Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle (2009) s02e03 Episode Script
Charity
You've heard of Jesus, you've seen him on Christmas cards.
He said, "Give everything you have to the poor.
All of it, now.
" He was very clear about that.
All of it, now, not some of it later, when you've finished painting the roof of the cathedral gold or setting up a slush fund to pay off sexual-abuse victims.
He was very clear about the need for charity.
Now, in America, a survey has recently shown that the richest fifth of American society give only 2.
1% of their annual income to charity, whereas the poorest fifth of American society give 4.
3% of their annual income to charity.
And then another survey has shown, that's why they're the poorest fifth.
ARMANDO IANNUCCI: Well, Stewart, another episode.
All about charity, I hear.
Yeah.
I tried to do charity in the first week of the series and I got side-tracked by crisps, so I thought I'd, um Presumably, this week, there are There weren't many jokes last week.
Presumably, this week, you'll do more jokes? I'm trying to put more in.
I'm trying to put more jokes in, but you can't make an omelette with no eggs, and I've got no eggs.
Did you crack them all in the first episode? That's right.
Yeah.
STEWART LEE: I like doing stuff for charity.
I do as much as I can for charity all the time.
Not out of altruism - I do it because it makes me feel good about myself.
And, er If you look at my website, you'll see that I do more unpaid charity gigs than any other comic working today.
I do about 45, 50, 55 of those a year.
Again, not out of altruism - I do it cos it makes me feel good about myself and because, at the big charity gigs, there's often important people there that might see you.
So, as I say, I do about 60, 65 of these charity shows a year.
I'm not interested in what the charities are - as I say, I've no interest in the charities or the people they benefit.
In fact, in the last few months, I've done a number of charity benefits for entirely mutually-contradictory charities.
I've done benefits for the Countryside Alliance and the Hunt Saboteurs.
I've done the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, I've done the Royal Society for the Promotion of Cruelty to Animals I've done Save The Children, I've done Enslave The Children.
As I say, I'm not interested in what the charities are and I do about 70, 75, 80 of these charity benefits a year.
But joking apart, right, why You know, why? Why do them? I think we should try and help, shouldn't we, if we can.
All of us here tonight are wealthy, comfortable.
Everyone at home is the same, by global standards.
What should we be giving to charity? What should a millionaire be giving to charity? What should a multi-millionaire be giving to charity? Like, er, for example, Adrian Chiles.
A television character.
LAUGHTER He just transferred, didn't he, last year, from the BBC to ITV, Adrian Chiles, for £6 million.
Eugh, ITV.
Yuck.
It's like a failed state, isn't it? LAUGHTER Run by pirates and criminals.
The Somalia of television.
£6 million, Adrian Chiles got for going to ITV.
£6 million.
I believe it was I, who, last year, described watching Adrian Chiles as like being trapped in the buffet car of a slow-moving express train in the company of a toby jug that's somehow learned how to speak.
A speaking toby jug filled to the brim with hot piss.
Now, I didn't mean anything by this, it was just a bit of It was light-hearted banter, fun, yeah? But I did it on the telly, you might remember, and people kept going on about it.
A few days later, a member of the public went past me in one of these vans that you drive and he Not you, them! And he, er You came here on your bikes, didn't you? LAUGHTER And hehe wound down the window and he shouted out, "Oi! Mate! You said Adrian Chiles looked like a piss-filled jug! "He doesn't - he looks like a pig! You can use that.
" You can't use that, can you? "Hey! "Adrian Chiles looks like a pig!" Rubbish, innit? Pointless.
He doesn't look like a pig anyway, Adrian Chiles, does he? He looks like a man who would be cast as a pig's spirit in a Japanese fantasy film.
LAUGHTER Taking Tripitaka On A Quest.
Yeah, that was a bit obscure even for them, wasn't it? You spend a lot of time making fun of people like Adrian Chiles - their appearance, you know.
Toby-jug reference, that sort of thing.
Do you think that's not umhypocritical? Well, I don't think it's hypocritical.
I mean, I'd be happy if people were doing jokes about my appearance.
I think I'd take it on the chin.
All right.
What do people shout at you? "You look like Terry Christian"? People shout that at me, yeah.
I don't mind that.
"He's let himself go.
" Yeah, well, you could say that.
"You look like Mark Lamarr "who's let himself go.
" Yeah, I've had that.
"You look like Edwyn Collins who's let himself go.
" Yeah, I've had that.
"Morrissey's let himself go.
" Get that a lot.
That's quite funny.
"Leonardo DiCaprio's let himself go.
Badly.
" "Roland Gift has let himself go, look.
" "Chris Isaak's let himself go.
" Yeah.
"KD Lang has let himself go.
" That is a bit of a weird "Look at her.
" "Barbapapa has let himself go.
" Yeah, I've had that, Barbapapa, yeah.
"Look at that.
" Do you get that? I've had that one, yeah.
I've had all of those.
But I don't mind, you know, I don't mind people saying things like that.
Oh, fine.
Well, I won't say it, then.
I won't say it.
£6 million for Adrian Chiles.
When I was a kid, there was a programme called The Six Million Dollar Man.
Now, the Six Million Dollar Man, he could leap over canyons, he could fight sharks For £6 million, I at least expect Adrian Chiles to be able to outrun a train.
As it is, he can barely keep ahead of the slow-moving cloud of disapproval that follows him down the narrow corridor of public opinion.
LAUGHTER Adrian Chiles.
It's sad, isn't it? Cos since he went to ITV for £6 million, he got about a quarter of the viewers that Gary Lineker got on the BBC for his World Cup coverage.
His morning show has lost a lot of viewers as well.
They're not playing to his strengths.
It's not fair.
He's a good broadcaster.
On The One Show on BBC One, he was fantastic on that, wasn't he, Adrian Chiles? He was brilliant on The One Show, talking about wool and hospitals and LAUGHTER .
.
fleas and .
.
string, you know.
And going, "Ooh, someone from EastEnders has got a stick.
" He was brilliant at that, wasn't he? He was.
He was fantastic.
He was the absolute best, wasn't he, Adrian Chiles? At that! He was brilliant.
And now it's sad, it's sad.
I don't know if this is presumptuous, but maybe people aren't watching cos if your unique selling point is that you're one of us, but you're known to have gone for this £6 million transfer, maybe people go, "Why were you?" I don't know.
I don't know if it is that.
I don't think it matters, because I think Adrian Chiles is a good bloke and I'll tell you why.
Because, er, last year - this is just one of the things that we know about - he actually did something for Sport Relief, which is a fantastic charity.
It helps the poorest and most vulnerable people, not just here in Britain, but all around the world.
You may remember David Walliams from Little Britain - he swam the Channel for Sport Relief, which was amazing.
But not as amazing as what Adrian Chiles did.
I don't know if any of you saw this or remember it.
The incredible moment of television.
I wasn't watching, someone rang me up and went, "You have to put this on now.
" It was like the embassy siege of Iran, you know.
And, erfor Sport Relief, he went on television and he had his beard shaved off.
It was absolutely amazing, did you see it? No, it was.
It was fantastic.
And it was interesting as well, because, er You might be like me - sometimes you see someone with a beard, and a few weeks later, it's not there, and you think, "How did that happen?" Um What he did, Adrian Chiles, for Sport Relief, for the poorest and most vulnerable people, he went on and He was just sat there, right? And, erit was incredible.
A guy came over with a load of weird foam stuff and put it all over his face, like that.
But only up to his eyes! They left his eyes.
So he could see, I think, what they were going to do to him.
They do that in Guantanamo Bay, I think - freak people out, yeah? And then another guy came over, and what he had was, he had loads of, like, little about four really thin, sharp blades, they were basically blades stuck to a stick thing.
And they scraped these all over all over Adrian's face and all round his neck, you know, where there's arteries and things.
But he didn't cry, he just sat there, you know, like that.
It was amazing.
And at the end, there wasn't a hair There wasn't a hair left on Adrian Chiles's face.
It was absolutelyamazing.
LAUGHTER And for doing that, right, for having his beard shaved off for charity, for the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world, Adrian Chiles made £60,000.
Which is 1% of his fee, isn't it? LAUGHTER Not everyone in the room laughing at that, was there? There was sort of enough.
It feels like at least half of the room.
Probably a lot of you at home have gone "Seems fine.
" LAUGHTER But it's quite hard to know how to push forwards with this when I don't feel I have the mandate of the room.
Maybe they're right.
Maybe you're right.
1%.
Maybe that's fine, 1%.
That's like If you earned 18 grand a year, it's like giving 180 quid to charity, innit? Is that enough? I dunno.
You probably give that much just to people in the street, don't you, in a year.
No? I don't know.
OK? I don't know, right? The audience here The audience here have been brilliantly hand-picked to to not share my point of view.
Fine.
OK, maybe it is enough, 1%.
I dunno.
What I'm saying is, what should we give to charity? What's the right amount? What should we give to charity? What should a millionaire give to charity? What should a multi-millionaire be giving to charity? Take another TV multi-millionaire, like I don't know.
OK, right, the comedian Russell Howard, for example from .
.
from Russell Howard's Good News and Mock The Week.
Now, according to the News Of The World and the Independent On Sunday, Russell Howard earns £4 million a year, right? Um He's, er He's not performing late at night on BBC Two to audiences most of which appear to disagree with him.
LAUGHTER He's not doing that, as a rule, Russell Howard.
He goes out at the O2, there's 18,000 kids there, he goes, "What about ninjas?!" and they all go, "Yeah, they're mad!" It's brilliant, right? It's not like this! APPLAUSE It's not like this, it's not a passive-aggressive war of attrition.
A simple, fun They're the audience you want, as well, not the BBC Two audience.
The young kids, the BBC Three They go out, they spend money, they buy T-shirts, DVDs.
You BBC Two viewers at home, what do you buy - soup? I tell you, financially, one Russell Howard audience member is worth ten of you.
He earns £4 million a year, Russell Howard, according to these papers.
That works out as £10,978.
60 a day.
I'm not obsessed with the figure, I'm just quick at maths, right? 11 grand a day.
And I think he's an interesting comic as well, he's quite a subversive character, I think.
No, I do.
Not everything I say is meant to be sarcastic.
I know it's You know, that's what I think.
He is.
I tell you why he's subversive, right? Because he goes on Mock The Week, Russell Howard.
I liked Mock The Week when I was younger, but since I've had kids No, since I've had kids I feel a bit more connected to the world.
I feel a bit more squeamish, if you like, and I find Mock The Week a bit cruel now.
And I don't like it like I used to, I don't like it when they when they make fun of handicapped people or old people or do jokes about poor people or ugly people or disa When they mock the WEAK, basically.
LAUGHTER Mock the strong, that's what I say! Have a bit of ambition.
It's what raises us above dogs.
Have you ever considered having a career as a television presenter? Because it strikes me that you'd actually be You'd be fucking awful at it.
No, I haven't considered that and I'm hoping I'm still hoping this would work out.
How much would it take for you to transfer from the BBC to ITV? I dunno.
What do you think they've got? Well, from what I'm hearing, I think it's actually coming from the BBC.
They're the one asking the question.
Ah.
But the interesting thing about Russell Howard on Mock The Week is, uniquely for the programme, most of his jokes come from quite a liberal perspective.
And even when one of the other comics does do a joke about disabled people or something, um, Russell Howard might laugh, but he doesn't do so with any apparent enthusiasm.
I know, I like it, it's subversive.
It is! Yeah, cos it makes you think, doesn't it? It does! It made me It does! It does, actually! It makes you think, it does, Russell Howard.
It made me think about the crucifixion of Jesus.
In the Bible.
Remember, in the Bible, he's on the cross, isn't he, Jesus, and there's all people jeering and booing and chucking stuff and going, "King of the Jews!" Maybe it wasn't like that, right? Maybe it was a bit more complicated.
Maybe there was a bloke there like Russell Howard, yeah? Jeering but not enjoying it.
I don't know.
I think he's a subversive character, I like it.
Er And he's also You know, he earns £4 million a year, but like Adrian Chiles, he did stuff for Sport Relief, which is a good charity, as I said.
It helps the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world.
I do a lot of benefits, as I say - I do, 80, 85 a year - but he did a great thing for Sport Relief.
He did a four-day bike ride for them.
Four days.
Now, remember, he can earn 11 grand a day, so giving up four days, that's £44,000 he's given up, right, before he's even started, in lost earnings, which is pretty amazing, I think.
Now, it wasn't just him doing the bike ride.
There were six other celebrities, there were seven of them.
It wasn't all the Mock The Week team on the charity bike ride.
It wasn't the Seven Mockers.
Fatty, Baldy, Blinky, Sweary, Posh, Out-Of-His-Depth and the girl one.
LAUGHTER There'd be no point, would there, having a four-day bike ride with the Mock The Week team.
They wouldn't get anywhere.
They'd have to keep stopping to do advert voice-overs and spit at people with Down's syndrome.
LAUGHTER I'm not saying that's wrong, I'm just saying, if you're on a four-day If you've only got a limited amount of time, you know, you need people that are not distracted.
But, er You do! You know, they're good.
And, er It wasn't them, anyway.
It was top-of-the-range celebrities.
It wasn't the sort of people that need to do a bike ride to get seen.
People absolutely on the top of their game.
There was David Walliams was doing it and Russell Howard, Patrick Kielty.
Fearne Cotton was one of the Fearne Cotton does not need to do a bike ride for charity to raise Fearne Cotton's career is on fire at the moment, if you think about it.
It is.
In the last couple of years, Fearne Cotton has transferred from presenting BBC programmes aimed at children to presenting ITV programmes aimed at adults as if there were no difference.
It's seamless.
APPLAUSE So there were seven of them.
Seven celebrities.
They cycled for four days, they made a million quid.
That means each celebrity I've done it on here.
Each celebrity individually made, you can see there, £142,857, 14.
3p.
That means each celebrity per day made £35,714, 28.
58p.
£36,000 per day, the celebrities made on the Sport Relief charity bike ride.
36 grand.
Now, the interesting thing about that figure, £36,000, what that means I don't know what it means.
What it means is that if LAUGHTER It means that Russell Howard's so popular that the sort of pull of Russell Howard as a charity cyclist means that he can make, er, just over three times per day cycling for charity what he can from doing comedy.
Right? The interesting thing about that, and I don't know what this means, but what it means is that If Russell Howard were to just stop doing comedy, you know, and if he was to just cycle all day, every day, for a year, say, Russell Howard's so popular he could make, for Sport Relief, for the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world, he could make £13,035,714.
30p.
13 million quid, basically, Russell Howard could make for the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world.
And I don't know if you Do you understand? When I'm saying "the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world", what I'm talking about, these are people probably in the developing world, their life expectancy's very low.
People that are essentially in the anteroom to death.
What I'm saying is, that if Russell Howard just cycled for a year, for those people, he could make For the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world, Russell Howard could make £13 million.
And yet he chooses not to do that.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE He chooses instead to make £4 million for himself and just £142,000 for the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world.
And I'm not having a go at him personally, but I don't I can't really understand why he would do that.
And I think that anyone here, I think people at home If someone said to you, "Give up your job, just go cycling for a year, "and we will give £13 million to the For people who will basically be dead.
" I think any I think anyone with the most basic shred of human compassion and decency would do that, yeah? But Russell Howard didn't do that.
And every day that Russell Howard is not cycling, crops are failing .
.
wells are going dry .
.
worms are laying their eggs in babies' eyes.
And children are starving.
And Russell Howard's as good as murdered those kids.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE "Dad! "I'm so thirsty! "Can I have a drink, please?" "No.
"The well is dry.
" "But why? "I thought Russell Howard was "was going to go cycling ".
.
and fix the well, he was going to save everyone's lives.
" "Yeah, well, he didn't.
" "But why, Dad? "What did Russell Howard have to do "that was more important than saving our lives?" "He had to go on Mock The Week, son.
"To make sure everyone knows that Susan Boyle has a hairy face.
" "Yeah.
Ha-ha-ha.
"Ha-ha-ha-ha! "Yeah, she's ugly, isn't she, Dad? "And she's mental.
" LAUGHTER TURNS TO COUGHING "Don't make me laugh, Dad.
I'm so dry! It hurts! "Why, Dad? Why didn't Russell Howard go cycling and save us? "I thought he was nice.
" "I don't know, son.
"Russell Howard must want us all to die.
" "Yeah.
"It certainly looks that way.
" "Russell Howard "I trusted you.
" "Why did Why? "Dying now.
" "Russell Howard" I do about 85, 90 benefits a year! I'm out, night after night.
13 million pounds! I could never make that in a year for charity.
I'm not popular enough.
Half of the people who've applied for tickets to see me don't even like me.
I did a benefit for the homeless in about March last year, big theatre in town, it cost me £44 to do it.
£36 babysitting.
In London, yeah.
It's not like where you live.
We have to pay 'em, like, £8 an hour, it's not like Where are you, Manchester or somewhere, yeah? "Thanks for babysitting, here's your crack!" It's not like that.
£36 babysitting, £2 on the bus to Angel, £5.
75 travel card.
£43.
75.
£44 it cost me to do the benefit for the homeless.
And afterwards, I'm walking up Berwick Street in Soho, homeless guy comes up and goes, "Can I have £1, please?" I went, "Yeah, there you are.
" He goes, "Can I have another £2 to get in the shelter?" I went, "Yeah, fine, there you are.
" And he went, "Can I have anoth?" And I went, "You know what, right? "Tonight, effectively, I've already given £44 to, you know, your lot.
" And even as I was saying it, I thought, "What a petty-minded, "lack of perspective, small thing that was to say!" £44 of my money.
When Russell Howard did that bike ride, he gave up £44,000! £44.
£44,000.
Russell Howard's literally a thousand times more generous than me.
And judging by the struggle this gig's been tonight .
.
I'm not going to be closing that gap any time soon.
UNZIPPING RUNNING WATER WATER CONTINUES RUNNING WATER STOPS RUNNING ZIPPING
He said, "Give everything you have to the poor.
All of it, now.
" He was very clear about that.
All of it, now, not some of it later, when you've finished painting the roof of the cathedral gold or setting up a slush fund to pay off sexual-abuse victims.
He was very clear about the need for charity.
Now, in America, a survey has recently shown that the richest fifth of American society give only 2.
1% of their annual income to charity, whereas the poorest fifth of American society give 4.
3% of their annual income to charity.
And then another survey has shown, that's why they're the poorest fifth.
ARMANDO IANNUCCI: Well, Stewart, another episode.
All about charity, I hear.
Yeah.
I tried to do charity in the first week of the series and I got side-tracked by crisps, so I thought I'd, um Presumably, this week, there are There weren't many jokes last week.
Presumably, this week, you'll do more jokes? I'm trying to put more in.
I'm trying to put more jokes in, but you can't make an omelette with no eggs, and I've got no eggs.
Did you crack them all in the first episode? That's right.
Yeah.
STEWART LEE: I like doing stuff for charity.
I do as much as I can for charity all the time.
Not out of altruism - I do it because it makes me feel good about myself.
And, er If you look at my website, you'll see that I do more unpaid charity gigs than any other comic working today.
I do about 45, 50, 55 of those a year.
Again, not out of altruism - I do it cos it makes me feel good about myself and because, at the big charity gigs, there's often important people there that might see you.
So, as I say, I do about 60, 65 of these charity shows a year.
I'm not interested in what the charities are - as I say, I've no interest in the charities or the people they benefit.
In fact, in the last few months, I've done a number of charity benefits for entirely mutually-contradictory charities.
I've done benefits for the Countryside Alliance and the Hunt Saboteurs.
I've done the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, I've done the Royal Society for the Promotion of Cruelty to Animals I've done Save The Children, I've done Enslave The Children.
As I say, I'm not interested in what the charities are and I do about 70, 75, 80 of these charity benefits a year.
But joking apart, right, why You know, why? Why do them? I think we should try and help, shouldn't we, if we can.
All of us here tonight are wealthy, comfortable.
Everyone at home is the same, by global standards.
What should we be giving to charity? What should a millionaire be giving to charity? What should a multi-millionaire be giving to charity? Like, er, for example, Adrian Chiles.
A television character.
LAUGHTER He just transferred, didn't he, last year, from the BBC to ITV, Adrian Chiles, for £6 million.
Eugh, ITV.
Yuck.
It's like a failed state, isn't it? LAUGHTER Run by pirates and criminals.
The Somalia of television.
£6 million, Adrian Chiles got for going to ITV.
£6 million.
I believe it was I, who, last year, described watching Adrian Chiles as like being trapped in the buffet car of a slow-moving express train in the company of a toby jug that's somehow learned how to speak.
A speaking toby jug filled to the brim with hot piss.
Now, I didn't mean anything by this, it was just a bit of It was light-hearted banter, fun, yeah? But I did it on the telly, you might remember, and people kept going on about it.
A few days later, a member of the public went past me in one of these vans that you drive and he Not you, them! And he, er You came here on your bikes, didn't you? LAUGHTER And hehe wound down the window and he shouted out, "Oi! Mate! You said Adrian Chiles looked like a piss-filled jug! "He doesn't - he looks like a pig! You can use that.
" You can't use that, can you? "Hey! "Adrian Chiles looks like a pig!" Rubbish, innit? Pointless.
He doesn't look like a pig anyway, Adrian Chiles, does he? He looks like a man who would be cast as a pig's spirit in a Japanese fantasy film.
LAUGHTER Taking Tripitaka On A Quest.
Yeah, that was a bit obscure even for them, wasn't it? You spend a lot of time making fun of people like Adrian Chiles - their appearance, you know.
Toby-jug reference, that sort of thing.
Do you think that's not umhypocritical? Well, I don't think it's hypocritical.
I mean, I'd be happy if people were doing jokes about my appearance.
I think I'd take it on the chin.
All right.
What do people shout at you? "You look like Terry Christian"? People shout that at me, yeah.
I don't mind that.
"He's let himself go.
" Yeah, well, you could say that.
"You look like Mark Lamarr "who's let himself go.
" Yeah, I've had that.
"You look like Edwyn Collins who's let himself go.
" Yeah, I've had that.
"Morrissey's let himself go.
" Get that a lot.
That's quite funny.
"Leonardo DiCaprio's let himself go.
Badly.
" "Roland Gift has let himself go, look.
" "Chris Isaak's let himself go.
" Yeah.
"KD Lang has let himself go.
" That is a bit of a weird "Look at her.
" "Barbapapa has let himself go.
" Yeah, I've had that, Barbapapa, yeah.
"Look at that.
" Do you get that? I've had that one, yeah.
I've had all of those.
But I don't mind, you know, I don't mind people saying things like that.
Oh, fine.
Well, I won't say it, then.
I won't say it.
£6 million for Adrian Chiles.
When I was a kid, there was a programme called The Six Million Dollar Man.
Now, the Six Million Dollar Man, he could leap over canyons, he could fight sharks For £6 million, I at least expect Adrian Chiles to be able to outrun a train.
As it is, he can barely keep ahead of the slow-moving cloud of disapproval that follows him down the narrow corridor of public opinion.
LAUGHTER Adrian Chiles.
It's sad, isn't it? Cos since he went to ITV for £6 million, he got about a quarter of the viewers that Gary Lineker got on the BBC for his World Cup coverage.
His morning show has lost a lot of viewers as well.
They're not playing to his strengths.
It's not fair.
He's a good broadcaster.
On The One Show on BBC One, he was fantastic on that, wasn't he, Adrian Chiles? He was brilliant on The One Show, talking about wool and hospitals and LAUGHTER .
.
fleas and .
.
string, you know.
And going, "Ooh, someone from EastEnders has got a stick.
" He was brilliant at that, wasn't he? He was.
He was fantastic.
He was the absolute best, wasn't he, Adrian Chiles? At that! He was brilliant.
And now it's sad, it's sad.
I don't know if this is presumptuous, but maybe people aren't watching cos if your unique selling point is that you're one of us, but you're known to have gone for this £6 million transfer, maybe people go, "Why were you?" I don't know.
I don't know if it is that.
I don't think it matters, because I think Adrian Chiles is a good bloke and I'll tell you why.
Because, er, last year - this is just one of the things that we know about - he actually did something for Sport Relief, which is a fantastic charity.
It helps the poorest and most vulnerable people, not just here in Britain, but all around the world.
You may remember David Walliams from Little Britain - he swam the Channel for Sport Relief, which was amazing.
But not as amazing as what Adrian Chiles did.
I don't know if any of you saw this or remember it.
The incredible moment of television.
I wasn't watching, someone rang me up and went, "You have to put this on now.
" It was like the embassy siege of Iran, you know.
And, erfor Sport Relief, he went on television and he had his beard shaved off.
It was absolutely amazing, did you see it? No, it was.
It was fantastic.
And it was interesting as well, because, er You might be like me - sometimes you see someone with a beard, and a few weeks later, it's not there, and you think, "How did that happen?" Um What he did, Adrian Chiles, for Sport Relief, for the poorest and most vulnerable people, he went on and He was just sat there, right? And, erit was incredible.
A guy came over with a load of weird foam stuff and put it all over his face, like that.
But only up to his eyes! They left his eyes.
So he could see, I think, what they were going to do to him.
They do that in Guantanamo Bay, I think - freak people out, yeah? And then another guy came over, and what he had was, he had loads of, like, little about four really thin, sharp blades, they were basically blades stuck to a stick thing.
And they scraped these all over all over Adrian's face and all round his neck, you know, where there's arteries and things.
But he didn't cry, he just sat there, you know, like that.
It was amazing.
And at the end, there wasn't a hair There wasn't a hair left on Adrian Chiles's face.
It was absolutelyamazing.
LAUGHTER And for doing that, right, for having his beard shaved off for charity, for the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world, Adrian Chiles made £60,000.
Which is 1% of his fee, isn't it? LAUGHTER Not everyone in the room laughing at that, was there? There was sort of enough.
It feels like at least half of the room.
Probably a lot of you at home have gone "Seems fine.
" LAUGHTER But it's quite hard to know how to push forwards with this when I don't feel I have the mandate of the room.
Maybe they're right.
Maybe you're right.
1%.
Maybe that's fine, 1%.
That's like If you earned 18 grand a year, it's like giving 180 quid to charity, innit? Is that enough? I dunno.
You probably give that much just to people in the street, don't you, in a year.
No? I don't know.
OK? I don't know, right? The audience here The audience here have been brilliantly hand-picked to to not share my point of view.
Fine.
OK, maybe it is enough, 1%.
I dunno.
What I'm saying is, what should we give to charity? What's the right amount? What should we give to charity? What should a millionaire give to charity? What should a multi-millionaire be giving to charity? Take another TV multi-millionaire, like I don't know.
OK, right, the comedian Russell Howard, for example from .
.
from Russell Howard's Good News and Mock The Week.
Now, according to the News Of The World and the Independent On Sunday, Russell Howard earns £4 million a year, right? Um He's, er He's not performing late at night on BBC Two to audiences most of which appear to disagree with him.
LAUGHTER He's not doing that, as a rule, Russell Howard.
He goes out at the O2, there's 18,000 kids there, he goes, "What about ninjas?!" and they all go, "Yeah, they're mad!" It's brilliant, right? It's not like this! APPLAUSE It's not like this, it's not a passive-aggressive war of attrition.
A simple, fun They're the audience you want, as well, not the BBC Two audience.
The young kids, the BBC Three They go out, they spend money, they buy T-shirts, DVDs.
You BBC Two viewers at home, what do you buy - soup? I tell you, financially, one Russell Howard audience member is worth ten of you.
He earns £4 million a year, Russell Howard, according to these papers.
That works out as £10,978.
60 a day.
I'm not obsessed with the figure, I'm just quick at maths, right? 11 grand a day.
And I think he's an interesting comic as well, he's quite a subversive character, I think.
No, I do.
Not everything I say is meant to be sarcastic.
I know it's You know, that's what I think.
He is.
I tell you why he's subversive, right? Because he goes on Mock The Week, Russell Howard.
I liked Mock The Week when I was younger, but since I've had kids No, since I've had kids I feel a bit more connected to the world.
I feel a bit more squeamish, if you like, and I find Mock The Week a bit cruel now.
And I don't like it like I used to, I don't like it when they when they make fun of handicapped people or old people or do jokes about poor people or ugly people or disa When they mock the WEAK, basically.
LAUGHTER Mock the strong, that's what I say! Have a bit of ambition.
It's what raises us above dogs.
Have you ever considered having a career as a television presenter? Because it strikes me that you'd actually be You'd be fucking awful at it.
No, I haven't considered that and I'm hoping I'm still hoping this would work out.
How much would it take for you to transfer from the BBC to ITV? I dunno.
What do you think they've got? Well, from what I'm hearing, I think it's actually coming from the BBC.
They're the one asking the question.
Ah.
But the interesting thing about Russell Howard on Mock The Week is, uniquely for the programme, most of his jokes come from quite a liberal perspective.
And even when one of the other comics does do a joke about disabled people or something, um, Russell Howard might laugh, but he doesn't do so with any apparent enthusiasm.
I know, I like it, it's subversive.
It is! Yeah, cos it makes you think, doesn't it? It does! It made me It does! It does, actually! It makes you think, it does, Russell Howard.
It made me think about the crucifixion of Jesus.
In the Bible.
Remember, in the Bible, he's on the cross, isn't he, Jesus, and there's all people jeering and booing and chucking stuff and going, "King of the Jews!" Maybe it wasn't like that, right? Maybe it was a bit more complicated.
Maybe there was a bloke there like Russell Howard, yeah? Jeering but not enjoying it.
I don't know.
I think he's a subversive character, I like it.
Er And he's also You know, he earns £4 million a year, but like Adrian Chiles, he did stuff for Sport Relief, which is a good charity, as I said.
It helps the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world.
I do a lot of benefits, as I say - I do, 80, 85 a year - but he did a great thing for Sport Relief.
He did a four-day bike ride for them.
Four days.
Now, remember, he can earn 11 grand a day, so giving up four days, that's £44,000 he's given up, right, before he's even started, in lost earnings, which is pretty amazing, I think.
Now, it wasn't just him doing the bike ride.
There were six other celebrities, there were seven of them.
It wasn't all the Mock The Week team on the charity bike ride.
It wasn't the Seven Mockers.
Fatty, Baldy, Blinky, Sweary, Posh, Out-Of-His-Depth and the girl one.
LAUGHTER There'd be no point, would there, having a four-day bike ride with the Mock The Week team.
They wouldn't get anywhere.
They'd have to keep stopping to do advert voice-overs and spit at people with Down's syndrome.
LAUGHTER I'm not saying that's wrong, I'm just saying, if you're on a four-day If you've only got a limited amount of time, you know, you need people that are not distracted.
But, er You do! You know, they're good.
And, er It wasn't them, anyway.
It was top-of-the-range celebrities.
It wasn't the sort of people that need to do a bike ride to get seen.
People absolutely on the top of their game.
There was David Walliams was doing it and Russell Howard, Patrick Kielty.
Fearne Cotton was one of the Fearne Cotton does not need to do a bike ride for charity to raise Fearne Cotton's career is on fire at the moment, if you think about it.
It is.
In the last couple of years, Fearne Cotton has transferred from presenting BBC programmes aimed at children to presenting ITV programmes aimed at adults as if there were no difference.
It's seamless.
APPLAUSE So there were seven of them.
Seven celebrities.
They cycled for four days, they made a million quid.
That means each celebrity I've done it on here.
Each celebrity individually made, you can see there, £142,857, 14.
3p.
That means each celebrity per day made £35,714, 28.
58p.
£36,000 per day, the celebrities made on the Sport Relief charity bike ride.
36 grand.
Now, the interesting thing about that figure, £36,000, what that means I don't know what it means.
What it means is that if LAUGHTER It means that Russell Howard's so popular that the sort of pull of Russell Howard as a charity cyclist means that he can make, er, just over three times per day cycling for charity what he can from doing comedy.
Right? The interesting thing about that, and I don't know what this means, but what it means is that If Russell Howard were to just stop doing comedy, you know, and if he was to just cycle all day, every day, for a year, say, Russell Howard's so popular he could make, for Sport Relief, for the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world, he could make £13,035,714.
30p.
13 million quid, basically, Russell Howard could make for the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world.
And I don't know if you Do you understand? When I'm saying "the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world", what I'm talking about, these are people probably in the developing world, their life expectancy's very low.
People that are essentially in the anteroom to death.
What I'm saying is, that if Russell Howard just cycled for a year, for those people, he could make For the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world, Russell Howard could make £13 million.
And yet he chooses not to do that.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE He chooses instead to make £4 million for himself and just £142,000 for the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world.
And I'm not having a go at him personally, but I don't I can't really understand why he would do that.
And I think that anyone here, I think people at home If someone said to you, "Give up your job, just go cycling for a year, "and we will give £13 million to the For people who will basically be dead.
" I think any I think anyone with the most basic shred of human compassion and decency would do that, yeah? But Russell Howard didn't do that.
And every day that Russell Howard is not cycling, crops are failing .
.
wells are going dry .
.
worms are laying their eggs in babies' eyes.
And children are starving.
And Russell Howard's as good as murdered those kids.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE "Dad! "I'm so thirsty! "Can I have a drink, please?" "No.
"The well is dry.
" "But why? "I thought Russell Howard was "was going to go cycling ".
.
and fix the well, he was going to save everyone's lives.
" "Yeah, well, he didn't.
" "But why, Dad? "What did Russell Howard have to do "that was more important than saving our lives?" "He had to go on Mock The Week, son.
"To make sure everyone knows that Susan Boyle has a hairy face.
" "Yeah.
Ha-ha-ha.
"Ha-ha-ha-ha! "Yeah, she's ugly, isn't she, Dad? "And she's mental.
" LAUGHTER TURNS TO COUGHING "Don't make me laugh, Dad.
I'm so dry! It hurts! "Why, Dad? Why didn't Russell Howard go cycling and save us? "I thought he was nice.
" "I don't know, son.
"Russell Howard must want us all to die.
" "Yeah.
"It certainly looks that way.
" "Russell Howard "I trusted you.
" "Why did Why? "Dying now.
" "Russell Howard" I do about 85, 90 benefits a year! I'm out, night after night.
13 million pounds! I could never make that in a year for charity.
I'm not popular enough.
Half of the people who've applied for tickets to see me don't even like me.
I did a benefit for the homeless in about March last year, big theatre in town, it cost me £44 to do it.
£36 babysitting.
In London, yeah.
It's not like where you live.
We have to pay 'em, like, £8 an hour, it's not like Where are you, Manchester or somewhere, yeah? "Thanks for babysitting, here's your crack!" It's not like that.
£36 babysitting, £2 on the bus to Angel, £5.
75 travel card.
£43.
75.
£44 it cost me to do the benefit for the homeless.
And afterwards, I'm walking up Berwick Street in Soho, homeless guy comes up and goes, "Can I have £1, please?" I went, "Yeah, there you are.
" He goes, "Can I have another £2 to get in the shelter?" I went, "Yeah, fine, there you are.
" And he went, "Can I have anoth?" And I went, "You know what, right? "Tonight, effectively, I've already given £44 to, you know, your lot.
" And even as I was saying it, I thought, "What a petty-minded, "lack of perspective, small thing that was to say!" £44 of my money.
When Russell Howard did that bike ride, he gave up £44,000! £44.
£44,000.
Russell Howard's literally a thousand times more generous than me.
And judging by the struggle this gig's been tonight .
.
I'm not going to be closing that gap any time soon.
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