Live at The Apollo (2004) s20e05 Episode Script

1
Ladies and gentlemen,
please welcome your host
for tonight, Ivo Graham.
APPLAUSE
Good evening, Live at the Apollo.
How are we doing?
CHEERING
Give me a cheer if you like
the colour orange.
CHEERING
Thank you for saying yes to that.
I love the colour orange.
A few months ago, my daughter,
who is six,
asked me if I had a favourite colour
and I said that I didn't.
And my daughter,
who is six, said, "That's a pity."
I didn't like her saying that.
I don't want to be too much
of a toxic man about it,
but I don't want my six-year-old
daughter to pity me.
I said, "Don't pity me, darling."
And that's actually one of the most
pitiful things
you can be overheard saying
to your child at a playground.
So I thought about it. I decided my
favourite colour is orange
for lots of reasons, which I'm going
to explain to you.
And I've committed to the bit.
I've got an orange suit
and I've dyed my hair orange,
and I've committed to the bit
so hard
that my daughter now pities me
for a completely different reason.
I thought, as well as talking about
some of my favourite orange things,
I'd ask you about a few of yours.
We could have a few votes
to get things going in the room.
So first up, it's the big one -
carrots versus baked beans.
What a night you've come out for.
We're going to do this
via simple cheers.
Give me a cheer if you prefer
carrots to baked beans.
CHEERING
Give me a cheer if you prefer baked
beans to carrots.
LOUDER CHEERING
Pleased to hear it.
I've got beans on my socks.
Next up, bit harder.
Chicken tikka masala
against Aperol spritz.
Ooh! Give me a cheer,
chicken tikka masala.
CHEERING
Give me a cheer, Aperol spritz.
HIGHER-PITCHED CHEERING
It felt like quite gendered votes,
to be honest.
A couple more.
Let's get out of the food realm.
How about Garfield against
Fantastic Mr Fox?
It's not easy. We love them both,
but you can only pick one.
Garfield.
CHEERING
Fantastic Mr Fox.
LOUDER CHEERING
Sainsbury's v easyJet.
They're flawed,
but they're important.
Sainsbury's.
CHEERING
easyJet.
QUIETER CHEERING
People of the Apollo, they're cheap,
but they've got style.
Strava against the Netherlands.
Some of these
are quite weird combinations.
How do you even choose. Strava?
CHEERING
The Netherlands?
CHEERING
OK, some people are now visibly
starting to wonder
whether it's just going to be votes
on orange things all night.
The votes are getting
more complicated.
They're getting more divisive. If
I'm honest, I don't think you guys
are ready for Hare Krishnas
against Le Creuset.
I'm going to tell you about a few
of my favourite orange things.
I'll tell you about
my favourite orange crisps,
which are of course Wotsits.
Wotsits are the best orange crisps.
They're the nicest, but also they're
the most definitively orange crisps
because they make anything they come
into contact with
immediately orange for the rest of
time. I was getting a cab home
from a night out a few months ago
and I'd had a fun night,
and so I decided to treat myself to
a bag of Wotsits Giants
for the way home.
And if you don't know
what Wotsits Giants are,
you can work it out.
I got in the car
and I said to the driver,
"Do you mind if I eat my crisps
in your car?"
And the driver said,
"I do mind, actually."
And that really took me by surprise.
You have to understand,
people of the Apollo,
I've lived a life of such relentless
privilege and entitlement
that the thought of being denied
my car crisps
didn't even cross my mind.
I was congratulating myself on
the politeness of having asked
even as I opened the bag,
but the driver said, "I've just had
the car cleaned."
And the car was looking clean
and I said, "I understand."
But then he hammered the point home
further with a sentence
I've been unable to forget since.
He looked at me
and then he looked at the crisps
and he looked back at me
and he said,
"You think you will not crumb,
but you will."
And he didn't know
just how true that was.
I don't know how much you know
about me and my life.
I'm proud of a lot of things
in my life,
but I am leaving crumbs everywhere.
My favourite orange drink
is Irn-Bru.
CHEERING
It's a great drink, but admittedly,
I am also saying that
to appease any Scottish people
in the crowd,
because I was doing a show about
all my favourite orange things
in Scotland for two weeks earlier
this year, and it turns out
that doing a show about your love
of the colour orange,
where you wear only orange and
encourage people in the audience
to wear orange, is quite
controversial, apparently,
in Scotland. It has some political,
historic connotations
which I just wasn't aware of.
But I'd already bought all my
orange clothes by then,
so I guess it was a case
of double down, dye the hair,
skip the tour date in Belfast
and get on with it.
If I can be a bit more serious
for a moment,
I'd like to talk about
my favourite orange charity.
My favourite charity,
which has an orange colour scheme,
is a charity called the MS Society.
I'm an ambassador for the MS Society
and I'm very proud
to be an ambassador
for the MS Society.
APPLAUSE
You're nice to clap.
It is obviously a biased choice.
It's in the family. My
mum has MS, multiple sclerosis.
Please don't worry yourselves
about that now.
Obviously it's not ideal,
but needless to say I've got
some cracking marathon times
out of it.
It's actually been a brilliant
few years for my mobility.
Some people laughing at that,
some people not so sure, admittedly.
My comedy is a lot
like multiple sclerosis
in that it gets on
my mother's nerves.
And with witty repartee like this,
you can see why I'm one of
the MS Society's
more controversial ambassadors.
I took my daughter and some of her
friends to watch the London Marathon
earlier this year, and it was their
first time watching the marathon,
and it's one of the most unifying
and inspiring and heart-warming
things you can go and watch.
And I said, "We're going to be part
of the MS Society cheering station."
And they didn't understand that,
so I just said we're going
to be part of Team Orange.
We're all going
to wear orange clothes
and you're going to be amazed
when we get there
how many people
are wearing orange clothes.
And they were. They were
wearing orange clothes
and waving orange flags
and holding orange balloons
and eating Wotsits
and drinking Irn-Bru.
And when my daughter got there,
she said,
"Daddy, there are so many people
in Team Orange."
And I said, "That's right,
the future's bright."
And she said, "What?"
And I said, "Never mind.
"It was a popular advertising slogan
from the '90s."
"Some of the older people
at the Apollo will understand."
Thank you,
older people at the Apollo.
And we were all on the barrier,
me and my daughter and her friends,
and we were cheering
for everyone running past.
But I said to the girls, "Give a
particularly big cheer for anyone
"who runs past in an orange vest,
because they're part
"of Team Orange."
And we were cheering all of them,
and then occasionally someone would
run past in an orange vest
running for the Motor Neurone
Disease Association,
and I would lean into my daughter
and her friends and I would say,
"Not him."
"That man's representing
a rival disability."
"That man is a charlatan
in our colours.
"We give him nothing. Boo that man!"
I'm joking, of course.
A lot of respect
for the MND Association.
But historically the MS Society
were orange first.
They're moving in on our territory
and they need to back the fuck off.
As you can see, I'm one of the
MS Society's
more controversial ambassadors.
I've been representing
the colour orange all year.
I did a show, as I say,
about my love of the colour orange.
This was the poster for the show.
Just my name, Ivo,
on an orange poster.
My name Ivo
in the Charli XCX Brat font,
which I think we'd all agree
is very young
and very relevant and very cool.
Ivo on an orange background,
thrilling. No other detail at all.
So minimal. Other posters, they went
with things like
the venue name,
the time the show was on.
Any other details about the show.
Pathetic, desperate.
No. Just Ivo, nothing else.
Not even a surname.
I was a one namer for the summer.
Like a pop star
or a Brazilian footballer.
The emotional dysfunction of Adele,
the erectile dysfunction of Pele.
Ivo, pleased to meet you.
I'm trying to hype myself up.
I'm daring to dream that I might be
the top Ivo in comedy.
Maybe even the top Ivo
in the country. Dare I dream?
I was with a friend at the pub
a few months ago,
and his friend wanted
to add me on Instagram.
It's not why I chat to people
in the pub but, yeah, sure,
in some ways, mission accomplished.
And his friend said, "What's your
handle?" And I said, "Ivo Graham."
And he didn't hear my surname and
he said, "Can you type it in?"
And I said, "Just put Ivo,
you'll find me."
And our mutual friend Johnny said,
"Just put Ivo, you'll find me?"
I was like, "Yeah, when you repeat
it back like that,
"it does sound quite arrogant. But
in my defence, you will find me.
"We're in the same city
in the same pub.
"We've got mutual friends
at this table.
"What, you think Bulgarian
clarinettist Ivo Papazov
"is going to appear first?
"No. He's a very
accomplished clarinettist,
"but he barely works outside
of Bulgaria.
"He's got next to no social media
presence. It's me."
If you have any better Ivos,
of course you can suggest them
to me on social media
after the show.
One person someone suggested,
Dr Robotnik,
the fictional character
Dr Robotnik,
the enemy of Sonic the Hedgehog.
But if you do know him, you know him
as Dr Robotnik.
You respect the PhD.
You might know him
by his nickname Eggman.
You don't know him as Ivo.
Sonic the Hedgehog was not seeing
these posters around Edinburgh
this summer going, "I'd better keep
a low profile this month.
"Robotnik's on the loose."
No, he was thinking Ivo Graham
must be doing a show
somewhere at some time.
Another very important thing
in my life that is orange
has to do with my home town
of Swindon.
Now, I'm aware I don't come across
like I'm from Swindon,
and to be fair, I'm actually
from just outside Swindon.
And there is a difference between
being from Swindon
and being just outside Swindon,
and that difference is several
hundred thousand pounds' worth
of private education.
I'm posh and I'm not proud of that.
I'm a stereotype, I like cricket,
I like skiing.
I had to interrupt someone halfway
through a story at a party
recently to clarify which Rupert
from school they were talking about.
I don't know how many Ruperts from
school you've got knocking around.
One's ideal, zero's a shame,
two is confusing anecdotally.
I didn't know
whether he was talking about Rupert,
who was a different year
in my house,
or Rupert, who was a different house
in my year.
I needed clarity. Was it Rupert
who did A-level history with me,
or Rupert who caught me wanking?
And I'm afraid the tragedy there is
it was actually the same incident.
It was the same Rupert.
I got far too excited by
the unification of Italy.
It's a cheeky little joke
at Live at the Apollo.
I've never wanked over Garibaldi.
Not when much nicer biscuits
are available at school, am I right?
Am I right?
Not everyone will be on board
for that, and that's fine.
Can't expect everyone at the Apollo
to know that Garibaldi
was a major figure
in the unification of Italy,
and that Garibaldis
are a type of biscuit,
and that there's a vicious rumour
going around that posh boys
like to wank onto biscuits.
But if you do know all three
of those things,
what a magnificent evening
you must be having.
In the orange overlap
of my comedy Venn.
For balance, I'd like to talk
about limes as well as oranges.
And I'm afraid I'm not talking about
the fruit.
I'm talking about the e-bike
to which they have given their name.
Give me a cheer
if you've ever used a Lime bike.
CHEERING
Got some bad news, I'm afraid.
I hate Lime bikes
and everyone who uses them,
including myself,
every single day
of my pathetic life.
I'm always on a Lime
because I'm always late,
and I'm always deluding myself
that I can shave off maybe one
or even two minutes
of that lateness.
At what price? Just the small price
of my own personal safety
and that of everyone else around me.
People on e-bikes
are not proper cyclists.
Of course they're not. Proper
cyclists hate people on e-bikes.
Occasionally I will stop
at a traffic light,
if I've even bothered to stop at
a traffic light at all,
and I will nod at some of
the real cyclists as if to say,
"Look at us on our bikes, chaps."
And they'll look back at me
as if to say,
"Look at you on your Lime,
you twat."
There is no contempt in this world
like the contempt
from a man on an e-bike
from a man on a Brompton.
The Bromptonians hate the e-bike
community.
They look at us as if to say,
"You barely got off Instagram
long enough to scan a QR code.
"I unfold this every single day
of my life.
"I unfolded it this morning,
"and then I folded it back up again
for work,
"and I've just unfolded it again
to get me from fintech to padel
"with enough time
for a Guinness zero afterwards,
"before I go home to put Archie
to bed."
And if you're one of those men,
congratulations.
My life would be so much better
if I was 20% more like you.
But I'm not. I'm on my e-bike
and sometimes I'm wearing a helmet
and I feel good about myself
if I'm wearing a helmet
because I get to say one of my
favourite motivational catchphrases,
"I'm not the lowest of the low."
That's one of my favourites. It's
not hard not to be one of
the lowest of the low
on a Lime bike,
because there are people on Limes
plumbing new depths
every single day.
The other day I saw someone complete
what I would call the hat-trick.
They were riding without a helmet.
That's fine. I've done that myself.
They were texting while riding.
That's fine. I've done that myself.
But then the big one.
Wrap-around
noise cancelling headphones.
Come on, chaps! The world is awful.
We all want to die.
But you've got to play a bit harder
to get with the Grim Reaper
than wrap-around noise cancelling
headphones on your fucking Lime.
The bikes themselves are in a
terrible state of disrepair often,
but you take them anyway,
because you're chaos
and they're your best hope.
Recently, I spent 20 minutes riding
an e-bike which didn't have a seat.
No seat!
Just 20 noble minutes riding
the rod thinking,
I guess this was what the boarding
school training was for.
I'm not proud of that joke,
but I hope you can see
why I felt I had to make it.
And this is still nothing compared
to an e-bike I'd taken some weeks
before that which only
had one pedal.
Just the one. I don't know how much
single pedal cycling
you guys have done in your lives,
but needless to say,
the foot on the pedal side does
a fuck of a lot of the work.
The other foot is reduced to,
to coin a phrase,
sort of flicking the nub.
Just flicking away at the nub,
trying to make any connection with
the internal mechanism of the bike.
You have your basket up front,
of course.
Your iconic green basket
full of rubbish.
Sometimes your rubbish, sometimes
the rubbish of a previous user
which you're not going
to do anything about.
I am little more than a temporary
custodian of another twat's crap.
The other day I was going to my
daughter's concert on an e-bike.
This was a big day.
My daughter was going to be playing
Hot Cross Buns on the recorder
in front of the whole school,
and she was so excited to be playing
Hot Cross Buns on the recorder
in front of the whole school.
And her mum and I were so excited to
watch Hot Cross Buns on the recorder
for the final time.
It had been a very hot and cross
few weeks at Buns HQ.
We were excited
for the glorious swansong.
As I crossed the park to my
daughter's school on my Lime bike,
I came across someone
that I hadn't seen since university.
This was not ideal, with only a
couple of minutes
before the concert, to run into
someone I hadn't seen
in over a decade. And our
friendship even at university
had been delicate,
because Christmas 2008,
I had confessed to some feelings
which hadn't been reciprocated
and Secret Santa was ruined
for another year.
And now, suddenly, there we were.
And I had to get off my bike
and do the dance you do
when you haven't seen someone
in a long time saying,
"Wow, what a small world.
You live around here?
"Yes. And my daughter goes
to school just there.
"I've got a daughter. That is crazy.
And she's doing a concert.
"Hot Cross Buns
in a couple of minutes.
"So I'd better park this old thing
and get it over there."
And it was humiliating, and I could
see her as I did this dance,
thinking, he was a shambles in 2008
and nothing has changed.
I don't know if you ever watched
the words "bullet dodged"
pass through someone's mind
while you're talking to them.
And this was before she glanced into
the basket of my Lime.
I'd either not noticed or forgotten
what was in my basket
that shameful day,
but I'm afraid to say what was
in my basket was some chicken bones.
You know, as in the bones
of a chicken,
gnawed away by
one of my predecessors
and now just glinting away
in the new day without even
the dignity or context
of a box or a bag.
And me trying to work out if it was
going to add more or less dignity
to the situation with a sentence
that I hope
never darkens any of your doors.
"Those aren't my chicken bones."
APPLAUSE
People of the Apollo,
are you having a fun night so far?
CHEERING
Are you excited
for your first act of the show?
CHEERING
She is not just one of the finest
comedians working in the country,
she's also one of
my daughter's favourite comedians.
Please make as much noise as you can
for the wonderful Catherine Bohart!
CHEERING
MUSIC: Chaise Longue
by Wet Leg
Hi!
Hello. Are you well?
Hi. Hello, I'm Catherine.
I am feeling my age.
I am, I'm feeling my age mainly
because I am now the older one
in an age gap relationship.
Thank you. Is anyone
in an age gap relationship?
Yes. That's what happens.
Women woo!
Men very coy, I've noticed.
Men very coy.
I think it's because men know when I
date a younger woman, it's feminism.
And when you do it, it's disgusting.
I don't make the rules.
I simply report on them.
I am, I'm now the older one
in an age gap relationship.
I didn't think that was a big deal.
I'm 37, she's 29.
I didn't think that was a big deal.
Didn't think it was a big difference
and then I went to her house share.
No. It's fine. It's nice. It's dry,
sometimes. I like it.
But you've got to be polite. Don't
you have to be kind when you go
to somebody else's house? So I was
sort of desperately looking around
for a compliment. We were in the
kitchen and I said,
"Oh, that's a nice plate."
And she said, "Thanks. We found it."
I said, "What?"
She said, "We found it."
I said, "No, no, no,
I'm not that old. I heard you.
"What is it you're saying
to my face?"
She said, "Oh, well, it's just
that my housemates and I
"didn't have enough crockery,
"so we just went out and foraged
for some."
Interesting divide
in the Apollo now.
The older people are like,
"What is the lesbian saying?"
The younger people are like,
"Yeah, street stuff. Sure."
What I'm saying to you is that she
went out into the streets of East London.
Of course it's East London, we're
gay and she has a lovely mullet.
She went out to the streets
of East London.
She looked down upon the pavements.
There she found plates.
She took those plates home
and now she eats food from them.
Really.
Six months in, I find out she's been
kissing me with a street plate mouth.
The other big age gap,
if I'm honest,
is that she is young enough
and cool enough
that she's willing to be friends
with her exes.
No. Thank you, yes,
that's a young person's game.
That's not for me. I'm never sure
if this is an age difference
or a cultural difference.
I can't be friends with my exes
because I'm, well,
because I talk about them onstage.
And that's because I'm Irish and
I come from a storytelling culture.
Whereas my girlfriend's English,
so she's very comfortable pretending
to be friends
with people whose lives
she's historically ruined.
That's nice.
APPLAUSE
Also, I don't know if you know this,
but it's sort of a classic
lesbian trend
to stay friends with your exes.
Did you know that?
The men in the front row staring at
me like, absolutely not, no.
Yeah, it is. Of course it is.
Because how else are you going
to keep the football team together?
Do you know what I mean?
The league's not going to run
itself, is it, lads?
But it's not for me.
I'm with you. It's not for me.
In fact, this whole thing makes me
feel very bisexual.
I don't like it.
I actually, I'm sorry to say it,
I think it makes lesbians
bad friends in a break-up, right?
Because you call a lesbian
when you've had your heart broken,
she'll say hurtful things.
Things like,
"Oh, my God, how is she?"
"Are you guys going to meet
up for coffee?"
"Coffee? I don't need coffee.
I'm fuelled on rage."
Little tip from me to you,
if you ever have your heart broken,
call a straight woman. Oh, my God.
Those girls really come into their
own in tragedy, don't they?
Call a straight woman
when you have your heart broken.
They will say the same
thing every time.
They will say,
"Meet me at midnight.
"Bring everything she's ever
touched.
"Tonight it burns." Yes!
Proper allies, I love it.
The real problem, though,
of being the older one,
the burden of being the older one is
that you have to be the kinkier one.
Yeah, you have to be.
If you're the older one,
you have to be the kinkier one.
I have to be the kinkier one
because my girlfriend is in her
20s, right?
She still finds sex
in and of itself exciting.
Can you imagine?
Plain sex, no toppings.
You can't feel that way
when you get to your mid-thirties.
Right. You get to 35
and you're like,
"OK, let's talk value added, yeah?
"What is it you can do for me
that I cannot do for myself?"
I become like
a 1950s New York casting director.
I'm like, "Show me something I ain't
ever seen before, kid."
She, on the other hand, young,
sweet, romantic,
all of her favourite positions have
us looking into each other's eyes.
Urgh, hell.
Hell. Recently I suggested we try
something mildly kinky.
Don't panic, gents, I'm not going
to say what it was.
Mildly kinky. She instantly went,
"Oh, God, no."
I felt judged.
She could tell I felt judged.
She tried to make it better.
She panicked.
She went, "But we're gay.
"That's weird."
I don't know if you've ever been
negotiated out of rimming
with homophobia, but nobody wins.
And it's very tough to take from
a woman who eats dinner off plates
she found on the street.
It's tough. It's tough. I introduced
her to my parents recently.
Not because I wanted to,
but because you must.
And my mum geared up
to a chat she hadn't had before.
It was very interesting. Do you ever
watch a parent gear up to a chat
and you think,
"Oh, we're starting this?
"I wonder if you know how
to finish it."
She went, "So, like,
do you two girls,
"would you say you two girls,
do you think you two girls,
"would you say you two girls,
do you think you two girls,
"would you say you two girls
"Do you think you two girls would
ever want to have kids?"
"OK, Geraldine. Let's dance."
Now, we said something she wasn't
expecting.
At the same time, my girlfriend
and I both went, "Yeah, maybe."
She didn't see it coming.
She did not see it coming.
And I want to defend
my mother a little bit.
That's actually fair enough.
I've never expressed any interest
in becoming a mum before now,
but equally,
people aren't usually shocked
when I say I want to be a mum.
And I think that's
because I have the energy of a woman
who already has three children,
right? Who works at their school.
"Sit up straight, OK.
"I'll wait."
Good lad. You won't bend. I like it.
But I know who I am.
My mother, on the other hand,
shocked with her whole face
and body.
She just went, "Good."
"Yes. Yes. Good. Yes.
Good. Yes. Good.
"Yes. Good. Yes. Good.
"Good. Yes. Yeah.
That's so good. Yeah.
"How?"
Good question.
Theft, I assume.
I don't know.
Everyone assumes lesbians
know how lesbians get pregnant.
I haven't a notion.
I was taught science by Irish nuns
in the '90s.
Also call me a traditionalist,
but I assumed my mother
would tell me how to get pregnant.
Not the other way round.
Also, she's one of the straights.
They're the experts, aren't they?
Any straight people in, give me a
cheer.
Thrilled about it. All right.
But you're always at it, right?
Straight people, in my opinion,
get to have the best kind
of pregnancies you can have, which
are of course, accidental.
They are. It's the dream. But my
girlfriend's never going
to believe I slipped on
a turkey baster,
so it's not happening for me.
I will say, by the way, I have given
motherhood some thought.
Of course I have.
I'm a 37-year-old woman, right?
Your body makes you, even
if you don't want to think about it.
It's like, how you have to dance
when Shakira says
her own name twice, right?
It's like a biological imperative.
It happens. It happens.
I will say, and I'm wary of saying
this because I thought
there'd be more trust in the room
by now,
I will say I think lesbians
have overthought the project.
I do. That is why most lesbians
I know
have at least considered whether
or not their brother
..would make a good father.
Full, open mouth.
Relax. No, guys. Come on. Relax.
You don't have to fuck your brother.
Your girlfriend does.
That's the science.
Obviously, now that we've had the
baby chat, it's interesting, right?
I didn't realise how much admin
there was
in becoming a queer parent.
First thing you have to decide,
of course, is who's having it.
And obviously straight people don't
have to decide that
because it's always
the stronger one.
CHEERING
Lesbians obviously do,
and now that we've said
we're open to it,
oh, my God, people keep asking us
the weirdest questions.
They keep going, well, which of you
would like to have the baby?
Which of you wants
to carry the baby?
That's how they ask it.
Indeed. Which of you would like to?
Which of you wants to?
Men in the room, if you could
..which of you'd like to?
Any of you want to?
No, the same silence every night.
Obviously, I don't want to either.
I don't know how we've convinced
women it's a treat.
Except we lie, don't we?
We lie to their pregnant faces.
We're like, "Oh, my God,
you're glowing."
She's not.
Did you know that the blood in your
body doubles when you're pregnant?
Yeah. The blood in your body
doubles when you're pregnant.
She's not glowing,
she's fucking throbbing.
And I want no part of it.
No part of it.
The problem is this. My girlfriend
also wants no part of it.
So now we're
in full-on negotiations.
Obviously I'm older, so I'm
desperately hoping I'll age out.
I'm just putting SPF everywhere
that's not my ovaries.
I don't know anything about science
and I won't learn.
But it is. It's tricky. The real
issue that we have,
to be honest with you, is that the
only lesbians we know
who have any children did
so on a pact,
and the pact they made was that one
of them would have the first kid
and the other would have the second.
So obviously they've
got one fucking kid.
Because what woman's watching
that being like, "Me next!"
Being a lesbian is just two women
being like, "After you."
"No, please. After you."
Then of course,
you've got to find sperm.
And I've been very clear
with my girlfriend,
we will not be foraging for that.
It's actually why I'm here tonight.
No. Can you imagine if I was like.
"I'm here to milk this boy?"
No.
He didn't say no. Yikes.
But no, you do. You have to forage
for sperm in a way.
Has anyone been on a sperm bank?
No. Fair enough.
They're strange places.
I've had a sort of initial perusal.
Not because we're doing anything
yet, but because I have
a shopping problem, and they're very
odd places, sperm banks.
They're very odd places.
I've had a little peep.
What I don't like about them,
in my opinion,
is that they remind me
of online dating, you know,
in that you have to sort of believe
men when they fill in forms.
And it just doesn't seem plausible
to me
that that many men
over six foot have hobbies.
I'm sorry, but honestly, the men on
sperm banks have so many hobbies
and they're desperate to tell you
about them.
Of course they are, to be fair.
Otherwise, all you know about them
is that they've had a wank
and want to be an absent father.
And that's a crazy profile
to have on there.
But here's the thing, Apollo.
Here's my problem with sperm banks.
It's that ten minutes in,
every time I'm on there,
every single time,
at the same time I get sad.
I get sad because it occurs to me
that there must be men
under six foot donating sperm.
And nobody's taking it.
It's just being left there
in the freezer
like sad little Mini Milks.
And then every time
it occurs to me, fuck,
I'm going to end up
choosing sperm out of pity.
And then I'm no better
than my straight friends.
APPLAUSE
Apollo, You've been very nice,
and thank you so much
for coming out. Goodnight!
CHEERING
Catherine Bohart, everyone!
What a treat.
People of the Apollo,
are you ready
for your second act of the show?
CHEERING
Then keep that noise going
in the room for the outstanding,
the incomparable, the maestro,
Nabil Abdulrashid!
Oh, stop.
All right. Goodnight.
What's going on? You good?
CHEERING
So, hi, my name is Nabil.
I want to apologise. If I come
across as standoffish or unfriendly,
it's because I am.
You know, I just can't handle this
many people being happy to see me.
Because outside of this, nobody
is ever this happy to see me, right?
Not even in my own house. I swear.
I don't know what it is,
whenever I walk into a building,
people assume I'm there
to protect it or rob it, right?
Sometimes I get bored and I do both.
"You cannot enter.
Let me see your pockets."
But, no, I'm, you know,
I'm trying to be mature now.
Trying to be sensible, reasonable.
You know, I'm a father.
I've got two beautiful daughters
that I know of.
I'm joking.
Good Muslim boy.
Just the two children with my wife,
who I've been married to
for 15 years, OK?
No Yeah, yeah. No haram babies
anywhere, Inshallah.
But, like, you know, being
a father now, I'm worried,
because you look around the country,
you see there's all kinds of stuff.
You know, there's all kinds of stuff
going on,
and it makes me worry about my kids
because it is a very tough time
to be It's always been a tough
time to be a woman,
but it's more so now, I believe.
It's getting worse.
And, you know,
people don't seem to care.
The people who do, they pretend
to push some sort of agenda.
They don't really care about girls
that look like mine.
And that makes me paranoid when I
do the school run.
I'm paranoid and I'm worried
about things
when I do the school run that the
father of a ten-year-old
and a seven-year-old should not
worry about.
I'm scouring the streets looking for
drug dealers, gang members,
murderers, and it's tough,
because I love my friends.
Because let's be real, that's
the biggest danger to your kids.
That's the biggest danger
to your family, right?
Your friends. Not the internet,
not gluten, not podcasts.
Your friends.
My friends come in two categories.
Semi-retired roadmen
..and conspiracy theorists.
And I'm not going to lie to you,
I prefer bumping into the roadmen,
because they don't waste your time.
They've got crimes to go supervise.
Right?
"Yo, Wagwan. Big man.
Hello, Princess.
"Here's £300. Buy something
for yourself.
"Hey, big man,
here's a watch I got earlier today.
"You didn't see me, bruv."
But conspiracy theorists always want
to waste your time.
Have you noticed that?
Who here has a conspiracy
theorist friend?
The one that fucks up
the group chat every single time.
If you don't know who that is, you
believe in chemtrails, all right?
Now, has anyone noticed how since
the pandemic, since the lockdown,
they've all gotten crazier, right?
My friend went into the pandemic
as Anthony,
came out as Lord Shambhala.
Bro, this guy is gone.
Finito. Kaput. Gone.
Like, you know, when they're so far
gone that they don't
even do small talk any more.
They just want to tell you
everything they learned
on TikTok the night before.
Now I'm doing the school run
with my daughters.
I see my friend Shambhala across
the street arguing with himself.
I'm not too big for my friends
because I'm a nice guy.
So I'm like, "Hey, Shambhala,
what's happening, man? You good?"
This is him.
"How can I be good?
"How can I be all right
when the Illuminati"
Oh, my God. This madman starts
across the street.
"Big mad ting. The Illuminati is
trying to kill me, bruv!"
All six foot nine of him.
Cars just swerving,
narrowly missing this idiot.
"The Illuminati's on a big mad ting.
They're trying to kill me!"
I said, "Bro, calm down.
"Nobody's trying
to kill you, brother.
"You're trying to kill yourself.
"You just crossed a busy
south London street
"without looking at traffic lights,
spliff in hand."
"Hey, big man."
"Man don't watch traffic lights
to dictate my movements."
"You see the red light,
green light thing?
"That's a Illuminati MKUltra
ting, bruv.
"Look it up, bruv. Haven't you
watched that Chinese documentary,
"The Squid Games?"
I said, "That wasn't Chinese
and it wasn't a documentary."
He said, "Yeah?
"Then how come since
this has come out,
"I'm seeing red light,
green light on all the roads?"
I said, "They're traffic lights,
man. They've always been there."
He said
.."That's what they want you
to think."
Without missing a beat.
"Hey, big man, don't take the
vaccine, you know.
"Don't take the vaccine, you know.
Don't take the rasclaat vaccine."
I said, "Why not?"
He said, "Do you even know
what's in that?"
"Do you even know what's
in the vaccine?"
I said, "Bro, do you know what's in
that spliff you're smoking?
"Cos I'm not going to lie.
That thing looks spicy, bro."
He said, "That's why I don't
like talking to you.
"You always asking man
bare questions.
"Too many questions.
Suck your mum. Listen."
"Obviously"
"Obvious"
"Obviously the vaccine
is liquid 5G, blud."
"It's a population control ting."
I said, this guy, "What does liquid
5G have to do
"with population control?"
He said, "That's why
I don't like talking to you.
"He's asking man bare questions.
Too many questions.
"Suck your mum. Listen.
"Obviously they're injecting us with
the vaccine to turn us gay."
I said, "Bro, let's pretend that
that's not scientifically impossible
"or mad homophobic.
Because if we don't,
"there's just too much to unpack."
"I just have one question
regarding your theory."
"If the vaccine is meant
to turn us gay,
"what happens if you're already gay
when you take the vaccine?"
This guy looks at me like I'm the
one that's mad, you know.
he said, "That's why I don't like
talking to you.
"You always asking man
bare questions. Too many questions.
"Listen. Obviously
"..if you take the vaccine
and you're already gay
"..it makes you five times
more gayer than you were
"..before you took it, bruv.
"Think, bruv.
Why do you think they call it 5G?"
APPLAUSE
"Stands for Five Gay," and he walks
off.
My daughter says to me,
"Daddy, is there?
"What's wrong with that man?"
I said, "Several things."
Now, before I go,
I want to say this.
Those of you who have kids
in your family,
you know, you might be
a godparent, an uncle, an auntie.
You might be best friends to
a parent.
Please, if you have children
around you,
teach them to be decent people
from when they're little, OK?
Don't wait till they're 14
and already a wanker.
Then come and ask me to come to
their school and talk to them.
I'm not going. They have weapons.
Are you mad? I'm not going.
I think it's because, you know,
obviously man's a bad man, but
Don't laugh. I'll have you know,
I'm very gangsta.
Now, I was out with my daughter. I
had Google images show me
this collection of images and videos
I took years ago.
I was out with my daughters.
I like to take them out
on daddy daughter dates, right.
And as we're walking, we were
walking down
West Croydon high street,
of all places.
It's like Rome.
All roads lead to it.
You laugh now, but one day
you will find yourself there,
I guarantee you.
And as you walk down the street,
we walk past a homeless man
who was on the floor begging,
because we have a massive
homelessness crisis in Croydon.
And as we walk past this man,
my daughters point to him and say,
"Daddy, what's wrong with that man?"
And I said, "Girls, he's homeless.
"He doesn't have the privilege
that we do, disposable income,
"family support, a home to go to.
"But we mustn't look down on him,
because just because he has less
"than us does not make him
less than us.
"The same God created us all."
APPLAUSE
And my daughter said, "Dad, could we
have some money to give to them?"
And I said, "Sure, because we are
Muslims and it's a big part
"of our faith to give to charity."
So I gave them a pound each
and they went to this homeless man,
they gave it to him.
He smiled and thanked them
and they ran back to me.
They're like, "Daddy, look,
he's happy.
On that day, my daughters were happy
to do something
for someone that was
in no position to repay them.
And I was the proudest
father on earth.
APPLAUSE
Until they ruined it.
Because they look back and he was
still there begging, right?
My daughter said, "Hey, Daddy!
I just gave that man £2!
"Why is he still outside?
Why hasn't he bought a house?
"Why hasn't he bought a car?
Why is he still begging?"
And I thought, oh, shit,
I'm raising Tories.
APPLAUSE
I said, "No, no! You have to
understand, OK?
"The money we gave him was only
enough for his immediate needs.
"If we really want to make things
happen, we need to tear down
"the system and get rid of all these
corrupt politicians."
"Nah. Nah, Daddy. Nah.
"Why doesn't everybody give him £2?"
I said, "Don't be silly. We can't
give him that much money.
"He might buy drug shit."
Now I sound like a Tory.
See? That's how they get you.
That's money. That's how they
Now while I'm trying to explain how
the world works to the little one,
the big one pipes up.
"Daddy"
I don't know
why she sounds like that.
It's her mum, man.
Proper grammar school girl.
Anyway. "Daddy! Daddy, are you
listening, Daddy? What about this?
"Why don't we give everything
we have but don't need
"to people that need but don't have?
"Then nobody'd be poor
and everybody'd be rich."
"Oh, shut up, you little hippy."
I didn't actually say that. I
wouldn't talk to my girls like that.
What I said is, "No, sweetheart, we
can't do that, OK?"
We can't have a society
where everybody is rich
and nobody's poor.
It's not sustainable.
And she said, "Why?"
"Because it's a socialist
Marxist fantasy."
To which she replied,
"So?
"What's wrong with that, Daddy?"
Fucking hell.
Sometimes you just have
to be honest, right?
There's no cop out.
I'm her source of information
and wisdom.
I can't run away
from this responsibility.
But I also have to be honest,
right. So I was.
She said, "Go on, tell me, Daddy.
"What's wrong
with socialist Marxist fantasies?"
And I was honest. I looked
her in the eye and I said,
"That's why I don't like talking to
you. Always asking man"
CHEERING
Nabil Abdulrashid!
People of the Apollo,
have you had a fun evening?
Please cheer as loud as you can
one more time for Catherine Bohart
and Nabil Abdulrashid.
CHEERING
I've been your host, Ivo Graham.
I hope to see you again.
Goodnight!