to say,
'Thank you',
"and we flash twice to say,
"'You come forward. I'll wait here.
The road is too narrow.'
"And we flash 800 times to say,
"'You are in the wrong lane
on the motorway, sir.'
"'Please kindly move
over to your left.'"
And finally he would say,
"Do you know
about British country roads?"
And I would say, "No. What are they?
"Three, four lanes wide?"
And he would say, "They are
the width of a Nissan Micra."
And I'd say, "Two-way?
My God, that sounds hectic."
"I'm assuming, then,
"the road is very long and straight
"so you can see what is coming."
And he would say,
"It is hairpin bend
after hairpin bend
"after hairpin bend.
"Potholes, no guttering,
no marking, no street lights,
"horses, tractors,
and it's all set in a hedge maze
"..so you can never prepare,
visually or audibly,
"for what is coming at you next."
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
And I would say, "My God,
that sounds treacherous.
"It must take so long
to get anywhere
"..because surely
"..under those conditions,
"I'm assuming the speed limit
"What is it? Ten, 15mph?"
And he'd laugh
in my dirty little face.
And I'd say, "Not 20mph?!"
And he'd say,
"60 British miles an hour!"
Unless, of course, you're local.
Then, by all means,
go as fast as you possibly can.
Tailgate, beep your horn,
flash your lights.
They should just have signs that say,
"Speed up or die, pussy!"
So it is always lovely
to arrive alive.
I might I might have ADHD.
I don't definitely know that.
I don't like to say
that I have anything
that I haven't
been formally diagnosed with.
But there has been some signs.
The first one was in 1999,
when I worked
for a retired nurse at a cafe,
and two weeks into
working there, she said,
"Felicity, can you have
some of my son's Ritalin?
"You definitely have ADHD."
And I thought, "You know what?
"Let's find this out for sure,
for real, if that's the case."
So I went straight to the GP
..24 years later and I got
a referral to get tested for ADHD.
And then I lost that referral.
And then I went back to
the doctor five years later
to get another referral
to get tested for ADHD.
And then I also lost that referral.
And I think that's the test.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
Now, you have
been absolutely delightful.
This has been a wonderful audience.
So I'd like to leave
you respectfully on
a seven-minute routine
on fingering. Now
So, here is the thing.
I'm doing this gig, right?
And in the front row is 20
18-year-old boys.
Yuck! Now
I'm joking. I love men
SHE CHUCKLES
..a little bit too much.
I'm a predator. I
I wasn't vaccinated as a child.
One of those things is true.
Anyway
I got whooping cough
when I was four.
Mum really showed the
government, didn't she?
Anywayit's not about her.
Isn't it?
Why else would I be doing
stand-up comedy? Anyway
I'm joking. It was Dad.
So, I'm doing this gig,
front row, 18-year-old boys, right?
And there's a boy over here.
He's got a pink shirt on,
and the host is making fun
of him in a very loving way.
Everyone's having a good time.
He introduces me,
I come out and I pretend
that I'm very faux-offended
on his behalf.
And I said, "Do you know what, mate?
"If you want to wear a pink shirt,
you wear a pink shirt.
"Toxic masculinity is bullshit.
"You probably drink rose
and finger women at the weekend
"as a feminist act."
Now, if I had my time again,
I would not say, "Fingering."
I would say, "Cunnilingus."
Because no woman
is choosing fingering
from a straight man.
LAUGHTER, SCATTERED APPLAUSE
And what you're hearing there
is a lot of women deeply
relating to what I'm saying.
And what you're not hearing
is the deafening silence
of all the straight men going,
"What?"
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
And these next six minutes
are for you.
So I said to him,
"You probably finger women
at the weekend as a feminist act."
Now, I say that and
the entire group turn
and look at another boy
in the group.
All of them. They look at him like
They're whispering,
they're elbowing each other,
they're pointing.
And I'm like,
"What's going on over here?"
And I said,
"What's your name, mate?"
And he said, "Fingering Pat."
Now
I said, "Pat, are you very
bad at fingering?"
And he said
.."If the rumours are true."
"If the rumours"!
Do you know how bad at fingering
you need to be at age 18
that not just the recipient knows,
but 19 of your closest friends?
And I said,
"Do you know what, mate?"
I'm not even
going to do jokes tonight.
I'm just going to give you tips.
He said, "Please."
He said, "Please"!
And so I am going to tell you
those tips tonight.
Hopefully they will
be of some use to you,
and you can take them home
with you.
So this is what I told him
and I'm going to tell you.
So, tip number one
Can you feel
the tension in the room, though?
Can you feel?
You just feel
all the straight dudes going,
"Please don't say my signature move."
"Please, please. She loves it."
She doesn't.
Number one
Number one -
going in and out as hard and
as fast as you can is enjoyable
..to no-one. To no-one.
To no-one. To no-one!
Why are you going back and
Why are you trying
to get to the back?
Why are you trying
to get to elbow?
Like, you don't
If you touch the back,
that's a cervix.
It's not for you. It's for
a doctor. Leave it alone.
Leave it alone, yeah?
Rule number two -
if you're a beginner,
if you're unsure,
spend more time on the outside
than you do on the inside, yeah?
Going inside is a
sometimes food, yeah?
I don't know if you've
ever seen a symphony before,
but what is it?
All the way through -
strings, isn't it?
String, strings, strings.
Every now and again
..timpani. Every now and again!
If you went to the orchestra
and it was just
# Timpani, timpani, timpani, timp!
# Timpani, timpani, timpani, timp!
# Timpani, timp, timpani, timp!
# Timpani, timpani, timpani, timp!
# Timpani, timpani, timpani, timp!
# Timp, timp, timp, timp
# Timpi, timpi, timpi, pani
# Pani, pani
Timpani, timpani, timpani, timp! ♪
You'd get up and you would leave,
and you would ask
for your money back.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
Rule number three - use your mouth.
Use your mouth!
The hand and the mouth,
they're a great team.
They look after each other
when they're tired.
They cover
for each other's mistakes.
The hand and the mouth is the
feel-good movie of the year.
It's Batman and Robin,
it's Bonnie and Clyde,
it's Wallace and Gromit.
And if you feel nervous about
going down on a woman,
just pop a mint, yeah?
You get fresh breath.
She gets an Arctic surprise.
Number four
All the dudes are like,
"What was number two again?!
"What was number two?!"
And all the queer women
are smoking a cigar.
They're like, "We could have
told you this a long time ago.
"But go on. As you were."
Rule number four - personal choice -
stop using your thumb.
You're mashing away down there.
It's got no nuance.
Doesn't know what it's doing.
It's out of control.
Do you know what a thumb's good for?
A lighter that you can't get going.
Don't stick that on the most
sensitive part of our entire body.
And while we're there,
don't do it on the back either.
It just doesn't
Just because it can go in,
doesn't mean it has to.
Do you know what fits perfectly
into an electrical socket?
A knife. But we don't
It's dangerous, isn't it?
We don't do that.
I will finish on this.
Number five. It's not even a joke.
It's just a
public service announcement.
There are two questions
that will drastically
improve your sex life
if you are not saying these
already. Two questions.
The first one is,
"Is there anything else
you would like me to do?"
That's all you have to ask.
"Is there anything else
you'd like me to"
There's an unsatisfied
woman clapping over there.
"Thank you!
"60 years we've been married!
"Not once!"
I swear to God,
if everyone was asking that
question every time we had sex,
within ten years, no war.
If you were sexually
satisfied, you'd go,
"You know what? I'll press
the nuclear button tomorrow.
"We're going to leave it today."
Now, the second question,
and this is the most important
question to ask any woman
over the age of 35.
Because we never got
asked this as a teenager.
And the question is,
"Are you enjoying this?"
"Are you enjoying this?"
We never got asked
that as a teenager,
because if we had been,
we would have unanimously said,
"Oh, no.
"Please stop or I will tell
19 of your closest friends."
I have been Felicity Ward,
you have been unbelievable.
Thank you so much.
Have a great night.
CHEERS AND APPLAUSE
Ladies and gentlemen,
Felicity Ward!
And that brings an end
to tonight's show.
Give it up to
both of the acts tonight.
Firstly, Jack Skipper!
CHEERS AND APPLAUSE
And then, wonderfully,
Felicity Ward!
CHEERS AND APPLAUSE
You've genuinely
been a delight of an audience.
It's been lovely to talk to you.
I'm Dara O Briain.
From Live At The Apollo, goodnight.
CHEERS AND APPLAUSE