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Episode 6: Comedy Vehicle #1.3 - Political Correctness (2009)
418 Plays6 months ago
This week Dan and Joe take a rambling (and detour filled) ride around Political Correctness, episode three of series one of Comedy Vehicle.
Amongst the topics discussed are motorway service stations, not reading books, and racism. All the topics. Because this episode contains loads of content that was already covered in the 41st Best episode, we've given ourselves license to twat about much more than usual, so if you're thinking "I didn't listen to a Stewart Lee Podcast to hear a load of poorly constructed anecdotes about the hosts instead of well researched content about the subject", unfortunately for you... yes you did.
Come and see us at the Brighton Fringe, where Dan has work in progress shows, Joe has work in progress shows, and we have a couple of live Stewniverse records with some great guests.
Details HERE
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Transcript
Podcast Introduction and Stuart Lee Focus
00:00:34
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Across This Universe podcast, the world's only podcast about the comedian Stuart Lee, because why would anyone else take the time to do something like this?
00:00:50
Speaker
who knows but no thank you for listening really appreciate it welcome to episode five of the main series which is episode three oh fuck I don't know I've lost count
00:01:07
Speaker
I've lost count of how many we've done now.
Joy in Podcast Creation and Audience Reception
00:01:11
Speaker
I sound tired of it, but I'm really not. I'm genuinely enjoying putting these together and hopefully some of you are enjoying listening to them. Not all of you, obviously. There are some of you who
00:01:24
Speaker
Well, just won't understand why I'm doing what I'm doing and if that's the case, it's not aimed at you, don't come again. But no, thank you for listening, I really appreciate it. And this week we will be discussing, Joe and I will be discussing Comedy Vehicle episode three, political correctness.
Analyzing 'Comedy Vehicle' Episode Three
00:01:46
Speaker
Now this is, it's an odd one, this one, because as we kind of get into in the episode, there's a lot of recycled material in this.
00:01:54
Speaker
obviously sort of putting together a bunch of half-hour episodes for television. Standup takes ages to write, okay? And especially when you're talking about the quality and depth and thought that Stu goes into. It takes ages to write. So I think it can be forgiven for occasionally recycling the odd gag or kind of using the odd trope or leaning on certain things. But this one is basically just lifted, sort of 70% of it's probably lifted from
00:02:22
Speaker
41st best because obviously there's a big routine in there about how you know about political correctness and how older people confuse political correctness and health and safety legislation so what I've done there is just given away the big punchline but
00:02:40
Speaker
you know hopefully you've you've seen it before otherwise why why would you bother why would you be listening to this that's just insane um but no it was it's a good episode and to be honest it's a good episode because i like the sketches um but in terms of the stand-up i'd seen a lot of it before um
00:02:58
Speaker
like I say in 41st best a lot of this is reused so and now I'm just repeating myself as well which is is ironic to be honest and the fact that I've pointed that out is hack so I'm just gonna stop talking now and we'll get into the episode so here we are comedy vehicle series 3 series 1 episode 3 political correctness
00:03:26
Speaker
So.
Political Correctness and Stuart Lee's Themes
00:03:28
Speaker
Yes. Episode three, political correctness. Yes. It's quite interesting because obviously this is a topic that he talks about loads. Yeah. You know, it's it's obviously it's a cornerstone of his. He'll match you. Exactly. It's just it's the thing that I think of when I think of Shirley. Yeah, I'm honest. It's just him going. Shall I match you in it?
00:03:57
Speaker
Yeah, doing the, doing the Richard Herring voice. Richard Herring voice. Yeah. Well, but it's, you know, it's like, it's pretty much like a key pillar of the character in it. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? It's, it's. I wonder if he sounds like that because someone's chatting his garden as well. Maybe. Who knows? He's got that.
00:04:23
Speaker
I'd sound like that if someone's shat in my garden, if I'm honest. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, I don't know. I think I think I'd take a slightly slightly more aggressive tone, probably. Maybe. At least I do with my dogs when they do not.
00:04:39
Speaker
But yeah, so this one's an interesting one because obviously as we've kind of discussed before we set off recording, a good chunk of this, at least half if not more, has been covered in 41st best. So it's got like... He's looking off his own material.
00:04:58
Speaker
Well, you know, he references it in the commentary, basically says, you know, this is one of the major chunks where it was already available commercially elsewhere. You know, like, yeah, there's little bits where he'll do little riffs or he'll do things that then appear later on in something else or they've already appeared in something else. There's a couple of routines that he reuses. You know, obviously he's got tropes of like he'll always reuse the let himself go stuff.
00:05:25
Speaker
yeah and all that kind of stuff but like in terms of just full routines that he's reused obviously we talked um last time about television and he'd reused a lot of the channel four stuff but that was that was just like a couple of jokes really and then obviously he made them into sketches rose this is mainly
00:05:49
Speaker
Like the meat and potatoes of this is that story. The centrepiece of this episode is the Wait Watchers story. Yeah. And then even after that, the bit about... Yeah, the bit with his mum. His mum, yeah.
00:06:06
Speaker
Yeah, although there is a tiny little difference to it and we'll get to that so we'll just sort of work our way through it but we'll get to that. There's not tons outside of that but it's interesting about this one because he basically said, I listened to the commentary again and he said that he had issues running this material in clubs and there was one particular night where he was asked to follow a woman and he didn't say who it was but he was asked to follow a woman who spent her 20 minutes set
00:06:35
Speaker
saying how political correctness had gone mad. That's hilarious. Anyone want to know who that is now? Yeah, I do as well, but you know. He's not naming them. No, but thinking about the reason. Thinking about the time frame, you could probably work it out, you know, the type, unless it's someone who's not necessarily.
00:06:56
Speaker
well i don't know because it's hard to say because obviously you're looking at 2008 2009 ish so then you're thinking okay who's it who's a comic that was around then who was probably well known enough to be on a bill with stuart lee um
00:07:12
Speaker
Yeah. You know, it narrows the pool a little bit, but then also it could be someone just a circuit comic that we've not heard of from, you know, from wherever he was in the country, because he didn't he didn't say where he was either. So, you know, obviously every there's a Northwest circuit, there's a Yorkshire circuit, there's a London circuit. So I can't really kind of keep up with, well, especially back then, like I wouldn't have to pay any attention to someone who does that for 20 minutes.
00:07:44
Speaker
like i would
Humorous Anecdotes on Gambling and Service Stations
00:07:46
Speaker
have just plucked them out of my mind i think yeah and i think well what he basically says was that he ended up changing his entire set on the fly oh no are they gonna do it anyway yeah he said because he was he was quite conscious of not wanting to look like he'd gone out there just to make fun of her
00:08:05
Speaker
yeah yeah and he said if he were to do that routine it would yeah it would just seem like he was doing it directly in response to her yeah um so yeah so he didn't he didn't look similar to uh it for example if you were to uh make a joke about a one-legged ballerina for example
00:08:25
Speaker
and one happened to be in the audience.
00:08:45
Speaker
I love it. The one legged ballerina sketch. The one legged ballerina sketch. It's very good. But yeah, we'll get to that because there's some interesting context to that. So obviously he sets it up in the normal way, you know, welcome to shortly his comedy vehicle doing the kind of shiny floor introduction, staring down the barrel of the camera.
00:09:06
Speaker
and another vehicle related opponent, I am the designated driver. He's said before that those bits are like the most self-consciously television bits. Yeah, but he's satirising it with the way that he's doing it. He is, but he's... Look at what I'm doing and I know... That's his concession.
00:09:28
Speaker
But do you know what? He gets away with it. I'll tell you what, so the levels of subtext and satire certainly in this episode are incredible because he actually mentioned some stuff that I never sort of even thought about before really and I've watched this a bunch of times but we'll get to it. It's incredible, when we get to it I'll flag it up and we can talk about it but
00:09:52
Speaker
It's just the levels of thought that goes into this Is unbelievable and it really makes me think God I don't I don't make anywhere near enough effort with my own material when you look at the levels that he goes to and
00:10:08
Speaker
Yeah, you know, that's why he should do it. The intellectual kind of rigor that he applies to it. But anyway, so, you know, he sets up the episode with this little story because he said, you know, he sets it up by saying political correctness has gone mad and then proceeds to tell this little story about his son in a service station.
00:10:26
Speaker
Yeah. You know, and we've all been in those service stations where for some weird reason, there's a little like den of inequity in the middle of it where you can go in there and gamble away your life savings for some odd reason. Like, and it's always open wherever they want. Like I was walking to work while I was walking from one bus stop to the other
Service Stations and Fast Food Temptations
00:10:49
Speaker
in in the center of Leeds. And I walked past a
00:10:57
Speaker
I don't even know what to call them like because it's like imagine like a casino but it's in like the size of a shop of like a Gregg's yeah exactly you know that it's it's it but because it's not like a betting shop yeah the only thing like the only thing I can think of is it's like one of them arcades yeah
00:11:22
Speaker
but just the over 18 side. The thing that I can't wrap my head around, right, is that at some point, whenever a service station is created, a meeting takes place. Right? And so if... Yeah, the other side where there's American records.
00:11:40
Speaker
Yeah, but now it's common, right? So every service station you go into has one of these little gambling holes, right? But if you think back when, whenever the first ever service station in this country was put in, Tibshelf or whatever it might be, right? Someone will know when the first one was. I'm going to find out. But you go do a Google while I say this thing, right? But at some point, someone's had a meeting and said, right, so what we're putting together here is
00:12:09
Speaker
a stop for drivers on long journeys and what we need is all the amenities that a driver might need.
00:12:17
Speaker
You know, what conveniences can we offer them, right? And someone said, right, they need food. You go, yeah, great. We'll put a McDonald's in or a Burger King or whatever. Right, OK, they need to go to the toilet. Yes, we'll put some of them in. They might want a shop. They might want some stuff for the road. They might want a coffee. You know, we'll put a WH Smith's in. That's fine. Do you think we need somewhere for them to gamble away their life savings?
00:12:45
Speaker
Do you know what I mean? As if travelling from Leeds to London on the M1, that's definitely something you're going to need to do. I just can't wrap my head around it. Well, it's a contentious subject. When the first services came out. Yeah, so it's a toss-up between Newport, Pagnall. Sounds about right. And Watford Gap.
00:13:13
Speaker
awful services. So, and this was in 1959. Okay. And it's common, it's a common misconception that Watford Gap was the first service area to fully open. When in fact, Newport Pagnall was the first on the 15th of August, a month before Watford Gap. I've never stopped at Newport Pagnall.
00:13:43
Speaker
The most famous example of the service area of this era is Lancaster, which features a 65 foot tower, which previously contained the main restaurant. I tell you what, Joe, just for a bit of, just to get this, let's find out where we stand. What's your favorite services? As a non-driver.
00:14:08
Speaker
Yeah, but as a comedian, you've been on many a long car journey. I have been on many a long car journey. Which one did I like the most? Good question. I think there's one, the one that we stopped off at. On the way to our honeymoon.
00:14:37
Speaker
I thought you meant, just to clarify, I thought you meant me and you, but you don't, obviously. No, not our honeymoon. We didn't have a honeymoon. Sorry.
Stand-Up Comedy Preparation and Personal Challenges
00:14:45
Speaker
No, yeah. How about Glasgow? You could probably... Yeah, we did stop off at Oso's on the way there and on the way back, but it wasn't a great one. No. No, there was one that had a Krispy Kreme van outside. That's incredible. That was in, just outside of Exeter.
00:15:08
Speaker
And I think it's because we had because obviously it was such a long drive. Yeah. It was like the last one. Before we were getting to the place. Yeah. So we're like, right. Because we're like four service stops. So I think it was just like, right. Well, we know we're going to get get to our honeymoon cottage thing. Very soon. Within this space of an hour or something.
00:15:38
Speaker
Yeah. And it was good, yeah. Yourself? This is the content of Reddit's going to go fucking mad for this. I probably want to say Tib Shelf. But where am I? I tell you what, I'm going to say Leicester Forest East. Leicester Forest East. Because I know it's an unpopular one and I quite like it.
00:16:04
Speaker
Imagine being an unpopular savage. There's one on the M62 and I can't remember the name of it but to get so on one side of the motorway it's a McDonald's or a Subway or something and a Burger King and then the other side is the KFC. So if you're going north, not Northbury. Why is giving me finance jobs in Leicester? Ah forget it. But if you're going
00:16:31
Speaker
not north, because it's M62. So if you're going east, I think, you're on the side of the Burger King. So if you want the KFC, you have to cross the bridge over the motorway, and it's terrifying. Oh, yeah. Like a little footbridge over. That sounds like you've done that. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, you'd rather do that just to go to KFC rather than whatever the alternative is. Burger King. Yeah. Every time. Oh, no. Burger King's all right.
00:17:00
Speaker
no it's horrible excel bacon double cheese oh don't talk to me about fast food in a minute yeah i mean i don't i don't mind it become a child but anyway right we've got like no actually genuinely i've become a child that my wife has said for my birthday in july if i don't have a mcdonald's between now and then
00:17:26
Speaker
then I can have a Nintendo Switch for my birthday. Fucking hell, man. That is a big ask, because I get one every time I drive on from Santiago's on a Wednesday. And, like, I'm, like... I should say... I mean... It's only McDonald's that she knows about. Oh, you sneaky bastard. No, I don't have the facility. That's the issue. Although she has actually let me get one.
00:17:56
Speaker
once I think it was after, it was after beat the frog. So we didn't have chance to eat beforehand. But also it was a treat because you did very well. Yeah. And it's one of them that it was sort of, it wasn't planned and it wasn't one of them sort of things where I got home and I was like, I can't be arsed cooking. Yeah. It was like, well, you know what, it was like half past 10, 11 o'clock at night.
00:18:25
Speaker
And by the time I got home, it was like, it was, so that was fair enough. But I genuinely feel like a child that's just like, I really want the thing that I want because I want to be able to play Zelda. No, but that's fair enough though, because I need an incentive to not die. You know what I mean? You would think that not dying is the incentive, but my wife understands that that's not strong enough for me.
00:18:51
Speaker
Yeah, but do you know why it's not a strong enough incentive? And I'll tell you why, even as someone who's a hypochondriac who's terrified of being dead, right? I would tell you that it's not a strong enough incentive because somewhere in the back of your mind, you still think, oh, that's ages away. No, it's that I don't carry in the way. Well, all right, that's it for you. But for me, it's literally just. I mean, I don't. I shouldn't for safety's sake.
00:19:17
Speaker
saying that I'm not currently suicidal. Oh and also what we should probably say is if anyone is affected by any of the things that we're talking about right now please do seek help and don't just listen to a couple of clearly depressed comedians.
00:19:33
Speaker
talking about this shit when we're not experts and when... Thanks, the medication I'm on at the minute is working very well. We're not experts. When in doubt, we will just make a joke about it. However, it has made me very tired. Yes, no, I could. Well, with that in mind, let's press on because we got distracted by service stations.
00:19:57
Speaker
But anyway, so he tells this story, he tells his story about his son wandering into one of these gambling things. And it's interesting because in the commentary he says that this story happened verbatim. He does it so well as well. Yeah, it's brilliant. But where he sort of says that there's very little chance that a 13 month old child is going to understand the complexities of British gambling law.
00:20:20
Speaker
yeah even if he could speak english which he can't um there's very little point in doing that it was political correctness gone mad yeah um which i've never quite seen the idea that so the joke is yeah really like if you do the joke as a classic joke yeah it is i don't know why the talk like he can't understand you yeah but actually it takes him
00:20:48
Speaker
like four four things to get to that because he goes to like his automatic go to isn't he can't understand you he's too small to reach the buttons he can't reach the buttons anyway which actually is is the sort of it's sort of his way of doing observational comedy yeah but actually as the person making that announcement they should realize
00:21:17
Speaker
them things are as funny as they are. He can't play them. He can't close the buttons. And he doesn't have any money. Like, it's not like the same as a teenager. But the way that he drags out and makes it, he doesn't have any independent income. No, independent wealth, independent wealth.
00:21:43
Speaker
of independent wealth rather than he hadn't even got any money. And yeah, obviously getting to the understanding of British gambling law. The name of British gambling, was it law?
00:22:04
Speaker
British gambling policy? No, he says law. Oh, is it law? But the thing that makes this story really funny is how he, well, it's funny anyway, without this context, but with the context of the commentary as well, where he explains to Kevin Elden and Paul Putna that when this actually happened, nothing else in the services was open. So he said, I couldn't even
00:22:26
Speaker
get any food or any drink or anything and yet there was still a man whose job it was over the Tanoi to police. They sort of get a little gambling hole that was there and making sure there were no kids going in there. He said why didn't that, you know, why doesn't that guy come down and get me a cup of soda? You know what I mean? And that's where it's really funny because in theory
00:22:54
Speaker
technically that is political correctness gone mad yeah yeah do you know what i mean um but but by the by the same token like the whole point is that legally yeah he's in he's in the rock like the guy is in the right yeah of course he is like whether in the actual real world yeah
00:23:20
Speaker
you logically kind of work your way out of it. It's one of those things where most people. It's one of those things where most people who aren't a jobsworth would just look at it and go, haha, that kid's running there. That's funny. I'm sure his dad will get him in a second. Yeah, exactly. You kind of look at that and think, OK, whereas what that guy will have been thinking 100%, it's not political correctness in a way. It's literally law. You know, there's a difference between laws and political correctness, right?
00:23:45
Speaker
it essentially what happens is if on the small off chance that someone who is inspecting or come to you know come to assess that service station at any point why they do it at 11 o'clock at night i don't know but well you know if someone just happened upon that service station and they were there to assess whether or not they were following the rules that guy can get in trouble um yeah you know which is obviously where it comes into but it's just it's
00:24:14
Speaker
sort of zeroing in on that minutia of that specific situation and how you apply it to political correctness.
Big Issues in Comedy Through Personal Anecdotes
00:24:23
Speaker
He said a thing a while ago that what his favorite thing to do is to look at, especially in comedy vehicles, to look at
00:24:33
Speaker
big issues like political correctness or racism or sexism or whatever, but look at them through the prism of the narrow world view of the character.
00:24:47
Speaker
yeah and of the kind of small experiences so like you know you think about the big routine in this in this episode is the weight watchers routine he said that's just an exploration of what like you know racism in british culture and things like that but he's applied it very specifically to this tiny incident that happened in a weight watchers in like you know i think he says frinsbury park or something
00:25:08
Speaker
Yeah. You know, and that's what he's done here is he's kind of contextualised the way he's going to talk about political correctness through this tiny incident in a service station. Yeah. And that's something I think he's really, really, really good at. But that's what we're all good comedians are good at. It's diluting like a topic. Yeah. Down to whether it be someone like
00:25:39
Speaker
McIntyre or whoever whatever style it is like it's still diluting it right down to the human experience so that the audience can be on the same level as the person and understand it yeah rather than if you started talking about political correctness as a whole idea yeah that then doesn't that then becomes not stand-up
00:26:08
Speaker
yeah well do you know what it's funny because did have you ever watched and i showed you the comedy without errors stuff the thing that that guy josh kingsford does on youtube um i showed you the suit lee video uh he's done one on mack entire and it's called comedy perspective the um the the guy who did uh a caster
00:26:34
Speaker
Yeah.
Comedian Impressions and Performances
00:26:35
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, he's done a MacIntyre one and the title of the video is comedy without perspective. And the point that he makes is that like MacIntyre doesn't really offer up any opinions. No. The stuff. So basically his brand of observational comedy is to list a thing and let you laugh at the fact that the thing exists.
00:26:54
Speaker
Yeah. Do you know what I mean? So like his way of doing a political correctness routine would be to say, political correctness. I can't do a McIntyre impression. I think who does a, I tell you who does a fucking incredible McIntyre impression is Sean Walsh. I was literally just thinking that I saw it on YouTube or something today. Yeah. Yeah. What is it?
00:27:24
Speaker
that he's like, oh, if McIntyre did, and he did like a version of him, oh, yeah. It's so good. And actually, I'm going to go and watch the whole thing, I think, because I massively didn't like Sean Watch for a long time. No, well, I didn't for a long time. But I'll tell you what, his last two specials. His last two specials are incredible. And the latest one, the one that McIntyre routines from is so good. Really? It's so good.
00:27:53
Speaker
Yeah, it's on YouTube, the full specials on YouTube. But what I say to you is, honestly, I watched it and it was one of those things where I was like, fuck, I'm going to quit. Really? Like it was, I mean, I mean this, right? I don't normally like those kind of like shiny Saturday night live at the Apollo type comedians and not really my bag. Some of them are, but not all of them. But what he's managed to do was to take that kind of like really high energy,
00:28:22
Speaker
what could normally be quite like an empty approach but apply it to really distressing things like obviously he's talking about like the fact that he wanted to kill himself after the whole scandal that he was like you know the whole strictly scandal that he was a part of and he's talking he's talking about the mental fallout from that but he's talking about it in this really like upbeat saturday night tv way
00:28:47
Speaker
Right. And it's just the juxtaposition between the things he's saying and the kind of physicality and the effort that he puts into it. Like, if I was to do that material, it'd be really downbeat and it'd be really kind of one note. Do you know what I mean? Like, it'd be monotone sort of. And then I thought I might kill myself, like, like, droopy dog or something. Speaking of shouting out comedians. Yeah. Just because I've got a tangent of shit.
00:29:16
Speaker
There's a guy that's coming to London and I really want to go because it's on my birthday, but he's in London. He's from America. He's called Zach Zucker. I love Zach Zucker.
00:29:31
Speaker
Can we go? He's so good. He's like the anti you. Yeah, I've seen him. That sounds so mean to you, but I don't know. I agree. And like, have you seen this Baja man?
00:29:50
Speaker
No, but I'll tell you what I did see, right? So when I did, so you think you're funny in Edinburgh in 2022. Right. I stayed for a week and we went, me and my brother and my cousin went to Late and Live. Right. They wouldn't crush you there. Well, so he wasn't on his own. He's in a double act with Vigo then. Oh, is he? Yeah. So that's how I found out. The American guy, like, he's like,
00:30:17
Speaker
New York accent sort of thing. Zack Zucker. Let's make sure, yeah, I think he's the right guy. Well, the thing is, he does two acts. He does an act as himself, Zack Zucker, and then he does another one as a shit comedian called Jack Zucker. Let me just Google just to make sure I'm talking about the right person. He's got a great bit about the Baja man. Yeah.
00:30:46
Speaker
yeah yeah yeah yeah so it might be jack tucker that you know that because because he's the energy level yeah is unbelievable and his sound cubes are just like he he he's on such a level with his with his tech guy yeah that he's able to point to certain places yeah and he and he will get um
00:31:16
Speaker
sound effects for each thing that he's doing yeah so it's the um they've done a concom episode you can listen to oh yeah so it's uh zach vigo and johnny who's the tech guy right his name's johnny woolly and basically they they operated as like a three piece but obviously they were the two performers and he would do all the all the tech stuff um but essentially he's a performer in his own right
00:31:43
Speaker
Yeah, so the Baha Men thing is him saying, do you know how many Baha Men there are? He's like, there are but nine Baha Men. But every single time he lifts his, he just turns into a child because he's so funny. But like, every time he lifts his microphone up, it goes, you P.I.
00:32:12
Speaker
Yeah, no, it's just that it's so good. And he's got that thing. It's so good. He's like on about double deck in America, like in England, this joke would kill. He's like, because he's like, it's like a roast, like, like, oh, go for a Sunday roast.
00:32:33
Speaker
And then he'd go, oh, we have double decker sandwiches and you've got double decker buses with eyes and a peenish. It's so funny. And he'd come into the UK for the first time, apparently, on his own. Yeah, no, that's not true.
00:32:50
Speaker
which it might just be his that character it's probably the character but he i'm sure he was on at the fringe um so good he was definitely on as himself i don't know if he did jack tucker as well but 17th to the 20th of july yeah he was definitely definitely on i'm considering going down
00:33:11
Speaker
Well, we'll see. I'll see if I can make it work. But yeah, basically, we bumped into him after Late and Live because they just kind of mill around afterwards and we all ended up going out to the bar. But they came on and they were due to do like a 10 minute middle spot on Late and Live.
00:33:30
Speaker
and there was like Helen Bower was on first and Tanya Moore was hosting and I can't remember who was on last because I was too pissed by that point but basically they they came on and did their middle spot and for the rest of the night they kept ruining everyone else's act because they were like they'd just be like hanging off the balconies and spitting water at people and like
00:33:56
Speaker
they were so mischievous it was really funny no because well that's but that's later live they can get they can get away with it and it's they were so funny and that the like tanya who is mc and was basically just like you know you two naughty boys need to fuck off like it was like really really funny um before you go back to the jelly he's got a great joke about and prince andrew right i'll look i'll look it up
00:34:22
Speaker
It's um, it's very good. I'll find it. Um, because I do I follow him on on instagram. So i'll see see what i can see. It'll be on there. It's one of the short clip things But yeah, like if if you get a chance have a look on youtube for zach and vigo at edinburgh fringe there's a video from a few years ago now pre-pandemic where they
00:34:48
Speaker
They basically go on stage in Scotland, draped in England flags, singing three lions on a shirt. Amazing. And they get all booze and bottles thrown at them and stuff. And the organisers are like, no, you need to stop that. So they agree to stop. They go off, they come back on, do it again. And it's like, they just keep doing it. It's so funny. It's like a caster's bit about the... About the lead singer of his band.
00:35:20
Speaker
If you do that one more time, it's like, no, I won't do it again. Sorry, guys. I'm sorry. I don't want to come over. Yeah, exactly. Well, it's not, but they had no intention of not doing it again. But yeah, anyway, so we went on a wild tangent there.
Creating and Executing Comedic Sketches
00:35:35
Speaker
So the thing about the little service station story is that it sets up this Hitler sketch.
00:35:44
Speaker
Yes. You know the little Hitler newsreel sketches. Yeah. So basically I found out a couple of things. Number one, Paul Putner obviously is Hitler. Yeah.
00:36:01
Speaker
They inserted him of a real footage from a Hitler rally, whatever. And they stupidly wrote what he wanted him to say in English and then got a friend of his to translate it into German.
00:36:17
Speaker
Right. And then they gave Paul Putnar the German version and he just learned it like phonetically. Yeah. You know how to sort of say it and stuff, but it's his movements and stuff like the little wiggle and the little arm movements that get me. And there's just one sentence that happened to that point. You're not sure whether it's Paul Putnar or not.
00:36:34
Speaker
i think the first few seconds is like and then he moves a certain way and you're like all right oh yeah no it's definitely not hitler but like at first you think hitler got fat you are yeah exactly like there's one line that i picked out that first sketch where he says you can't say blacklisted um in case it offends our colored friends or handicapped or bumundits
00:37:02
Speaker
yeah like like up to that point um blacklisted or handicapped that could be from a a real sort of speech but then as soon as you hear the phrase bum bum that you're like okay that's clearly written as a joke yeah yeah exactly like do you know what i mean um
00:37:21
Speaker
and then obviously they come back to the Hitler sketch later on there's another sort of continuation of it but then he tells this story after that of doing a gig at Battersea Town Hall and about the dressing room being really nice and there being a good look card in there and then he said on the dressing table there is a single abandoned child's ballet shoe
00:37:51
Speaker
that he goes into this little sort of rant about this child's ballet shoe and how it's very disturbing. It's a really distressing object to find anywhere. It can only be two things. Yeah, it can only be that it's been... But there's a line in it where he says, why was it there in a room which was otherwise very carefully prepared?
00:38:16
Speaker
had some strange rumour gone round about me. Like that he'll only go on stage.
00:38:24
Speaker
Which obviously is alluding to the whole silly thing about riders and things. Yeah, well, it made me think of that bit in Wayne's World, you know, where he's like, Ozzy would go on stage that night, you know. What fell some brown M&Ms to Philip Brandyglass? You may know about the reason that riders became a thing.
00:38:51
Speaker
Why they became a thing, or why people put stupid stuff on them? Why they became a thing. Okay, go on. So, and I heard about this at uni, that actually, like, people started putting stupid stuff on them because people are stupid. No, I'll tell you why people put stupid stuff on them. People, right, so, well, people now probably do, but apparently people started putting really ridiculous things on them to check that their people were actually reading them.
00:39:18
Speaker
that's what i was going to say that actually the right like the rider thing yeah was van halen i think it was yeah or it was either van halen or iron maiden had a very um complicated set yeah and that was dangerous basically if you didn't put it together properly yeah so they put the rider
00:39:47
Speaker
about three quarters of the way in. Yeah. To make sure they were reading it properly. Yeah, basically that it was the whole, I think it was blue M&Ms or something. Yeah, yeah. Well, that's where that 1000 brown M&Ms. A bowl of blue M&Ms. Yeah. And they would go into the first thing they would do is go into the dressing room if there wasn't a bowl of blue M&Ms in there.
00:40:11
Speaker
they would say we're not going on stage yeah because they know it'd be unsafe because they haven't read it read it properly yeah which i think is really interesting but yeah it's people then it's genius when you think about it it's incredibly level-headed kind of thing it's incredibly level-headed and quick thinking for a band that were probably on loads of drugs well it as somebody who works in education it stinks to me
00:40:39
Speaker
of them stupid tests that we give kids, but actually it's so good because I fell for them every single time where there'd be a really long test and the first one, the first question would say, or the first thing would say, make sure you read all of the questions before starting your test. Question number one would be write your name.
00:41:08
Speaker
Question number 50 would be, ignore all of the questions except question one. Yeah, I've heard of that before. And you get to the end and it sounds like something that they would do on Taskmaster. But it's that thing of are people stupid enough
00:41:32
Speaker
to just go with whatever they think is just, cause I, well, why would I read all of the questions? Oh man, people will take any opportunity. Yeah, exactly. Every single time I would, would fall for it. Listen, if, if I pick up a book that I bought for pleasure and it's a massive book, I'm going to skip to the end to find out what happens just to see whether it's worth me reading the rest.
00:41:56
Speaker
Are you joking? I've done that before. That's stupid. If it's a book that I want to read, whereas if a friend of mine has said, read this book, you'll really like it, and it's massive, I'm like, ah, that looks like a lot of effort. I'm just going to see whether or not this is worth my time.
00:42:21
Speaker
I don't have the time, man. I can't be bothered. Well, it just reminds me of... I can't remember. I'm trying to find the actor that did it. I think it's... Might be Woody Harrelson. What did he do? I think it was either Woody... I'm gonna sound stupid now. Either Woody Harrelson or maybe Samuel Jackson. Do me a bullet.
00:42:49
Speaker
are a lot alike, obviously. But they're all about whether they do the film. Yeah, they say whether they make it to the end. Yeah, they read the first page, they read the last page, and if they're on both, then they'll do the picture. That's a Samuel L Jackson thing, I'm sure. Is it? I think I've heard that. Oh, yeah. It's so good. Yeah. But that makes sense, though, because obviously, you know, you probably get sent a lot of scripts
00:43:15
Speaker
as someone who's Samuel L Jackson. I don't know why he did deep blue sea then.
00:43:20
Speaker
Yeah, but maybe maybe maybe it appealed to him. Yeah. Yeah, I think also it was in a few where he probably probably being for seizures. Yeah, probably. But I'm a big fan of I'm a big fan of like first act twists like Scream is the big one. Obviously where they killed Drew Barrymore in the first year in the opening scene. Spoilers for it. It's like a script for anyone who hasn't seen a film that came out in 1996. Anyway,
00:43:51
Speaker
We've gone on a giant tangent again. This is why we need longer episodes that keep us on track.
Ballet Shoe Routine and Audience Reactions
00:43:59
Speaker
Anyway, so we're talking about the ballet routine. I'm talking about the ballet shoe routine, right? And what I really like about it is that
00:44:10
Speaker
when he gets he puts it on the microphone stand he puts it over the heads of the crowd you can literally see them like cowering away from it yeah like i don't want this near me this is bad juju you know what i mean like this is not but i don't think it's that i think it's the i think it's the awkwardness yeah
00:44:28
Speaker
But do you know my favourite bit? Well, other than people not wanting to touch it. Well, yeah, maybe. But please put that in their heads. My favourite bit of it is when he says he says that thing where he says he's talking about the viewers at home. He says, I didn't pay my licence fee. I didn't pay my licence fee to have a small child's ballet issue pushed towards my face. And his response is, well, it appears you did.
00:44:55
Speaker
Well, that made me think of and I know that this is it's not a tangent because it's a link to it. Yeah, but it made me think of my university days and one of in second year I heard which says a lot about me doing stand up now, to be fair, actually. So in my second year, we did a solo improvisation. Yeah. Why, why the exam was seven minutes
00:45:24
Speaker
and you walk on stage and you have no idea what you're going to do for the next seven minutes.
00:45:30
Speaker
That's just me doing stand up most of the time. Well, like, so essentially you do like movement, which then inspires thought and it's like there is a technique to it. But it ended up that I realized because during rehearsals, everything was just like to our friends or like small groups, like one on one most of the time or like one on two or whatever. And we split up into small groups. Whereas this was an actual paying audience.
00:45:59
Speaker
I remember dancing around and we were allowed to wear what we want because the guy was Australian. He's called Andrew Morrish, who is one of the only like one of 10 people in the world that there is a professional improviser like solo does like two-hour solo improvisations that are incredible.
00:46:26
Speaker
And he was like, yeah, you can wear whatever you want. I decided to wear like dinosaur pyjamas. Oh, yeah. Because they were because I thought it was funny. And the first thing I said, I was dancing around like and then the first thing that popped into your head is what you have, like you kind of have to say it because what else have you got? Yeah. And I said, you may be wondering, why am I watching a grown man dance around in his pyjamas? Yeah.
00:46:56
Speaker
when I should be, when you should, and then it came to me again, when you should be wondering, why have I paid to watch about, manage pajamas? And then again, it popped to me because it's at university. And it got a really big laugh. And it's a university arts degree, that's why. Yeah. And just that properly, I'd forgotten about that
Joke Origins and Parallelism
00:47:23
Speaker
bit.
00:47:23
Speaker
I did it in 2011. I've read about it since then, pretty much. But that's sort of what this is. That it's that kind of...
00:47:42
Speaker
You sort of didn't pay, you have paid for that. It's that notion of, right? You pay your money, you take your chance. Yeah. Right. And obviously with a license fee, it's slightly different because you've got... Yeah, because you're not choosing to pay it. Well, you're not choosing to pay it, but also you're not paying it specifically to watch that thing. Whereas if you buy a ticket to a thing, you know you're going to be watching some performers, you know some of them. Like at the friend or something like that.
00:48:10
Speaker
you know you're gonna watch anyone in Brian come and see me in Brian please you know you might yeah me too you know you might see something that you don't necessarily like but you're paying your money you're taking a chance right and you know Stewart Lee's always said what happens is the show
00:48:28
Speaker
So whatever you get is what you've paid for, right? But the funny thing about that line is that he stole it from Simon Monnery. Really? Yeah, again, he says in the commentary. He says in the commentary. All of his good lines. Simon Monnery jokes. Well, what you need to understand is that Simon Monnery is one of the best joke writers in this country.
00:48:50
Speaker
of any genre. There are not many people who understand a distilled, perfect joke like Simon Monnery. There's a few, there's obviously, you've got your
00:49:06
Speaker
You know, people will say Jimmy Carr, you've got Gary Delaney, you've got all these great one-liner comics, you know, Milton Jones. Delaney's my favourite, I think. Delaney's great. And his craft is incredible, but if I'm talking about
00:49:24
Speaker
just nailed on 30 years of just perfect joke right and it's monery and there's one joke that he does and it comes to me every now and again and i just wet myself laughing just thinking about it and he does a lot of jokes off the back of idioms right yeah you know he says there's one joke and he says uh they say if you walk a mile in a man's shoes you'll have his shoes
00:49:56
Speaker
And you'll be a mile away, win. Yeah, which is a great joke until you hear that, you know, the band Kings of Leon. Yeah. The band Kings of Leon have got a song where the chorus is that joke. Yeah, but I still I would imagine I'm a mile away.
00:50:24
Speaker
and I've got your shoes like properly like but they do it earnestly and it's really weird yeah because it's like does nobody realize that this is a joke what what gets me though is either that's parallel thinking
00:50:42
Speaker
all they've stolen from Simon Monnery which is weird. I have definitely heard that. I didn't know that that was a Simon Monnery joke but I knew that it was a joke of if you walk a mile in a man's shoes you'll be a mile away from him and you've got his shoes. Like I knew that that was a thing and then it was on in my cousin's car and I was like this is weird why like who puts a joke as like a
00:51:12
Speaker
because it's not even like a silly song. It's quite a serious kind of in a really earnest song. It's really weird, I'll send it to you. It's like, why? I didn't realise it was the same memory joke, but yeah, I love that joke. There's loads that he puts on
00:51:34
Speaker
on his Facebook or whatever, where he's just like, quotes, tweets. He's just got twins. And it's so good. I'll tell you what's a really good, there's a really good clip on YouTube of him doing, because he does a lot of prop stuff. And there's a really good clip on YouTube of him doing, he brings out like a picture, like a paper picture of the crucifixion.
00:52:03
Speaker
And there's like there's Jesus's cross in the middle, but it's empty because Jesus has already died and been taken away. And then there's two guys either side of him, you know, how they're on the mountain. They were like the three of them.
00:52:14
Speaker
there's these two guys either side of him and he's rigged it up so he can move the mouths like puppeteer the mouths on the picture amazing and it's just these two having a conversation with each other and it's fucking incredible i swear to god i need to watch some of his like long form stuff he's just
00:52:34
Speaker
uh it's just effortless like he can he's so like unassuming and like yeah you like how stew's got quite a confrontational character and and yeah you're like almer he comes out and commands an audience and harry hill's just mental or whatever like monery comes out and he's just all right it's like he doesn't even realize that he's saying something funny he's so unassuming and brilliant and like he'll just his thing like when he did characters in the 90s and he did like the league and stadium and um
00:53:04
Speaker
What was the other one Alan Parker urban warrior? He they were like characters and they were proper like they had personas and stuff but him as himself is some of the best stuff I've seen it's I Just I just love his onstage demeanor. I think it's brilliant And if you want to see some of these like short form joke, right ingenious there's a couple of clips of him on at the Melbourne Comedy Festival like four-minute clips and
00:53:33
Speaker
you know, like where they do those galas where there's like a bunch of comedians all come out and do five minutes each. Right. And there's there's a few. And honestly, just watch some money. He's so good. I'm definitely going to try and check him out when I'm in Edinburgh again this year, because he's going up again. But anyway, so that was that was a thing that he'd nicked because he said that Monterrey did that that line as a heckle put down.
00:54:04
Speaker
really so if anyone stood up and said I didn't pay to hear this dribble he's like well you actually did yeah you know yeah literally you did yeah you literally did you paid me you've heard it yes you did like um and it so he did it as a point how much stews nicked it for this um and he so he says he he rolled with this you know having this this ballet issue he found this ballet issue and he went out on stage and he started talking about in front of about 500 people
00:54:34
Speaker
And he started telling the stories about how there was only two possible reasons why it's there. One is because it's been lost, which is sad. The second, it's no longer required, which is worse. But he says there was no... I don't know why he's insinuating that. What, that it's no longer required? Yeah. Kids dead. Well... Do you think...? Yeah, yeah, 100%. That's what he means.
00:55:00
Speaker
but yeah i'd heard somewhere there's like a it's either an urban legend or a parable or something about when you see a kid's shoe on its own and what it means um but yeah that's i think that's essentially what he's getting at is that um if it's been lost that's fine because the kid's okay it's been lost it's sad but it's okay but if it's no longer required why is it no longer required because the kid's probably dead you know see for once i wasn't
00:55:28
Speaker
that morbid and was like, oh, they've just stopped doing ballet. That's the ADHD child in me. They just obviously found a different hobby. Yeah. But this is the thing. I have lots of things that I have lots of one ballet shoes around my house. Oh yeah. I'm a walking
One-Legged Ballerina and Newsreader Sketches
00:55:53
Speaker
collection of four hobbies.
00:56:01
Speaker
But that's the thing, isn't it? He comes out and he says there was no laugh at all, just a terrible feeling of 500 people staring at me with hate in their eyes, which would only happen if he was talking about dead kids. Which is why it's such a depressing sight, the one shoe, and they say, why have you done this? Why? And I look down and in the front row there's a very young one-legged ballerina.
00:56:23
Speaker
It had me actually. It's rare watching Stewart will admit that I get a full laugh out loud.
00:56:32
Speaker
barely laughs but then i did do you not think this has shades of because he's again he's taken it in a surreal direction there clearly wasn't a one legged ballerina sat there this is a it's just it's a surreal flight of fancy right but i think it's got shades of the bit that he does in the tom o'conner routine where he says um and i came across a small oily fish
00:56:57
Speaker
I think it's less. It's less, but... It's less, sorry. But it's the same technique. Same technique, but you are more... I'm laughing because I can't believe I never thought I'd say these sentences. But I think you are more likely to find a one-legged ballerina.
00:57:26
Speaker
They're talking oily fish. They're talking oily fish. I don't think that I'm out of order saying that. I think you're back out of order Joe. I think how dare you. That's a disgusting thing to say. Justice for small oily fish that talk. Justice for one-legged ballerinas. Well, if I'm honest, the justice for one-legged ballerinas is the beautiful ballerina sketch.
00:57:53
Speaker
yeah well yeah exactly the dog who isn't a one-legged dog just has lost one of his legs and has a passion for it's so good but he says a couple of things about this sketch that are really interesting you know what it's my favorite it's so good
00:58:15
Speaker
he he says that like in the ballerina sketch there was no good reason for the news reader who's played by Tara Flynn to be sat on a throne he said he's not making any kind of point or joke there he just thought he was funny well i think maybe he's not intentionally making a point
00:58:32
Speaker
Yeah, maybe not. He is definitely making the point of the high horse. Yeah, well, I think that's what Paul Putner questioned him on and basically said, are you trying to say that the press lord it over us or whatever? Yeah. And he said, he said, you know, I don't think so. He says, I just thought it was really funny to have a sitting in a throne. He says, ditto the bit at the end where the Archbishop of Canterbury stands there and just stares at the camera.
00:58:55
Speaker
Which is so good. But what I love about this is... Oh, where is it? I'm going to try and find... My dog has a missing leg and enjoys ballet. We should have the same rights as everyone else. It's political correctness gone mad. But what I love is Kevin Elden's line. It says, I doubt very much that the BBC would make a joke about a one-legged Muslim doing some sort of Muslim dance.
00:59:24
Speaker
and that's similar to a joke that he does in Carpet Remnant World where he says he says he's doing a joke about crisps or something and someone writes into the BBC and says oh it's one rule for crisps and quite another for those mini pop-a-don things that you find in Marks and Spencers. I'm going to cry like the mini pop-a-dons if I'm honest. Yeah same but he says he says something like going for a curry tonight and I thought
00:59:53
Speaker
I very much enjoyed watching Stuart Lee on the politically correct BBC. And I do want to know if he intends to make fun of any Muslim snacks in the near future. But again, it's a similar kind of area that he's working in. But then they do the thing of all of the
01:00:17
Speaker
all of the protests, the one legged ballerina protests around the world. And Paul Putna points out, he says, obviously they're stood in front of a green screen hopping around with a sign in their hand. He says he just finds it hilarious that all of these protests are taking part in famous landmarks. Yeah. So it's not just like a field in the middle of somewhere, it's like the Eiffel Tower or whatever.
01:00:44
Speaker
yeah exactly um but they said that obviously because you know the actors all have two legs um
01:00:53
Speaker
He said it was really funny because they wrapped their legs. Ableism. Can't believe they've asked people. Yeah, they didn't. They wrapped their legs in blue gauze to like, you know, paint it out. How plenty, yeah. But then just had them hopping around and he said, like, he tried to play football. Kevin Elden said he tried to play football or something afterwards and his legs were killing it. Because he'd been like hopping around for hours on end.
01:01:21
Speaker
Yeah, I think she said one point.
01:01:25
Speaker
about her paying her license fee yeah yeah she makes the same point of you know i don't pay my license fee for this but um one of my one of my favorite things is the bit at the end with the um with the news reader where she says tomorrow the case will be presented to the broadcast in ombudsman if he finds in the bbc's favor then the demonstrators won't have a leg to stand on but she said it in so she says it in that that silly way that
01:01:54
Speaker
news anchors always do yeah where they like they make light of something because that like obviously they wouldn't do it like they wouldn't do it at the end of like a Garza thing but stuff where it's like a light thing then they will
01:02:18
Speaker
And that's just like, because you can see that the smirk on her face is so funny. Yeah. Well, that's what I'm saying. She's very kind of good at doing that sort of smug, detached thing that the news readers kind of have. She was really, really good at it.
01:02:37
Speaker
Um, but she's a great comic performer, you know what I mean? She's done lots of good stuff. So it makes sense. But so that, that kind of sketch then falls apart with, uh, the protestors coming in and, um, taking it on fire, like setting the thing on fire and then the stack and the screen changes to the girl with the clown. Um, and it's, but it's just the thing that they shout where they shout one leg good, two legs bad.
Satire and Societal Commentary
01:03:06
Speaker
Well, that's an animal farm reference. Oh, is it? I've not read Animal Farm. What? So I told you, Joe, I read the last page of books to see if they're worth my time. It's four legs good, two legs bad. OK, right. So it's basically the animals saying that they're better than the farmers. Yeah. And the humans. No, whatever makes sense.
01:03:33
Speaker
i mean i read um i read 1984 because every fucking i'll be really i'm glad i got that because otherwise yeah i've directed on my farm and if anyone from the cast found out that i didn't recognize that i'd get hung drawn and quartered i'm um i'm terrible for re reading or watching things people say that i should right yeah do you know what i mean so like if someone says to me or i can't believe you haven't you know you call yourself a this that or the other and you haven't read or watched this oh fuck off
01:04:03
Speaker
I'm not interested in flaunting a, you know, superiority about, like, Yeah, like, I'll just, I haven't read that, you know what I mean? I'm not bothered. But 1984, just because every fucker was talking about during the pandemic, with, with my favourite book, completely the wrong context as well.
01:04:25
Speaker
i read it when i was 17 what 1984 yeah it was like the first book that kind of really opened my mind just in general yeah rather than just being for entertainment
01:04:40
Speaker
yeah i mean it's on it's on my uh you know the animal farms on my reading list it's one of those things but it's quite a short book as well animal farm i'll get to it when i get to it i'll read it at some point i just i resent being told to read the stuff um yeah but anyway so you get you know you get back into the stand-up and and he goes into the stuff that we you know we've we've kind of seen this on 41st best the weight watchers um the weight watchers routine yeah but
01:05:10
Speaker
The interesting thing about this is there's a little bit of an improvisation here where he talks about Kofi Annan.
01:05:20
Speaker
all right yeah so he does the whole bit where he sets up the Weight Watchers routine he says oh if you're an independent on sunday reader and you're thinking i hope this isn't going to be needlessly offensive don't worry yeah or this is a line i've not heard before um in other versions of this routine where he says if likewise if you're a top gear viewer thinking i hope this will be needlessly offensive
01:05:42
Speaker
don't worry I've done this bit before and it was reviewed in the London free newspaper Metro has been tediously politically incorrect politically correct so he says don't worry just get ready to be bored out of your tiny mind but so you know he's doing he's doing the routine that obviously we've spoken about before so I don't want to I don't get bogged down in it
01:06:04
Speaker
But he says, he talks about the United Nations' day out to a fun, fair hall of mirrors, which was obviously part of the original routine. But then he goes off on this thing and he says, which they did used to have during the Kofi Annan era, he said Kofi Annan would go.
01:06:22
Speaker
the staff every weekend to Coney Island fun fair where Kofi Annan would look at himself in a slimming world mirror because he'd become very concerned about being overweight. This is a really stupid joke which I really like but it's so dumb. He says and he was overweight Kofi Annan as a result of his habit starting every day with a breakfast of a coffee and a naan.
01:06:52
Speaker
It's so stupid. And then he repeats the name Kofi Annan. He says, what would you like for breakfast, Kofi Annan? Yes, please. And I'm reluctant to talk about this next bit for reasons which you and I, I think, have touched upon privately and spoken about privately, but the next sketch features Stephen K Amos. Yeah.
01:07:19
Speaker
So I'm not really gonna get into this too much, but just to say I thought it was a very funny sketch.
01:07:28
Speaker
about the newsreel and the, you know, the Peter Sarafini, which again, doing the voice of the newsreel announcer saying, you know, the plains of Ghana, where just like hearing Blighty, an anxious father waits outside the door while his wife gives birth. But in this funny land, there's a very unusual tradition concerning the way a child is named. Where it's, you know, it's something to do with whatever the first thing the father thinks of when he hears the baby crying and then Stephen Gaim or says fuck.
01:08:01
Speaker
It's a silly joke but I thought it was a very funny well done sketch but I think we'll move on from that bit, the less said about that stuff the better. I'm going to skip over all the rest of this routine because obviously we've spoken at length on the 41st best episode.
01:08:19
Speaker
about about a length on this one as well to be fair already well we have yeah but you know we have we're missing a big chunk of it so it's okay for us to kind of get a bit more into some of the other stuff but we're going to cut out a big chunk of it because we're not going to bother going over the weight watchers sketch weight watchers routine again because we've done that um but what that leads into then is this sketch about northerners
01:08:45
Speaker
because obviously as part of the, as part of the Weight Watchers routine, he says, he says people in the North, somewhere like Darby might think, oh yeah, they would have that in that London, you know, the Finsbury Park, Weight Watchers and Taboo Hair Discussion Group. But it's interesting, because you know, you remember when we did the episode on 41st Best, and I said the thing that annoyed me about that was that Darby wasn't in the North. Right, and this is what I was talking about earlier,
01:09:15
Speaker
where the levels of subtext to this routine and said, you know, I'm going to make an assumption to everything that he does. He applies this level of rigor to everything that he does. He actually says in the commentary, he says, I know Darby's not in the north. He says I'm from the Midlands, so I'm not from London. I know it's not from the north.
01:09:41
Speaker
He says, but he met people who were from the south who didn't know where anything was in the north of England. Right. Yes, that's what them Dobby was to know. And yeah, but he also said that because he talks about it in the northerners sketch as well, where in the northerners sketch, Paul Putner, instead of saying daft apeth, keeps saying daft aphid.
01:10:11
Speaker
or he's saying it wrong. And he says, he did that on purpose. He said, the subtext of this is that the man who has written the sketch, i.e. the comedian Stuart Lee, not Stuart Lee himself, knows so little about the North that he'd get that wrong just to make it and just make it up. But that's what I'm talking about with subtext. You might look at that and say, oh, he's saying Daft Aford. That's just weird. He's getting that wrong. I wonder why that is. But he's actually thought about it.
01:10:39
Speaker
to the degree of the person writing this sketch would get that wrong. Making the mistake intentionally. But he's making the mistake intentionally for a thing that no one's ever going to pick up on. Yeah. And he mentions this in the in the commentary and even like, you know, Paul Putner and Kevin Elden were like, oh, that's interesting. You know, they they'd not picked up on that was why you did it. And I just find that fascinating because that's like a level of rigor that's just unnecessary.
01:11:11
Speaker
Do you know what I mean? That could be a quote on his website. A level of rigor that is unnecessary. Yeah, exactly. But just what I love about it, there's a line in it where he says basically he's saying that being religious is the same as being daft. Which is funny.
01:11:34
Speaker
And by the way, Paul Putnam makes a very convincing sort of Northern woman, I'd say. I've actually seen women in the North that walk around that look just like me. You've seen women in the North, right? You've seen one or two, yeah. I think we have them here.
01:11:51
Speaker
that look just like Paul Putner. I think that says a lot more about Castleford than it does anywhere else. Maybe so. Apologies to the ladies of Castleford if any of them are listening. It's fine. The ladies of Castleford don't understand English. Right. So we've spoken about stuff like this before. It's fine for me to make that joke.
01:12:22
Speaker
Fine. Let me get my gay jokes ready, Joe. I apologise to the... No, the women of Casselford are not a protected class. I am. I am not concerned by your level of gay joke. Yeah, because they're not as good as yours, that's why. Sally. If you're going to insult this, I'm doing better than I am. Do it. Do it as good as me. Do it as good as my opponent at the Rice Bottle, who is their version of a gay joke.
01:12:52
Speaker
was just describing what bisexuality was. To the point of when there was another roast on, later on that night, when they mentioned bisexuality. And Freddy quid. Sorry, I'm not quite sure we understand what bisexuality is. George, are you still there?
01:13:18
Speaker
And they got him to come to the stage to give a definition of bisexuality. And he went, just like in the joke, he went, I think it's when they want to fuck a man and a woman. But yeah, thanks. Cheers, George. And off he came back. Poor George. But if you're ever not sure about what bisexuality is,
01:13:46
Speaker
Ask George, he's finally got round to what the answer is. He's figured it out. That was one of the punchlines, genuinely, was one of the punchlines. He's got it eventually. It was something like, you've got a cock in your mouth and balls on your chin. And I went, where's the punchline? Like, I don't get what's funny. And he went, because you've got a cock in your mouth and balls on your chin.
01:14:15
Speaker
Well that's his punchline. That's just Tuesday. That's not a punchline, that's just my life. That's just describing my sexuality. Yeah, fucking hell. But yeah. Anyway. So anyway, right, in this northern sketch, there's a couple of lines that I really really like and I think it's
01:14:36
Speaker
Kevin Elden says, I think it must be one of them jokes that they have down in that London. Well, they have them down in that London, don't they, I suppose, jokes. They have clowns and monkeys, too, and they do dances in the streets, and the Londoners laugh at them and throw money and quality sausages at them.
01:14:53
Speaker
quality sausages which is great and then there's another little bit it's just the selection of the phrase quality sausages that made me laugh and then there's the little bit where it cuts to the shop house which i think looks a lot like that house that's on its own on the m62 yeah um or either that or the shop from the league of gentlemen but it looks very similar to like a an isolate you know one of those types places yeah
01:15:20
Speaker
and you hear them talking inside and he says oh oh dear have you done a smell and the wife says aye and he says must be the salvo loy it's just it's such a great representation of what it's like to be a sort of slightly overweight northern couple sat on the sofa watching telly because my wife will not thank me for saying this if she ever listens to this but we sit there
01:15:51
Speaker
like they sit there one of us leaning to one side the other one leaning to the other trading farts just eating sauce eating quality sausages why are you not even eating quality sausages no we don't either i don't know why i said that because we just eat richmond rubbish sausages um rich in the pot are they they're branded
01:16:18
Speaker
Yeah, but they're like, I don't know, they're cheaper than the alternative ones. But anyway, let's not get into a debate about sausages. So yeah, so the sketch is done and he gets back into the Weight Watchers routine, which like I say, we're not going to get in. Although interestingly, you did mention
01:16:42
Speaker
There's that bit that he does in this routine. I'm not going to go over it massively, but he changed it slightly for the BBC because of lawyers.
01:16:51
Speaker
really um so it's a bit where he says in the mid 60s conservative party won a by-election in Birmingham when they sent out little kids with leaflets that said if you want an n-word for a neighbour vote liberal or labour obviously he uses the actual word but i'm not going to use that here um yeah and he says and if political the original joke was and if political correctness has achieved one thing it's to make the conservative party cloak their inherent racism behind more creative language
01:17:18
Speaker
yeah so that was the original joke in his 41st best but it's changed here where he said if it's achieved one thing it's to make racists in the conservative party cloak their beliefs behind more creative language so was not i'm not picked up on that yes that is interesting somebody's nicked your hair dryer joke so so as to not
01:17:45
Speaker
denigrate the entire, you know, to not make the assertion that all of conservative party is racist. That'll have been changed for legal. So annoying, because the original jokes better. I'm not able to say it because it's true. Yeah, but I mean, the original jokes better.
01:18:04
Speaker
yeah um but the routine as it stands just it's basically the exact same which is like i say i don't i don't really want to uh it changes tiny bits of it you know because a lot some of it's like uh riffing so like you can't even write racist abuse on someone's current excrement like he's done different versions of that in the past i think they're the same across the two that we've looked at but yeah um some of it's like uh
01:18:33
Speaker
you know, some of it's ad-libbed in the moment, where he selects things. But then he gets into the village people sketch, which I really, really liked. So it's the same village where they did the Delboy stuff.
01:18:49
Speaker
yeah it's the same place the village near Watford or something where they did the Delboy stuff um which they've called Farity St Margaret just to make it which is quite funny um and they say it's the very center of the debate on political correctness um and then there's the woman who says the people of this village do not want to see the village green turned into a makeshift encampment every year year and year out by the village people yeah and obviously
01:19:17
Speaker
Obviously, apart from the gypsy community. Well, I suppose just about any kind of immigration to a small village or whatever. Yeah, I suppose, yeah. They've kind of put that in there to say as a replacement for a kind of any outsider immigration.
Cultural Demographics and Personal Experiences in Bradford
01:19:37
Speaker
Especially when it brings up, some of the village people are black, aren't they?
01:19:42
Speaker
Yeah and does the classic, I know what you're gonna say but it's not that. Yeah but then her response to it is brilliant where she says I was partial to the dark beef.
01:19:57
Speaker
yeah and looking over longingly yeah and his reaction apparently there was a bit cut where the the husband character Paul Putnam says something about he was partial to a long anal session with a like I can't remember the exact word in but there's they cut that bit
01:20:17
Speaker
But I love Stuart Lee's piece to camera here where he says the village people are a nomadic group of multi-coloured homosexuals. Homosexuals. Homosexuals. Yeah. Which I always see as being, as dating something. What, the pronunciation? Yeah, like I, for some reason, I see it as like an older style
01:20:46
Speaker
I always thought that was just more regional rather than... I don't know. It might just be personally. I've only ever really heard older people say homosexual.
01:20:58
Speaker
yeah i thought i well maybe i don't know i thought i thought it was more regional but you could be right but now they're more likely to say the gays yeah a nomadic group of multi-colored homosexuals who say they just want to have a good time and hang out with all the boys
01:21:18
Speaker
Yeah, which is great. And he says that the people are fairly same-migrant and they're all sympathetic. It is a great way to put in the YMCA without it being overly... Yeah.
01:21:31
Speaker
like done i just think it's a really brilliant satire to be honest with you like but all of the all of the ways that they talk about the village people in this sketch so the actual people from the village talking about the village people um yeah saying things like honestly look at this gay mess and they're looking at that gay pawn mags and dildos
01:21:53
Speaker
He says, I mean, that old red Indian one, I'd seen him sitting in a layer by eating a pork pie without a care in the world. And it's like, it's the exact way that they might talk about, you know, like you said, maybe the gypsy community. Like just living their life. Just doing a thing. But how, but doing it without
01:22:16
Speaker
without a care in the world. It's not the fact that he was eating a pot pie or being in the lair by it, it's the fact that he was arrested and being oppressed. Yeah. Which is what he should be doing. But it's interesting because they said in the commentary or Stuart said in the commentary that that bit came from how, I don't know if you remember, there's a bit in a 90s comedian where he talks about going home to his mum's village, you know, the bit where he meets Jesus and stuff, but he talked about going home to his mum's village and he says he goes in the shop
01:22:45
Speaker
and his or his mum says to him or so-and-so from the shop saw you sitting in a lay-by eating a muesli bar oh yeah and he says that he says the people of his mum's village were always really concerned about who was sitting in the lay-by one of one of my favorite stories ever
01:23:05
Speaker
And I've finished my retirement, but I may end up killing us into the thing, but one of my good friends from uni, our name obviously, comes from a very small village in Cumbria. And then went to Huddershire University, which is a much more multicultural place. And I think we were in third year where we just sat around having a drink or whatever and a chat.
01:23:33
Speaker
And we were talking about, like, there were a few friends in our friendship group that were black, one that was from a country in Africa that I can't say exactly what I would even attempt. But they have an
01:23:55
Speaker
And not only I can't name them because I shouldn't, but they have a beautiful name. And he turned round and said, oh, so and so. I realised recently that you're the first black person I've ever met in real life. Really? And then this was like 2011, 2012. Jesus.
01:24:22
Speaker
And she thought it was the funniest thing she'd ever heard. She was like, what do you mean? And then he tried to clarify it by saying, no, I'm just from a really small village in Cumbria. A couple came once. And it was a thing that people would
01:24:47
Speaker
literally twitch their curtains and ring round because a black couple came and stayed. And I'd heard one was in the village where people were like, and it wasn't necessarily that he was saying that it was a problem.
01:25:09
Speaker
He was just explaining the situation and she thought it was the funniest thing. You're the first black person I've ever met in real life. It was like obviously I'd seen them on TV. I knew you existed. It's just reminding me of something where, do you know the comedian Emmanuel Sanubhi?
01:25:34
Speaker
i have heard of them he's he's very very funny he's giant massive huge black guy yeah like incredibly big um he used to be a bouncer and now he's comedian he's been on like live at the apollo and stuff and he's got a brilliant routine about going to the gym which is really funny but anyway um he he was telling this story i listened to the always be comedy podcast where they ask um comedians or comedy people to
01:26:04
Speaker
curate their dream gig lineup. Amazing. It's really, really good. Stuart Lee's done an episode. And so anyway, he's asking him about this dream lineup and he's talking about incidents that happen at gigs. And he said he was once doing a gig and there's a guy who was really nervous about being at the gig because he didn't want the comedians to talk to him.
01:26:31
Speaker
And he said, he said to the guy, he said, look, I'm going to talk to you. He says, but I'm telling you now, I'm going to talk to you. We're going to help you get over this. I'm going to talk to you. So sit on, you know, sit on the front row. I'll talk to you. It'll be really easy. I'm going to say one thing to you. You respond to me and I will speak to you again after that. He says, but it'll help you get over this thing. He said that when it came time to the gig,
01:26:56
Speaker
Um, he, he asked him this question and I can't remember exactly what it was. The question was, um, Oh, that was it. Like, uh, when have you ever been frightened? Um, you know, when's this it, when's the time you've been the most frightened? Yeah. And the guy responded, um, your lot frightened the life out of me.
01:27:23
Speaker
which obviously the crowd had no context for. But obviously Emmanuel himself, he's told this story on the Always Be Company podcast, really funny, but he says obviously the crowd didn't have the context, but he knew full well that the man meant comedians. He said it's just the fact that he used the phrase, he used the phrase, your lot.
01:27:52
Speaker
Right. Which is just... I'm frightened. Yeah, exactly. But, yeah, he said so... He says in that moment... That's just so funny. He said in that moment he abandoned his whole plan 20 minutes set and made it all about that man. Yeah, amazing. Because it was just the funniest thing. And actually, either cured him of his fear... Yeah, probably.
01:28:19
Speaker
or made it worse but anyway what i'm saying is phrase is like you know like you say like your lot or whatever is kind of or their kind or your kind or whatever that's the way that people in small villages speak about outsiders yeah you know and they say it's not necessarily race is like just outsiders yeah but i mean i think race does come into it a fair bit like you know
01:28:44
Speaker
Yeah, it's got to. And it's actually coming from somewhere like, well, you're technically from Bradford, are you? I am, yes. And then I'm from Bradford. Coming from somewhere that is a multicultural city. It massively confused the life art of me when he said,
01:29:02
Speaker
What do you even mean? I think my mum's best friend when I was growing up was black so like not really I think and she was like my first crush I think oh yeah you know when you when you're young and like I think I was about six or seven that sort of age and it would always be yeah that she was just like she was a very attractive lady
01:29:32
Speaker
yeah no of course like even now like it's just like yeah you you know it's uh it's easy you know but like coming from it's interesting because coming from Bradford and moving over to Castleford which is a smaller village you know it's predominantly predominantly white working class you know the type of thing that um Stuart Lee gets accused of demonizing
01:29:58
Speaker
And it's quite interesting actually because he said that in this episode he got some criticism where it sort of said, he found it quite funny that he spent the whole episode saying political correctness is a good thing and you shouldn't stereotype people and this and that but then he did a whole routine stereotyping people from the north.
01:30:19
Speaker
yeah he said so effectively it's hypocrisy and like double standards yeah but that's but that's the point of it so it makes it okay well he sort of said he said he didn't he said he realized after a while that that's what it was and he said he thought it'd be really funny to keep doing it and lean into it because the right wing press would be furious about it um but he's acknowledged that it is a double standard and it is a is a hypocrisy um but he says obviously he chooses for the character to be that way
01:30:50
Speaker
But one of the things I kind of thought about obviously coming from a multicultural place like Bradford to this smaller or insular kind of village. It's really funny because when I first moved here, one of my school friends literally said to me, when we heard you were coming here and you were from Bradford, we thought you were going to be Asian.
01:31:11
Speaker
Right. Like that was the perception that they had. Yeah. Yeah, of course. That's what they would expect. They were like, oh, you know, we thought you were going to be Asian. And they weren't being. I don't think in that, you know, I'm speaking for them, but I don't think they were being racist. They were purely just that's what we know about Bradford. Yeah. You know, whereas from my point of view, coming from there, living alongside different cultures and stuff, it was normal to me.
01:31:38
Speaker
like it didn't you know it never even registered really as such although to be fair in in the 90s as you might remember it was quite tribal and we had like there was the riots and stuff in the early 2000s and yeah it's still quite tribal i don't know because it's i don't really spend any significant amount of time there but it used to be very very yeah i don't think it's as tribal now but it is still quite like there are certain areas that you know of as
01:32:07
Speaker
the asian community like you do like within that
Satire on Immigration and Political Correctness
01:32:11
Speaker
and like certain families won't move to certain areas yeah i always seem to remember um like canterbury under cliff little heart and that kind of yeah my grandma lived there funnily enough but it was predominantly other cultures a lot of west indian um culture around those areas as well my grandma's neighbors were west indian yeah there's lots of different kind of
01:32:36
Speaker
areas it's an interesting place but obviously there's a lot of tension there as well yeah or at least there was when i was growing up because like i say we ended up bit culminated in the bradford riots in the early 2000s where they burnt down car garages and were fighting yeah it was crazy um but anyway to bring all of this yeah because you don't need to finish this or something
01:32:56
Speaker
Yeah, I know, but all of this to say that this this satire of kind of outsiders moving to a village, immigration, that kind of thing is spot on as far as I'm concerned in terms of my lived experience. Yeah. You know, but it ends with just the most brilliant sort of punchline where where the guy shoots, shoots one of the village people
01:33:24
Speaker
gets put in a cell and she says they've put Mike in the cell overnight to cool down apparently you can't shoot a member of the village people with an antique blunder bus in your own village anymore
01:33:35
Speaker
it's political correctness gone mass yeah which is like a distillation of the type of lines that stew would do in the yeah you know in the thing but it just takes it to that again that absurd sort of degree um and now after that obviously he does the little bit which we've already spoken about about his nan where it's like oh yeah and but the bit the bit that i find interesting is every single version i've seen of this routine because he does it in 41st best
01:34:02
Speaker
He does it here, where he's talking about his non-confusing political correctness and health and safety legislation. You know, you can't have hot beverages by the workstation and all that kind of stuff. He's done that version, to my mind, three times. He's done it in 41st Best, this episode here, and he does it again in Snowflake.
01:34:21
Speaker
right three different versions of it and in all the different versions of it that i've seen his nun has a different name well yeah it's probably because he's given it a different name yeah so he's he called his nun mrs dowden in 41st best and then like mrs harris
01:34:38
Speaker
in another version and Mrs. Lewis, I think it was here. And it's just really funny how, you know, he said in the past that like whenever he talks about his kids or any family members or anything, he changes their names and genders and ages.
01:34:54
Speaker
you know just to try and take it away from yeah exactly from like real life but you know we're not going to get massive into that because obviously we've looked at that routine before and we'll probably look at it again because it changes fairly i don't want to say significantly but it changes a bit for the snowflake bit so when we get to that which by the way i was going to say to you do you know i said i was a bit worried that we weren't going to be able to get old of snowflake tornado because it wasn't on iplayer anymore it's now available through media garage
01:35:23
Speaker
which is it's Stewart Lee's affiliate where where he sells all right so it's on his website basically what i'm saying is when we get to that you can get it off media garage for like a fiver or something nice um when we get that far uh but yeah so the way that he ends this routine i love um and you'd be pleased to know joe after an hour and a half we are at the end um
01:35:49
Speaker
We always get there. You can cut a lot of this, though, to be fair. No, of course. We always get there, but... We always get there. The way that he caps this off is, and I love it where he says, I would have taken some time to look at the other side of this argument, the political correctness argument, the right-wing libertarian position, but we're in a licensed venue, we've overrun, there's no time.
01:36:15
Speaker
which is great which is exactly what the character would do yeah it's confirmation bias of the highest order like yeah he 100% would do he says we're in a licensed venue we've overrun there's all sorts of rules and regulations here so I'm afraid we're gonna have to stop it's political correctness gone mad
01:36:34
Speaker
And that's it. That's how it ends, right? Which I think, you know, we've spoken a bit over the last couple of episodes about how the way he ends his routine sometimes is a bit underwhelming or whatever, probably purposefully.
01:36:46
Speaker
But I think that was perfect. That's the way I'm doing it, yeah. I think that was perfect. It wasn't necessarily a brilliant joke, although I love the fact that he's saying he's not going to do the right wing version of it. Yeah, I could do that, but I'm not going to. Yeah, we don't have time, which is great. But I think, I don't know.
Episode Reflection and Anticipation for Next Topic
01:37:06
Speaker
I'd said before that toilet books was my favorite.
01:37:14
Speaker
But having rewatched this one, I really enjoyed it. Probably less my favourite because it's got a lot of material that's used elsewhere. I think that was the thing that if I watched it independently and hadn't seen my first best... You'd have probably said it was one of the better ones. Yeah, yeah, definitely.
01:37:30
Speaker
Yeah, but from our point of view, because obviously we've done the majority of this in 41st best, we've seen a lot of this. Yeah. It's great. But it's just treading the same ground. Well, it's not even treading, it's the exact same. It's literally the same. But I like the sketches, I like the thematic material and the bits. Yeah, I like the sketches.
01:37:55
Speaker
the bits that weren't you know in 41st best were good but i think i think for the most part this is probably certainly from our point of view i think you'll agree one of the the less enticing episodes yeah um but you know we'll we'll move on we're halfway through season one um
01:38:22
Speaker
I can't remember what the next episode is in the series. I'm not sure it's on the next DVD so I'm not even seeing what it's called. Yeah well that's it. Joe and I are on old school technology so it's on. They're on DVDs and it's a 2 DVD series. Let's see if I can find out.
01:38:46
Speaker
what the next one is in any kind of quick way. Because we're going to try and get to a global financial crisis is episode four, which is interesting because obviously round about the time it was filmed was right after the financial crash. Yeah. So that's probably semantically quite relevant and interesting because obviously we've ended up in another one now in 2024.
01:39:10
Speaker
yeah but yeah cool so just to cap off then joe final thoughts on this episode no i think you've already said it liked it nothing to add it was good but it was yeah yeah
01:39:26
Speaker
Hey, listen, at least he's environmentally conscious. Yeah, sure. But no, it was all good. So yeah, next time, Global Financial Crisis episode four. Thank you to everyone for listening and we will see you again soon. Bye.