Live at The Apollo (2004) s06e05 Episode Script
Stephen K Amos, Jon Richardson, Micky Flanagan
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Live At The Apollo! Oh, yes, were going to have a good time tonight.
Thank you very much for coming out.
Looking around the audience, who do we have in this evening? Mr Colin Jackson.
In the house! Yeah, Olympic and world superstar.
Hurdler, yeah? But I notice also, a slightly high voice.
Is that one of the hazards of hurdling? Welcome, Colin.
Nice to have you here.
Oh, the lovely Esther Rantzen is here.
Hello, Miss Esther, how are you? I'm good, thanks.
Very nice to have you here.
Unfortunately, if you don't like this show there is not any complaining procedure.
Sorry, but that'slife.
Welcome, welcome.
Before we start, I want to tell you a little bit about myself.
I come from quite a big family.
There are eight kids in the family.
Now, what can I tell you about that? Well, my dad loved the Jackson Five.
And, quite clearly, sex.
Very, very tough existence.
I remember as a young kid saying to my dad, "Dad, dad, with so many kids in the family there's not enough money.
"Can I have some pocket money?" My dad would look at me and go, "Shut up, bastard! "Your pocket is for your hand.
" That's not the sort of thing you tell a teenage boy with holes in his pocket.
I'd say to my dad, "Dad, what does the future hold?" He'd sit me down and go, "One day, son, "people will hang televisions "off their walls as though they were pictures.
" I'd be like, "Dad, what's a picture?" I'd say to my mum, "Mum, all the other kids are playing outside.
"Can I play outside?" My mum would go, "Shut up, bastard! "Go upstairs and read a book.
" We had one book.
The phone book.
I read it.
Wasn't a great read.
I don't want to spoil it for you.
Lots of characters.
And at the end, a lot of Polish people turn up.
Parents are very, very strange.
Even little things.
If we, as a family, played Monopoly, right, and I landed on jail, my dad would make me stand in the cupboard under the stairs to add a bit of realism.
I remember when I got one of those Community Chest cards.
It said, "You've been caught speeding.
£60 fine.
" My dad looked at me and went, "Go upstairs to your bedroom and think about what you have done.
" My dad has mellowed later on in life.
My dad is now 75 years old and we are getting on.
We are getting on.
But a couple of things about him I've now noticed, as he's gotten older, the level and volume of his sneezing has increased exponentially.
And I don't know if you know this, but a sneeze is one-eighth of an orgasm.
So when I hear my dad sneezing now, I just think, "He's never had it so good!" It's really hard to get him out of the house.
I'm like, "Dad, dad, let's go to the pub.
"What do you think?" He'd go, "No, I'm going to have a quiet evening in with the pepper pot.
" Being a child from a big family, I had loads of brothers and sisters.
Anyone here who's got an older brother, you'll know that you believed EVERYTHING your older brother said.
He was my God.
My older brother told me stuff that I believed.
My older brother once told me that people on TV could see you as well.
It was so embarrassing.
I could never, ever watch Baywatch again.
Yes, David Hasselhoff knew too much.
And also he'd say things like, "You know, the milkman has got his own special udder.
"You should go and pull it.
" I pulled it.
Social services were called.
And we never saw the milkman again.
Very, very tough existence.
But, at school, you want to fit in and I was very, very paranoid cos at school I had really big feet, massive feet.
So, for three years, as a kid at school, I wore shoes three sizes too small.
Would you believe it, later on in life, I've got a crooked cock.
Some of you now are trying to process that! "How did he walk?" But also at school, I wanted a teacher Do we have any teachers here this evening? Any teachers? SHOUTS AND CHEERS Yes, what age group do you teach? Secondary? Respect to you.
Respect.
What subject? Maths.
So you do maths, and you? Science.
Respect.
I asked that same question at a show yesterday, lady at the front went, "Yeah, I do primary.
" I went, "Listen, love, you're not a teacher.
You're a helper.
"Let me guess, what subject do you teach?" "Everything.
" I wanted a teacher at school who was inspiring.
A teacher like Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society.
Instead, I got a teacher like Robin Williams in a Mrs Doubtfire.
We weren't even allowed to go on any school trips.
Anybody go on school trips? Yeah, where did you go, sir? The beach.
The beach?! That really doesn't help me at all.
"Beach! "We go trip beach!" Where are you from, sir? Kent.
Kent.
OK, beach.
I shouldn't disparage.
I digress.
I once went on a family holiday many years ago.
Obviously, as I said, there were so many kids in the family that the only memory of family holidays is the smell of petrol, right? With all us kids in the car, my dad would put me and my sister in the boot.
Yeah? After four hours in the boot, I'd go, "Dad, dad, can you guess where we are yet?" And he'd go, "Shut up, bastard! "We're on the motorway and if you are talking, you're not hiding.
" It was a family holiday in Margate, back in the old days.
CHEERING Oh, please, don't cheer Margate.
I haven't finished.
I'm talking the late '70s, right? All the family traipsed down there, arrived in Margate, miserable weather, horrible food, rainy, windy.
We walked along the beachfront and this random bloke comes up to us and goes, "Oi, you lot! "Why don't you go back to where you came from?" And I was like, "Don't you think I've asked myself the very same question?" But then fast forward to this year and I've had two holidays already.
Two holidays.
I went to America.
Mmm, boom! Yes, but I don't know if you know this, folks, but in America there is no point of reference for a black British person, right? I was in a cafe in America.
I said, "I'd like a cappuccino, please.
" The guy behind the desk went, "Oh, my God! "It's Jeffrey from the Fresh Prince!" Don't applaud that.
I look nothing like him! In fact, a friend said to me that I look like a black Alan Sugar.
No, say it ain't so! One of the reasons I went to America is because my favourite drink is Jack Daniels.
So I went to the birthplace of Jack Daniels, which is where? ALL: Tennessee.
Thank you.
Whereabouts in Tennessee? Lynchburg.
It's OK, folks, what's done is done.
But how much does it cost to change a sign? I went to the Jack Daniel's distillery.
They could answer all my questions.
How long is the ageing process? How long does it take to go through all the charcoal? The one question they couldn't answer was, "Why is this place still called Lynchburg? "Come on, guys, don't leave me hanging.
" And I also went to Nigeria.
My parents are from Nigeria and it was quite an experience.
I arrived at immigration with my two earrings, right? The immigration took one look at me and went, "Ah, are you a man or a woman?" I said, "I'm quite clearly a man.
" And he said, "Shame.
With your powerful legs and your broad shoulders, "you make a beautiful lady.
" The things I've done for a visa.
Angela.
My good friend, Angela Griffin's here.
Hi, Ange.
All right? We like Ange, yeah? In the house.
I loved you in Coronation Street.
You played a hairdresser.
That's right.
And in Cutting It you played a hairdresser.
A beautician, actually.
A beautician? Quite similar.
What a range.
I've been on tour, as well, folks, and I've seen all of the country.
I travelled on various means of transport.
I took the train.
Oh, my God! When I took the train as a kid, it was only so my mum could beat us in public.
"Think yourself lucky.
"Other children are merely beaten at home.
"I'm beating you as you gaze out on to beautiful scenery.
" And the trains now, aren't they so high-tech? Oh, my God.
You now get a socket by your seat.
A socket by your seat.
If you're on a train, there is a socket by your seat.
Use it to the max.
Get your ironing done.
Blow-dry your hair.
When I now travel on the train, I take a kettle and George Foreman grill.
Yeah, I can knock out coffee and sandwiches cheaper than the buffet car.
And television, I'm really a big fan of TV, right.
People are now saying that apparently young people are being influenced by what they see on TV.
And any parents here, you might remember this, there is a cartoon called Peppa Pig.
Anybody know that cartoon? CHEERING Yeah.
People are applauding a cartoon! "Oh yes!" And what it was, they had to re-edit two of the episodes cos apparently Peppa Pig was seen driving a car without a seatbelt.
Yeah.
We had Roadrunner! He jumped off buildings.
If you've got a child who copies what they see on adverts, that's called natural selection.
Get rid.
Get another one.
Back in the old days, '70s, '80s, all our bits of technology were built into bits of furniture.
Look at people nodding.
Yes! Is it any wonder the rainforest is now depleting? The stereo in our lounge was built under so much mahogany that I thought if I lifted the lid I would discover a lost Amazonian tribe.
"Mum, look, "a man with a plate in his lip has just shot a dart in my face.
" "Shut up, he's your father.
" When I was growing up, we had one telephone in the house, in the hallway.
Anybody my age remember that? One telephone.
I'd be like that, "Listen, I can't talk for long, Dad is staring at me.
"Dad, dad, can I have some privacy?" And he'd go, "Privacy? "Buy your own house!" One thing I remember from school, though, teachers, yeah, finger painting.
Remember that? I loved that.
Cos I come from inner-city London, right? And it was only later on in life that I realised it was our headmaster's ingenious way to get our fingerprints early.
He'd say, "Most of you will go on to offend later on in life.
"I'm a merely cutting out the middleman.
" Also, one of the things I seem to remember from school, folks, right, one of the main things I remember is that I'm not a very sporty child.
Not sporty at all.
And it dawned on me, right, if you're a white kid at an all-black school, and you're not sporty, people assume you're academic.
But if you're a black kid at an all-white school, you can't dance or sing, people assume you're adopted.
The one thing I loved at school was the power of the note.
Forget the man who invented the television.
Forget him.
Forget the man who invented the internet.
The power of the note, the note could get you out of anything.
PE? No, I've got a note.
Jabs? I've got a note.
If only the note could follow you later on in life.
Can you imagine me in the military in a Chinook helicopter over Afghanistan? "Private Amos, jump.
" "I can't, I've got a note.
"Mum says don't jump.
Not in these shoes.
"You get me?" And the leader of the free world, Barack Obama, wow, look at that.
If Barack Obama was a kid at my primary school and said to my careers adviser, "I want to be the President", the careers adviser would have gone, "Well, O-bummer" Obviously a temporary careers adviser.
".
.
I can definitely see you on the campaign busdriving it.
" Also, folks, I want to be a bit honest with you tonight.
I'm very much into same-sex relationships cos I think it's very important that you're both into the same kind of sex.
Otherwise it can create friction.
GROANS APPLAUSE Thank you.
People say to me, "Steve, are you gay or bisexual?" I go, "Definitely gay, there's no two ways about it.
" That's one positive thing about being gay cos a lot of those skills are transferable.
Is that too much? But my mum's take on it is this, if my mum saw me having sex with a man she'd be like this.
"Oh, the man my son is having sex with, HE is the gay one.
" That's my mum.
But my friends, they are quite bad at trying to set me up.
I say to them I like a man in uniform.
Barry from B&Q wasn't quite what I had in mind.
But, as I say, I'm having fun at the moment doing this job.
Look at me, yeah, I've actually been asked to host Live At The Apollo! CHEERING And Lenny Henry isn't dead.
No! He's just locked in a room at the Premiere Inn.
OK, ladies and gentlemen, are we ready to start the show? CHEERING Ladies and gentlemen, please help me welcome my first guest on tonight.
A very good friend of mine.
A rising star on the comedy circuit.
Please give it up for the comedy talents that are Mr John Richardson! CHEERING AND APPLAUSE Hello.
Hello.
How are you? This is good, isn't it? Big! HIGH-PITCHED SCREAM Ooh, yeah! One of them as well.
Why not? Very rare you get that response in a cardigan, but, you know.
It's nice.
It's times like this, as a stand-up, you realise, I think I basically just moan for a living.
I'm going to make a concerted effort to be positive and happy cos that's what people like, apparently.
And I get accused, I constantly get told I'm grumpy and miserable, and I'm not.
I'm happy.
I'm upbeat.
I love being alive.
Love being a human.
Being a human's unbelievable, isn't it? If you're a human, you really have nothing to moan about.
I realise this year that being a human is the best on the planet.
I was on a plane eating a chicken sandwich.
That's not it.
It's pretty good, though.
I thought, "I am eating a bird whilst I am flying.
" Unbelievable.
I, a flightless land mammal, am consuming a bird in mid-air.
Never mind the fact I just ordered a gin and tonic in a cloud.
Being a human's so easy that that's are why you get annoyed with people cos people don't seem to try as hard as I would like them to, about life.
I am a perfectionist.
Give us a cheer if you're a perfectionist.
Fair few of you.
The rest of you are annoying.
You go around and make mistakes and you drop things and you laugh about it, cos you think it's part of life's rich tapestry.
It isn't.
You should be trying harder.
I'm a massive perfectionist to the point that every mistake in my life counts the same.
So, in my world, dropping a spoon is the same as running someone over.
In that, you didn't mean to do it and you did it, so you have to get angry about it and make sure it never happens again.
And I watch people make mistakes.
I came into London last year to do some gigs and I was on the London Underground.
I was on the Hammersmith and City line which, if you don't know London, is the line that goes from Hammersmith into the City.
Cockneys really don't piss around when they're naming their things.
"I built a tube line, Gary.
It goes from Hammersmith to the City.
" "Oh, yeah, what you gonna call it?" "Don't muck about, Gary.
Don't muck about.
" So anyway, I was on the Underground, sat down.
I knew I needed six stops to get to where I was going and opposite me on are two young girls, they're all dressed up, going out for the evening.
They're laughing, giggling, joking.
They're generally pissing me off.
I'm not a big fan of public shows of joy.
My motto is, there's misery in this world, you just have to look for it.
If something's broken, you can fix it and if it's untidy, you can tidy it.
If someone's unhappy, you can make them laugh and you've made their day a bit better.
Happy people are finished.
You can't help them.
If you're happy, don't go out, just stay at home and enjoy walls and ceilings.
My real issue with the happy is it's happy people who make mistakes because they're so busy enjoying life they've forgotten to do it properly.
So I was on the underground and these girls were laughing away.
A perfect example because they are enjoying being together so much they haven't noticed they've got on completely the wrong train.
So we are hurtling off in this direction and they should actually be going in this direction.
About five minutes in, one of the girls cottoned on.
She tapped her mate and went, LAUGHS HEARTILY "We're on the" I would have been furious.
Let's say it now - that's not funny, is it? What's happened there is you've just lost a big chunk of your life.
The time you were going to spend doing the thing you left the house to do you will now spend correcting your ineptitude.
I know some people would say once you've got on the wrong train, there's nothing you can do but laugh about it.
The only reason you'd laugh in this situation is if you do this so often you've just had to learn to find it amusing.
"Done it again, what are we like?!" I'll tell you.
Shit at being alive.
It wasn't just that they laughed initially, they laughed all through the conversation about the fact there was no line they could get that would hook them back round and they'd have to cross the track at the next stop and go back in the opposite direction.
Then one of them went, "You'll have to phone Neil and tell him we're going to be late.
He won't believe this!" Yes, he will.
It's not a far-fetched anecdote, is it? Neil's an idiot if you phone him and go, "We've got on the wrong train", and he goes, "No, it's never happened before!" And they got off and they were still laughing.
They got off at the next stop.
I sat there thinking, "This is unbelievable! "If you're not going to let this ruin your day, I'm going to have to take one for the team here.
"Strap on a pair and learn from this mistake even though I didn't make it.
" I just started ranting in my chair.
"This is typical of the world, this is.
"Never mind laughing about it, the fact is, Neil is waiting for them.
" "And I'll tell you why Neil is waiting for them, "cos Neil got there in good time by getting the right frigging train.
"I've got no qualms with Neil, Neil's a good egg.
" I ranted for about 10 minutes.
All I achieved in that 10 minutes was that I went straight through the stop I was meant to be getting off at.
You would have to concede that that's mental illness, if you are allowing your own life to be ruined by mistakes you haven't even made.
The worst thing about it is it means a relationship is out of the question because you can't go out with someone when you pick up on every mistake, people don't like it.
My view on relationships and on people in general is this - There are two types of people in the world.
Basically there are putters and leavers.
If you are not sure which one you are, you'll find out if I ask you a question like "Where are your keys?" and you go, "They are where I put them.
" You are a putter.
And to sum up, you're a good human being.
You work hard, you try hard, you are probably quite successful.
The other group, the leavers, or shithead devils To give them their full title.
If you say to them, "Where are your keys?" They'll go, "Wherever I left them!" And you will die in an accident.
That's just a fact, you have to know where things are.
That is a fact.
And here's the problem in relationships.
You tend to find you get a putter with a lever.
You can't have two putters together cos they will kill each other over which way the beans should face in the cupboard.
"They go westwards.
" "Oh, do they? In your face?" Of course, you can never have two leavers together cos they will die of dysentery.
What you tend to find is you get a putter with a leaver.
The most annoying thing about leavers is they are more fun to be around, they are happier people, because they go around dropping things and knocking stuff over and the putter goes, "That goes there, that goes there.
I'm valid in the relationship.
" Leavers drop things cos they're enjoying life.
"Who cares where my keys are? Tin foil - shiny!" Not a good mixture in a relationship.
"Let's make a collage.
" "Let's make a list.
" I make lists for a very simple reason.
I like to control my life.
My view on happiness is it's kind of like that.
It goes up and down, it's wavy.
The happier you are, the sadder you'll be.
It always evens out.
And if you're impulsive, you will have days where everything's perfect but you'll have days when everything goes bad and you'll fluctuate a lot like that.
I can't handle that, so I keep my wave fairly shallow.
"Oh, that was a nice Kit Kat.
Oh, bloody hell.
" And if I try to be impulsive I don't know how it's done and I just ruin days.
The last girlfriend I went out with, we were chatting, it was the first time we'd spoken.
She said, "Let's go out on a date.
What would you like to do?" I thought, "Don't be honest about what you would like to do "cos it's probably weird.
Say something sexy and impulsive.
" I said something so impulsive even I didn't really know I was going to say it until after it had happened.
She said, "Oh, this has been nice, what would you like to do?" I said, "Oh, let's go ice-skating.
" Which is easily the shittest sentence I have ever said.
The phrase, "Would you like to go ice skating?" is on a par with "Would you like a fire bath?" Just an experience and a range of temperatures your body does not need to go through.
If you go ice-skating, you will fall and hurt yourself and it's your fault.
Ice has evolved.
It's got slippery for a reason.
It doesn't want us on its back.
I don't mind falling over, I fall over in life, I like a drink.
You trip and you put your hands out and you try and minimise the damage.
That doesn't work on ice.
On ice, you splay out and you slide for another 50 yards, surrounded by out-of-control teenagers with razor blades on their shoes.
That is how you lose three fingers.
If you're going to lose fingers, you need an anecdote, cos you'll get asked about it.
"Where did you lose those fingers, was in a war?" "No, in an ice rink.
" So I panicked.
We went on the date, she'd been before so she went straight through the gate.
She was doing loop the loop, plies and triple salchows and all that bollocks.
I thought, "I can't go out in the middle, that is the most dangerous area.
"But what I can do is just move around the edge and then I've got a barrier to hold onto.
" Which, in terms of health and safety, is a 10 out of 10 move.
In terms of looking sexy on a first date it's a nought out of 10 move.
She was looking over at me trying to look sexy and I'm going "You like this, baby?" "Daddy moves like your grandmother, that's right.
" She tried everything to get me off the edge.
"Come on, John, what's the worst that could happen?" I went, "Three fingers!" She actually misunderstood.
Awkward conversation.
Eventually she got me off the edge and the sentence she used, I will guarantee everyone watching this has done something they had no intention of doing because of the following phrase.
She went, "Come on, John, in at the deep end.
" There's something about that phrase that makes you go "In at the deep end!" I think it's just because it's rhythmical.
"Dibby-de-ba-ba.
" And you go, "Dibby-de-ba-ba!" As advice, it's terrible.
It basically means, "Why don't you, "as a non-swimmer, just have a jump in that deep water there?" You might as well just say, "Go on, try and kill yourself.
" The advice should be, "Come on, John, let's walk there together from the shallow end with floats on.
" That doesn't scan.
She said, "In at the deep end" and I thought, "Well, that's obviously how you learn to ice-skate or she wouldn't have said it.
" So I flung myself off the edge, instantly slipped And you really need your brain there to go, "It's all right, I've got this one, I know exactly what to do.
" What my brain said was "It's all right, John, I actually think you can outrun this.
" You can't outrun a fall.
No one in the history of mankind has ever run outrun a fall.
You just double your options to falling or smashing your face into a wall.
I started pumping my legs.
Cos there's no friction, they just go like that.
You enter a move I call the road runner phase, where the legs are going but the body is still.
But it feels like you are winning cos you're not falling any more.
"This is just fine, this.
"I'll just do this for all eternity.
We'll get married here.
" Then I started tilting forward and I thought, "I'm probably not that far from the barrier.
"I can probably still get hold of that.
" I flung my arm out and I got the barrier You weren't expecting that, were you, world? Then I thought, "That barrier is actually a little bit squidgier than the last one.
"I don't remember the last one screaming when I grabbed hold of it.
" And I grabbed her.
Not an outstretched arm or anything like that, just an innocent breast.
And because this is comedy, I imagine you think it was a kind of Hugh Grant romantic comedy style, "Oh, no, how embarrassing, but slightly arousing.
See you at the bottom!" It was nothing like that, it was just a good, old-fashioned, "Aagh!" "This is mine.
" I really pulled on this thing.
Various thoughts go through a man's brain when he's grabbed a breast.
First of all, "Hee-hee-hee.
" There's nothing you can do about that, that's a reflex.
Second is usually, "I should let go of this.
"I don't think she's getting the buzz that we are.
" Not my brain.
My brain said, "Don't let go of that, you'll fall.
" So I carried on pulling on it, right.
She was a lovely girl but she wasn't built to carry that kind of load.
She hit the deck and I came tumbling after her.
On the floor she's already laughing.
She thinks, "If we get together this is going to be hilarious.
" I'm lying next to her absolutely furious.
Not only because she'd buckled.
"Put your back into it, love, there's two of us in this.
" It was mainly cos I'd found out that when you grab breasts they don't go HE MAKES HONKING NOISE Devastating.
This has been an absolute honour.
Take care.
Bye-bye.
Mr John Richardson.
Ladies and gentlemen, are we ready for the next act? CHEERING Ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to ask you to help us welcome another very good friend of mine, a very special guest on the stage tonight, a very funny man indeed, please, give it up for the comedy talents that are Micky Flanagan! Hello, thank you.
Thank you.
Good evening, everybody.
Hello.
Very nice to be here.
So I'm from the East End of London.
Let's use the facilities.
This is the cockney walk.
This is your casual cockney walk, this.
This is your standard cockney walk.
"Not a lot going on.
Just having a little bit of a walkabout.
"There you go.
Having a little walkabout.
A little look about.
" Just your casual cockney walk.
Then you've got your busy cockney walk.
"Obviously I'm double busy.
Double busy! "Can't hang about.
I've got to sign on and get back to work.
" Left school with a bottle opener.
Made in the third year.
It wasn't a rubbish one.
It was good, because the two biggest departments in our schools, woodwork and metalwork.
So I made the metal bits in the metalwork department.
I went inter-departmental.
Went across the corridor.
I said to the woodwork teacher, "Do you mind if I put a wooden handle on my bottle opener, sir?" He said, "You're a natural, son.
"Things are going to work out for you.
" We made ashtrays in the second year.
Bottle openers in the third year.
Prams in the fourth year.
But my big thing in the 80s, chasing women.
Back in the 80s, I was an international lover and player.
I was.
I made love to women as far afield as Cardiff, Cornwall.
I got a girl to wank me off on the Isle of Wight.
A day trip.
It was easy to get sex in the 80s.
You had to really work for it.
Women didn't want to part up too quickly.
You had to go to work.
If you met a girl and were taking her out on Saturday night, "Bosh, here we go, a splash of Paco Rabanne.
" Get your jeans out of the cleaners.
A nice crease on them.
And you took her out for the evening, you treated her.
You took her out for a Steak Diane.
A few Cinzano Biancos.
And if she wanted a prawn cocktail, she got a prawn cocktail.
Women went mental for the prawn cocktail in the 80s.
You'd see her little face light up.
You've sat her down and you've presented her with prawns .
.
Lettuce in a wine glass.
.
.
Drizzled with the dressing from a thousand islands.
"Not salad cream tonight, Princess.
" "Tonight, you're special.
" "You're going to get a dressing that's been gathered from a thousand islands "and brought to this steak house in Bethnal Green.
" Now, you want the vagina.
This hasn't changed.
Men have chased the vagina since time began.
The vagina has changed, as we know.
It was still a big hairy beast back in the 80s.
Big, hairy, militant, Marxist, feminist vagina.
It was angry, the vagina, in the 80s.
Had a terrible attitude.
I mean, the knickers weren't small and it was still busting out the side.
Big angry vagina! You started rolling these Marxist knickers down and it would come out, "Grrr! What are you looking at?" But you want the vagina.
So I got myself a place, kitted it out for love - bedsitter.
Quality bedsitter.
Not council.
And I went and got all the latest gear.
I spent about 700 quid, "Right, let's go.
" Take her back, sit her down on the futon.
She's half in bed already.
Up there for thinking.
Go over to my stereo stacker system.
Got a stereo stacker.
With a built-in graphic equaliser.
That does nothing.
I slip into the cassette deck, Now That's What I Call Music Two.
Now, I know Luther Vandross will be on in a minute.
When Luther comes on, bosh, I'm in.
This frees up the time for me to go off to the kitchenette area.
I've got a kitchenette area.
It's not a pisshole I'm living in.
I've got a kitchenette.
I go behind my little bit of curtain.
Got to have a little bit of curtain around your kitchen, come on.
I change into the uniform of the international player, which we know is the silk, black kimono.
Come back out into the main area.
I've kept my jeans on.
I'm not a monster.
I turn round to reveal the dragon.
Hold that pose.
Come back with a nice chilled bottle of Blue Nun.
Oh, she's gone.
Now, playing days are over for me anyway.
I sorted my life out in the late 80s.
Met a very nice girl.
Proper middle class.
She's been skiing and everything.
About four years ago - we were together six years - we were making love, right? Making love.
She said, "I want a baby.
I want a baby.
" I said, "Well, if you come off the pill I'll start leaving it in, right?" Sostarted leaving it in.
Child came along, was created.
My wife, quite a middle-class woman, said, after a few months, "I'm losing my identity.
"Losing my identity!" I said, "Have you finished your cleaning?" Course I didn't.
We've got a cleaner.
Everyone's got a cleaner now.
Poor people have got cleaners.
Soshe went back to work, leaving me to bring the child up.
So I'm pushing him along the street in his £500 pram, which I resented, initially.
Then I got involved in a race in Somerfields.
Turns on a tanner.
Turns on a tanner.
Some idiot in a £200 buggy tried to cut me up?! I said, "Come on, mate, there's a monkey's worth of pramette coming through here.
"Shouldn't you be in Iceland's with that thing?" I'm not I'm not a snob.
But we did buy an overpriced house to store the baby in, you know what I mean? In a nice area.
Really nice area.
My wife went back to work.
It's the thing about having children, it is a bit tedious because you get up early with them.
You get up about 6:30am.
By about 7:30am, you're running out of ideas.
So the government say, "Not too much telly, not too much telly.
" They don't know what they're talking about.
He loves a bit of telly.
Never once has this little boy turned to me and gone, "There's nothing on, Dad.
" I put him by the telly, right.
He's watching Thomas the Tank Engine.
I'm reading about the budget deficit, which is very high, as we know, and you should be more worried about it.
He's watching Thomas.
I'm reading the paper.
He's watching Thomas.
I'm reading the paper.
Suddenly, I'M watching Thomas.
Two years later, I'm a massive fan of Thomas.
I've got to know the trains again, haven't I? Their little personalities, you know.
You think, "Oh, Toby's turned up, this'll be a blinder, this will.
" No, cos he's not a proper diesel or a steamy, he's square, he plays up a bit, you know.
So you're guaranteed a good episode with Toby.
Now, the worst thing about having children - you're thoroughly enjoying an episode of Thomas, the little boy looks up at me and thinks, "He's enjoying himself a bit.
I'm not having that.
"I think I'll go off and top myself.
" So he goes and gets in the oven.
Keep me on my toes.
And you have to go, "Hot, hot, hot! Hot, hot, hot!" And you miss the end of Thomas.
It ruins the rest of your day.
Ruins it.
It gnaws away at you.
You think, "How did that end?" And it's not the sort of show you can just pop down the pub that night and start asking about, you know what I mean? Saying to people, "I don't suppose you saw Thomas this morning, did you?" "They brought the orchestra over, right, to play at the fete, the Sodor fete, "they've only sent Percy to pick them up, haven't they? "I don't know what the Fat Controller's thinking about sometimes, I really don't.
" "We know it's a job for Gordon, don't we? "Possibly Henry, at a push.
" Ladies and gentlemen, you have been absolutely lovely.
Thank you very much.
Enjoy the rest of your evening.
Thank you.
Mr Micky Flanagan! Yes, what a great time we've had tonight.
Just to round up, I just want to say one last thing.
They say PC has gone a bit too mad in this country.
Everyone's a bit too PC.
Too PC.
Now, I think PC's OK if it means you've got to think before you speak and you respect other people.
However, it can go too far.
A blackboard is a blackboard.
Keep singing Baa Baa Black Sheep.
It dawned on me when I watched a programme earlier this year.
It was called Finding Dorothy.
Anybody see that programme? Basically they were looking for a West End star to play Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz.
I was hooked on this programme.
I watched it until it got to the final ten and I found out that one of them was black.
And I was like, "What? "To play Dorothy? I don't think so.
" Now, don't get me wrong, folks, there were black people in rural Kansas in 1939.
They just weren't allowed on the Yellow Brick Road.
Ladies and gentlemen, that about rounds it up for tonight.
Please help me thank my first guest, Mr John Richardson! And we finished with Mr Micky Flanagan! You have been a great audience.
I have simply been gorgeous.
My name is Stephen K Amos.
Good night.
Thank you very much for coming out.
Looking around the audience, who do we have in this evening? Mr Colin Jackson.
In the house! Yeah, Olympic and world superstar.
Hurdler, yeah? But I notice also, a slightly high voice.
Is that one of the hazards of hurdling? Welcome, Colin.
Nice to have you here.
Oh, the lovely Esther Rantzen is here.
Hello, Miss Esther, how are you? I'm good, thanks.
Very nice to have you here.
Unfortunately, if you don't like this show there is not any complaining procedure.
Sorry, but that'slife.
Welcome, welcome.
Before we start, I want to tell you a little bit about myself.
I come from quite a big family.
There are eight kids in the family.
Now, what can I tell you about that? Well, my dad loved the Jackson Five.
And, quite clearly, sex.
Very, very tough existence.
I remember as a young kid saying to my dad, "Dad, dad, with so many kids in the family there's not enough money.
"Can I have some pocket money?" My dad would look at me and go, "Shut up, bastard! "Your pocket is for your hand.
" That's not the sort of thing you tell a teenage boy with holes in his pocket.
I'd say to my dad, "Dad, what does the future hold?" He'd sit me down and go, "One day, son, "people will hang televisions "off their walls as though they were pictures.
" I'd be like, "Dad, what's a picture?" I'd say to my mum, "Mum, all the other kids are playing outside.
"Can I play outside?" My mum would go, "Shut up, bastard! "Go upstairs and read a book.
" We had one book.
The phone book.
I read it.
Wasn't a great read.
I don't want to spoil it for you.
Lots of characters.
And at the end, a lot of Polish people turn up.
Parents are very, very strange.
Even little things.
If we, as a family, played Monopoly, right, and I landed on jail, my dad would make me stand in the cupboard under the stairs to add a bit of realism.
I remember when I got one of those Community Chest cards.
It said, "You've been caught speeding.
£60 fine.
" My dad looked at me and went, "Go upstairs to your bedroom and think about what you have done.
" My dad has mellowed later on in life.
My dad is now 75 years old and we are getting on.
We are getting on.
But a couple of things about him I've now noticed, as he's gotten older, the level and volume of his sneezing has increased exponentially.
And I don't know if you know this, but a sneeze is one-eighth of an orgasm.
So when I hear my dad sneezing now, I just think, "He's never had it so good!" It's really hard to get him out of the house.
I'm like, "Dad, dad, let's go to the pub.
"What do you think?" He'd go, "No, I'm going to have a quiet evening in with the pepper pot.
" Being a child from a big family, I had loads of brothers and sisters.
Anyone here who's got an older brother, you'll know that you believed EVERYTHING your older brother said.
He was my God.
My older brother told me stuff that I believed.
My older brother once told me that people on TV could see you as well.
It was so embarrassing.
I could never, ever watch Baywatch again.
Yes, David Hasselhoff knew too much.
And also he'd say things like, "You know, the milkman has got his own special udder.
"You should go and pull it.
" I pulled it.
Social services were called.
And we never saw the milkman again.
Very, very tough existence.
But, at school, you want to fit in and I was very, very paranoid cos at school I had really big feet, massive feet.
So, for three years, as a kid at school, I wore shoes three sizes too small.
Would you believe it, later on in life, I've got a crooked cock.
Some of you now are trying to process that! "How did he walk?" But also at school, I wanted a teacher Do we have any teachers here this evening? Any teachers? SHOUTS AND CHEERS Yes, what age group do you teach? Secondary? Respect to you.
Respect.
What subject? Maths.
So you do maths, and you? Science.
Respect.
I asked that same question at a show yesterday, lady at the front went, "Yeah, I do primary.
" I went, "Listen, love, you're not a teacher.
You're a helper.
"Let me guess, what subject do you teach?" "Everything.
" I wanted a teacher at school who was inspiring.
A teacher like Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society.
Instead, I got a teacher like Robin Williams in a Mrs Doubtfire.
We weren't even allowed to go on any school trips.
Anybody go on school trips? Yeah, where did you go, sir? The beach.
The beach?! That really doesn't help me at all.
"Beach! "We go trip beach!" Where are you from, sir? Kent.
Kent.
OK, beach.
I shouldn't disparage.
I digress.
I once went on a family holiday many years ago.
Obviously, as I said, there were so many kids in the family that the only memory of family holidays is the smell of petrol, right? With all us kids in the car, my dad would put me and my sister in the boot.
Yeah? After four hours in the boot, I'd go, "Dad, dad, can you guess where we are yet?" And he'd go, "Shut up, bastard! "We're on the motorway and if you are talking, you're not hiding.
" It was a family holiday in Margate, back in the old days.
CHEERING Oh, please, don't cheer Margate.
I haven't finished.
I'm talking the late '70s, right? All the family traipsed down there, arrived in Margate, miserable weather, horrible food, rainy, windy.
We walked along the beachfront and this random bloke comes up to us and goes, "Oi, you lot! "Why don't you go back to where you came from?" And I was like, "Don't you think I've asked myself the very same question?" But then fast forward to this year and I've had two holidays already.
Two holidays.
I went to America.
Mmm, boom! Yes, but I don't know if you know this, folks, but in America there is no point of reference for a black British person, right? I was in a cafe in America.
I said, "I'd like a cappuccino, please.
" The guy behind the desk went, "Oh, my God! "It's Jeffrey from the Fresh Prince!" Don't applaud that.
I look nothing like him! In fact, a friend said to me that I look like a black Alan Sugar.
No, say it ain't so! One of the reasons I went to America is because my favourite drink is Jack Daniels.
So I went to the birthplace of Jack Daniels, which is where? ALL: Tennessee.
Thank you.
Whereabouts in Tennessee? Lynchburg.
It's OK, folks, what's done is done.
But how much does it cost to change a sign? I went to the Jack Daniel's distillery.
They could answer all my questions.
How long is the ageing process? How long does it take to go through all the charcoal? The one question they couldn't answer was, "Why is this place still called Lynchburg? "Come on, guys, don't leave me hanging.
" And I also went to Nigeria.
My parents are from Nigeria and it was quite an experience.
I arrived at immigration with my two earrings, right? The immigration took one look at me and went, "Ah, are you a man or a woman?" I said, "I'm quite clearly a man.
" And he said, "Shame.
With your powerful legs and your broad shoulders, "you make a beautiful lady.
" The things I've done for a visa.
Angela.
My good friend, Angela Griffin's here.
Hi, Ange.
All right? We like Ange, yeah? In the house.
I loved you in Coronation Street.
You played a hairdresser.
That's right.
And in Cutting It you played a hairdresser.
A beautician, actually.
A beautician? Quite similar.
What a range.
I've been on tour, as well, folks, and I've seen all of the country.
I travelled on various means of transport.
I took the train.
Oh, my God! When I took the train as a kid, it was only so my mum could beat us in public.
"Think yourself lucky.
"Other children are merely beaten at home.
"I'm beating you as you gaze out on to beautiful scenery.
" And the trains now, aren't they so high-tech? Oh, my God.
You now get a socket by your seat.
A socket by your seat.
If you're on a train, there is a socket by your seat.
Use it to the max.
Get your ironing done.
Blow-dry your hair.
When I now travel on the train, I take a kettle and George Foreman grill.
Yeah, I can knock out coffee and sandwiches cheaper than the buffet car.
And television, I'm really a big fan of TV, right.
People are now saying that apparently young people are being influenced by what they see on TV.
And any parents here, you might remember this, there is a cartoon called Peppa Pig.
Anybody know that cartoon? CHEERING Yeah.
People are applauding a cartoon! "Oh yes!" And what it was, they had to re-edit two of the episodes cos apparently Peppa Pig was seen driving a car without a seatbelt.
Yeah.
We had Roadrunner! He jumped off buildings.
If you've got a child who copies what they see on adverts, that's called natural selection.
Get rid.
Get another one.
Back in the old days, '70s, '80s, all our bits of technology were built into bits of furniture.
Look at people nodding.
Yes! Is it any wonder the rainforest is now depleting? The stereo in our lounge was built under so much mahogany that I thought if I lifted the lid I would discover a lost Amazonian tribe.
"Mum, look, "a man with a plate in his lip has just shot a dart in my face.
" "Shut up, he's your father.
" When I was growing up, we had one telephone in the house, in the hallway.
Anybody my age remember that? One telephone.
I'd be like that, "Listen, I can't talk for long, Dad is staring at me.
"Dad, dad, can I have some privacy?" And he'd go, "Privacy? "Buy your own house!" One thing I remember from school, though, teachers, yeah, finger painting.
Remember that? I loved that.
Cos I come from inner-city London, right? And it was only later on in life that I realised it was our headmaster's ingenious way to get our fingerprints early.
He'd say, "Most of you will go on to offend later on in life.
"I'm a merely cutting out the middleman.
" Also, one of the things I seem to remember from school, folks, right, one of the main things I remember is that I'm not a very sporty child.
Not sporty at all.
And it dawned on me, right, if you're a white kid at an all-black school, and you're not sporty, people assume you're academic.
But if you're a black kid at an all-white school, you can't dance or sing, people assume you're adopted.
The one thing I loved at school was the power of the note.
Forget the man who invented the television.
Forget him.
Forget the man who invented the internet.
The power of the note, the note could get you out of anything.
PE? No, I've got a note.
Jabs? I've got a note.
If only the note could follow you later on in life.
Can you imagine me in the military in a Chinook helicopter over Afghanistan? "Private Amos, jump.
" "I can't, I've got a note.
"Mum says don't jump.
Not in these shoes.
"You get me?" And the leader of the free world, Barack Obama, wow, look at that.
If Barack Obama was a kid at my primary school and said to my careers adviser, "I want to be the President", the careers adviser would have gone, "Well, O-bummer" Obviously a temporary careers adviser.
".
.
I can definitely see you on the campaign busdriving it.
" Also, folks, I want to be a bit honest with you tonight.
I'm very much into same-sex relationships cos I think it's very important that you're both into the same kind of sex.
Otherwise it can create friction.
GROANS APPLAUSE Thank you.
People say to me, "Steve, are you gay or bisexual?" I go, "Definitely gay, there's no two ways about it.
" That's one positive thing about being gay cos a lot of those skills are transferable.
Is that too much? But my mum's take on it is this, if my mum saw me having sex with a man she'd be like this.
"Oh, the man my son is having sex with, HE is the gay one.
" That's my mum.
But my friends, they are quite bad at trying to set me up.
I say to them I like a man in uniform.
Barry from B&Q wasn't quite what I had in mind.
But, as I say, I'm having fun at the moment doing this job.
Look at me, yeah, I've actually been asked to host Live At The Apollo! CHEERING And Lenny Henry isn't dead.
No! He's just locked in a room at the Premiere Inn.
OK, ladies and gentlemen, are we ready to start the show? CHEERING Ladies and gentlemen, please help me welcome my first guest on tonight.
A very good friend of mine.
A rising star on the comedy circuit.
Please give it up for the comedy talents that are Mr John Richardson! CHEERING AND APPLAUSE Hello.
Hello.
How are you? This is good, isn't it? Big! HIGH-PITCHED SCREAM Ooh, yeah! One of them as well.
Why not? Very rare you get that response in a cardigan, but, you know.
It's nice.
It's times like this, as a stand-up, you realise, I think I basically just moan for a living.
I'm going to make a concerted effort to be positive and happy cos that's what people like, apparently.
And I get accused, I constantly get told I'm grumpy and miserable, and I'm not.
I'm happy.
I'm upbeat.
I love being alive.
Love being a human.
Being a human's unbelievable, isn't it? If you're a human, you really have nothing to moan about.
I realise this year that being a human is the best on the planet.
I was on a plane eating a chicken sandwich.
That's not it.
It's pretty good, though.
I thought, "I am eating a bird whilst I am flying.
" Unbelievable.
I, a flightless land mammal, am consuming a bird in mid-air.
Never mind the fact I just ordered a gin and tonic in a cloud.
Being a human's so easy that that's are why you get annoyed with people cos people don't seem to try as hard as I would like them to, about life.
I am a perfectionist.
Give us a cheer if you're a perfectionist.
Fair few of you.
The rest of you are annoying.
You go around and make mistakes and you drop things and you laugh about it, cos you think it's part of life's rich tapestry.
It isn't.
You should be trying harder.
I'm a massive perfectionist to the point that every mistake in my life counts the same.
So, in my world, dropping a spoon is the same as running someone over.
In that, you didn't mean to do it and you did it, so you have to get angry about it and make sure it never happens again.
And I watch people make mistakes.
I came into London last year to do some gigs and I was on the London Underground.
I was on the Hammersmith and City line which, if you don't know London, is the line that goes from Hammersmith into the City.
Cockneys really don't piss around when they're naming their things.
"I built a tube line, Gary.
It goes from Hammersmith to the City.
" "Oh, yeah, what you gonna call it?" "Don't muck about, Gary.
Don't muck about.
" So anyway, I was on the Underground, sat down.
I knew I needed six stops to get to where I was going and opposite me on are two young girls, they're all dressed up, going out for the evening.
They're laughing, giggling, joking.
They're generally pissing me off.
I'm not a big fan of public shows of joy.
My motto is, there's misery in this world, you just have to look for it.
If something's broken, you can fix it and if it's untidy, you can tidy it.
If someone's unhappy, you can make them laugh and you've made their day a bit better.
Happy people are finished.
You can't help them.
If you're happy, don't go out, just stay at home and enjoy walls and ceilings.
My real issue with the happy is it's happy people who make mistakes because they're so busy enjoying life they've forgotten to do it properly.
So I was on the underground and these girls were laughing away.
A perfect example because they are enjoying being together so much they haven't noticed they've got on completely the wrong train.
So we are hurtling off in this direction and they should actually be going in this direction.
About five minutes in, one of the girls cottoned on.
She tapped her mate and went, LAUGHS HEARTILY "We're on the" I would have been furious.
Let's say it now - that's not funny, is it? What's happened there is you've just lost a big chunk of your life.
The time you were going to spend doing the thing you left the house to do you will now spend correcting your ineptitude.
I know some people would say once you've got on the wrong train, there's nothing you can do but laugh about it.
The only reason you'd laugh in this situation is if you do this so often you've just had to learn to find it amusing.
"Done it again, what are we like?!" I'll tell you.
Shit at being alive.
It wasn't just that they laughed initially, they laughed all through the conversation about the fact there was no line they could get that would hook them back round and they'd have to cross the track at the next stop and go back in the opposite direction.
Then one of them went, "You'll have to phone Neil and tell him we're going to be late.
He won't believe this!" Yes, he will.
It's not a far-fetched anecdote, is it? Neil's an idiot if you phone him and go, "We've got on the wrong train", and he goes, "No, it's never happened before!" And they got off and they were still laughing.
They got off at the next stop.
I sat there thinking, "This is unbelievable! "If you're not going to let this ruin your day, I'm going to have to take one for the team here.
"Strap on a pair and learn from this mistake even though I didn't make it.
" I just started ranting in my chair.
"This is typical of the world, this is.
"Never mind laughing about it, the fact is, Neil is waiting for them.
" "And I'll tell you why Neil is waiting for them, "cos Neil got there in good time by getting the right frigging train.
"I've got no qualms with Neil, Neil's a good egg.
" I ranted for about 10 minutes.
All I achieved in that 10 minutes was that I went straight through the stop I was meant to be getting off at.
You would have to concede that that's mental illness, if you are allowing your own life to be ruined by mistakes you haven't even made.
The worst thing about it is it means a relationship is out of the question because you can't go out with someone when you pick up on every mistake, people don't like it.
My view on relationships and on people in general is this - There are two types of people in the world.
Basically there are putters and leavers.
If you are not sure which one you are, you'll find out if I ask you a question like "Where are your keys?" and you go, "They are where I put them.
" You are a putter.
And to sum up, you're a good human being.
You work hard, you try hard, you are probably quite successful.
The other group, the leavers, or shithead devils To give them their full title.
If you say to them, "Where are your keys?" They'll go, "Wherever I left them!" And you will die in an accident.
That's just a fact, you have to know where things are.
That is a fact.
And here's the problem in relationships.
You tend to find you get a putter with a lever.
You can't have two putters together cos they will kill each other over which way the beans should face in the cupboard.
"They go westwards.
" "Oh, do they? In your face?" Of course, you can never have two leavers together cos they will die of dysentery.
What you tend to find is you get a putter with a leaver.
The most annoying thing about leavers is they are more fun to be around, they are happier people, because they go around dropping things and knocking stuff over and the putter goes, "That goes there, that goes there.
I'm valid in the relationship.
" Leavers drop things cos they're enjoying life.
"Who cares where my keys are? Tin foil - shiny!" Not a good mixture in a relationship.
"Let's make a collage.
" "Let's make a list.
" I make lists for a very simple reason.
I like to control my life.
My view on happiness is it's kind of like that.
It goes up and down, it's wavy.
The happier you are, the sadder you'll be.
It always evens out.
And if you're impulsive, you will have days where everything's perfect but you'll have days when everything goes bad and you'll fluctuate a lot like that.
I can't handle that, so I keep my wave fairly shallow.
"Oh, that was a nice Kit Kat.
Oh, bloody hell.
" And if I try to be impulsive I don't know how it's done and I just ruin days.
The last girlfriend I went out with, we were chatting, it was the first time we'd spoken.
She said, "Let's go out on a date.
What would you like to do?" I thought, "Don't be honest about what you would like to do "cos it's probably weird.
Say something sexy and impulsive.
" I said something so impulsive even I didn't really know I was going to say it until after it had happened.
She said, "Oh, this has been nice, what would you like to do?" I said, "Oh, let's go ice-skating.
" Which is easily the shittest sentence I have ever said.
The phrase, "Would you like to go ice skating?" is on a par with "Would you like a fire bath?" Just an experience and a range of temperatures your body does not need to go through.
If you go ice-skating, you will fall and hurt yourself and it's your fault.
Ice has evolved.
It's got slippery for a reason.
It doesn't want us on its back.
I don't mind falling over, I fall over in life, I like a drink.
You trip and you put your hands out and you try and minimise the damage.
That doesn't work on ice.
On ice, you splay out and you slide for another 50 yards, surrounded by out-of-control teenagers with razor blades on their shoes.
That is how you lose three fingers.
If you're going to lose fingers, you need an anecdote, cos you'll get asked about it.
"Where did you lose those fingers, was in a war?" "No, in an ice rink.
" So I panicked.
We went on the date, she'd been before so she went straight through the gate.
She was doing loop the loop, plies and triple salchows and all that bollocks.
I thought, "I can't go out in the middle, that is the most dangerous area.
"But what I can do is just move around the edge and then I've got a barrier to hold onto.
" Which, in terms of health and safety, is a 10 out of 10 move.
In terms of looking sexy on a first date it's a nought out of 10 move.
She was looking over at me trying to look sexy and I'm going "You like this, baby?" "Daddy moves like your grandmother, that's right.
" She tried everything to get me off the edge.
"Come on, John, what's the worst that could happen?" I went, "Three fingers!" She actually misunderstood.
Awkward conversation.
Eventually she got me off the edge and the sentence she used, I will guarantee everyone watching this has done something they had no intention of doing because of the following phrase.
She went, "Come on, John, in at the deep end.
" There's something about that phrase that makes you go "In at the deep end!" I think it's just because it's rhythmical.
"Dibby-de-ba-ba.
" And you go, "Dibby-de-ba-ba!" As advice, it's terrible.
It basically means, "Why don't you, "as a non-swimmer, just have a jump in that deep water there?" You might as well just say, "Go on, try and kill yourself.
" The advice should be, "Come on, John, let's walk there together from the shallow end with floats on.
" That doesn't scan.
She said, "In at the deep end" and I thought, "Well, that's obviously how you learn to ice-skate or she wouldn't have said it.
" So I flung myself off the edge, instantly slipped And you really need your brain there to go, "It's all right, I've got this one, I know exactly what to do.
" What my brain said was "It's all right, John, I actually think you can outrun this.
" You can't outrun a fall.
No one in the history of mankind has ever run outrun a fall.
You just double your options to falling or smashing your face into a wall.
I started pumping my legs.
Cos there's no friction, they just go like that.
You enter a move I call the road runner phase, where the legs are going but the body is still.
But it feels like you are winning cos you're not falling any more.
"This is just fine, this.
"I'll just do this for all eternity.
We'll get married here.
" Then I started tilting forward and I thought, "I'm probably not that far from the barrier.
"I can probably still get hold of that.
" I flung my arm out and I got the barrier You weren't expecting that, were you, world? Then I thought, "That barrier is actually a little bit squidgier than the last one.
"I don't remember the last one screaming when I grabbed hold of it.
" And I grabbed her.
Not an outstretched arm or anything like that, just an innocent breast.
And because this is comedy, I imagine you think it was a kind of Hugh Grant romantic comedy style, "Oh, no, how embarrassing, but slightly arousing.
See you at the bottom!" It was nothing like that, it was just a good, old-fashioned, "Aagh!" "This is mine.
" I really pulled on this thing.
Various thoughts go through a man's brain when he's grabbed a breast.
First of all, "Hee-hee-hee.
" There's nothing you can do about that, that's a reflex.
Second is usually, "I should let go of this.
"I don't think she's getting the buzz that we are.
" Not my brain.
My brain said, "Don't let go of that, you'll fall.
" So I carried on pulling on it, right.
She was a lovely girl but she wasn't built to carry that kind of load.
She hit the deck and I came tumbling after her.
On the floor she's already laughing.
She thinks, "If we get together this is going to be hilarious.
" I'm lying next to her absolutely furious.
Not only because she'd buckled.
"Put your back into it, love, there's two of us in this.
" It was mainly cos I'd found out that when you grab breasts they don't go HE MAKES HONKING NOISE Devastating.
This has been an absolute honour.
Take care.
Bye-bye.
Mr John Richardson.
Ladies and gentlemen, are we ready for the next act? CHEERING Ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to ask you to help us welcome another very good friend of mine, a very special guest on the stage tonight, a very funny man indeed, please, give it up for the comedy talents that are Micky Flanagan! Hello, thank you.
Thank you.
Good evening, everybody.
Hello.
Very nice to be here.
So I'm from the East End of London.
Let's use the facilities.
This is the cockney walk.
This is your casual cockney walk, this.
This is your standard cockney walk.
"Not a lot going on.
Just having a little bit of a walkabout.
"There you go.
Having a little walkabout.
A little look about.
" Just your casual cockney walk.
Then you've got your busy cockney walk.
"Obviously I'm double busy.
Double busy! "Can't hang about.
I've got to sign on and get back to work.
" Left school with a bottle opener.
Made in the third year.
It wasn't a rubbish one.
It was good, because the two biggest departments in our schools, woodwork and metalwork.
So I made the metal bits in the metalwork department.
I went inter-departmental.
Went across the corridor.
I said to the woodwork teacher, "Do you mind if I put a wooden handle on my bottle opener, sir?" He said, "You're a natural, son.
"Things are going to work out for you.
" We made ashtrays in the second year.
Bottle openers in the third year.
Prams in the fourth year.
But my big thing in the 80s, chasing women.
Back in the 80s, I was an international lover and player.
I was.
I made love to women as far afield as Cardiff, Cornwall.
I got a girl to wank me off on the Isle of Wight.
A day trip.
It was easy to get sex in the 80s.
You had to really work for it.
Women didn't want to part up too quickly.
You had to go to work.
If you met a girl and were taking her out on Saturday night, "Bosh, here we go, a splash of Paco Rabanne.
" Get your jeans out of the cleaners.
A nice crease on them.
And you took her out for the evening, you treated her.
You took her out for a Steak Diane.
A few Cinzano Biancos.
And if she wanted a prawn cocktail, she got a prawn cocktail.
Women went mental for the prawn cocktail in the 80s.
You'd see her little face light up.
You've sat her down and you've presented her with prawns .
.
Lettuce in a wine glass.
.
.
Drizzled with the dressing from a thousand islands.
"Not salad cream tonight, Princess.
" "Tonight, you're special.
" "You're going to get a dressing that's been gathered from a thousand islands "and brought to this steak house in Bethnal Green.
" Now, you want the vagina.
This hasn't changed.
Men have chased the vagina since time began.
The vagina has changed, as we know.
It was still a big hairy beast back in the 80s.
Big, hairy, militant, Marxist, feminist vagina.
It was angry, the vagina, in the 80s.
Had a terrible attitude.
I mean, the knickers weren't small and it was still busting out the side.
Big angry vagina! You started rolling these Marxist knickers down and it would come out, "Grrr! What are you looking at?" But you want the vagina.
So I got myself a place, kitted it out for love - bedsitter.
Quality bedsitter.
Not council.
And I went and got all the latest gear.
I spent about 700 quid, "Right, let's go.
" Take her back, sit her down on the futon.
She's half in bed already.
Up there for thinking.
Go over to my stereo stacker system.
Got a stereo stacker.
With a built-in graphic equaliser.
That does nothing.
I slip into the cassette deck, Now That's What I Call Music Two.
Now, I know Luther Vandross will be on in a minute.
When Luther comes on, bosh, I'm in.
This frees up the time for me to go off to the kitchenette area.
I've got a kitchenette area.
It's not a pisshole I'm living in.
I've got a kitchenette.
I go behind my little bit of curtain.
Got to have a little bit of curtain around your kitchen, come on.
I change into the uniform of the international player, which we know is the silk, black kimono.
Come back out into the main area.
I've kept my jeans on.
I'm not a monster.
I turn round to reveal the dragon.
Hold that pose.
Come back with a nice chilled bottle of Blue Nun.
Oh, she's gone.
Now, playing days are over for me anyway.
I sorted my life out in the late 80s.
Met a very nice girl.
Proper middle class.
She's been skiing and everything.
About four years ago - we were together six years - we were making love, right? Making love.
She said, "I want a baby.
I want a baby.
" I said, "Well, if you come off the pill I'll start leaving it in, right?" Sostarted leaving it in.
Child came along, was created.
My wife, quite a middle-class woman, said, after a few months, "I'm losing my identity.
"Losing my identity!" I said, "Have you finished your cleaning?" Course I didn't.
We've got a cleaner.
Everyone's got a cleaner now.
Poor people have got cleaners.
Soshe went back to work, leaving me to bring the child up.
So I'm pushing him along the street in his £500 pram, which I resented, initially.
Then I got involved in a race in Somerfields.
Turns on a tanner.
Turns on a tanner.
Some idiot in a £200 buggy tried to cut me up?! I said, "Come on, mate, there's a monkey's worth of pramette coming through here.
"Shouldn't you be in Iceland's with that thing?" I'm not I'm not a snob.
But we did buy an overpriced house to store the baby in, you know what I mean? In a nice area.
Really nice area.
My wife went back to work.
It's the thing about having children, it is a bit tedious because you get up early with them.
You get up about 6:30am.
By about 7:30am, you're running out of ideas.
So the government say, "Not too much telly, not too much telly.
" They don't know what they're talking about.
He loves a bit of telly.
Never once has this little boy turned to me and gone, "There's nothing on, Dad.
" I put him by the telly, right.
He's watching Thomas the Tank Engine.
I'm reading about the budget deficit, which is very high, as we know, and you should be more worried about it.
He's watching Thomas.
I'm reading the paper.
He's watching Thomas.
I'm reading the paper.
Suddenly, I'M watching Thomas.
Two years later, I'm a massive fan of Thomas.
I've got to know the trains again, haven't I? Their little personalities, you know.
You think, "Oh, Toby's turned up, this'll be a blinder, this will.
" No, cos he's not a proper diesel or a steamy, he's square, he plays up a bit, you know.
So you're guaranteed a good episode with Toby.
Now, the worst thing about having children - you're thoroughly enjoying an episode of Thomas, the little boy looks up at me and thinks, "He's enjoying himself a bit.
I'm not having that.
"I think I'll go off and top myself.
" So he goes and gets in the oven.
Keep me on my toes.
And you have to go, "Hot, hot, hot! Hot, hot, hot!" And you miss the end of Thomas.
It ruins the rest of your day.
Ruins it.
It gnaws away at you.
You think, "How did that end?" And it's not the sort of show you can just pop down the pub that night and start asking about, you know what I mean? Saying to people, "I don't suppose you saw Thomas this morning, did you?" "They brought the orchestra over, right, to play at the fete, the Sodor fete, "they've only sent Percy to pick them up, haven't they? "I don't know what the Fat Controller's thinking about sometimes, I really don't.
" "We know it's a job for Gordon, don't we? "Possibly Henry, at a push.
" Ladies and gentlemen, you have been absolutely lovely.
Thank you very much.
Enjoy the rest of your evening.
Thank you.
Mr Micky Flanagan! Yes, what a great time we've had tonight.
Just to round up, I just want to say one last thing.
They say PC has gone a bit too mad in this country.
Everyone's a bit too PC.
Too PC.
Now, I think PC's OK if it means you've got to think before you speak and you respect other people.
However, it can go too far.
A blackboard is a blackboard.
Keep singing Baa Baa Black Sheep.
It dawned on me when I watched a programme earlier this year.
It was called Finding Dorothy.
Anybody see that programme? Basically they were looking for a West End star to play Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz.
I was hooked on this programme.
I watched it until it got to the final ten and I found out that one of them was black.
And I was like, "What? "To play Dorothy? I don't think so.
" Now, don't get me wrong, folks, there were black people in rural Kansas in 1939.
They just weren't allowed on the Yellow Brick Road.
Ladies and gentlemen, that about rounds it up for tonight.
Please help me thank my first guest, Mr John Richardson! And we finished with Mr Micky Flanagan! You have been a great audience.
I have simply been gorgeous.
My name is Stephen K Amos.
Good night.