Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Episode 7: Comedy Vehicle #1.4 - Global Financial Crisis (2009)
570 Plays4 months ago
Here, Dan and Joe step back in time to a world when no one had any money and the world was on the brink of complete financial collapse. No, it wasn't last week. It was fifteen years ago. And although the world recovered financially for a little while, normal service has been resumed and no one has any money again.
"AT LEAST WE STILL HAVE STEWART LEE" I hear you cry. Yes, but at what cost?
In this episode, Stew gets sketch happy in an attempt to disguise a stand up routine that didn't particularly catch fire in the same way as his other stuff, and yet was still better than 99% of what someone called Russell might do. We talk about it a bit but often get bored and ramble about other stuff.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:31
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Across the Stewniverse podcast, the world's only podcast about the comedian Stuart Lee. It is hot as balls.
Discussing Technical Difficulties and Weather
00:00:46
Speaker
technical term at the moment in the in the north of england some people from other countries are going to laugh at this but it's basically it's 26 degrees celsius and i am melting um so i apologize if you can hear my uh tiny little fan in the background but basically it's the only thing right now keeping me alive um So firstly, apologies for for not sticking one of these out earlier.
Switch to Monthly Release Schedule
00:01:16
Speaker
We were on a bit of a schedule and we had some things in the pipeline that were were going to be filling the gap but the the two episodes that we recorded in Brighton didn't come out very well so that kind of threw all our plans up into the air. um I was hoping to be able to give Joe a break from recording because he's got some other stuff going on um but
00:01:36
Speaker
that didn't really work out so essentially what we're going to do now is we're going to move to more of a monthly schedule i'm going to try and get one of these out each month so obviously it's going to take us a little bit longer to move through the through shoes over but and it makes it a bit easier for both of us because i'm going to edinburgh and Joe's got a bunch of other stuff going on with his solo show and and he's writing a new one because he's insane but But yeah, basically we're gonna kind of slow this down ever so slightly and rather than doing one every two weeks We're gonna do one every month Just to make it a little bit easier because you know, we've got lives and despite the fact that we asked you at Lee fans We do have other things going on sacrilege I'm aware but this episode we are
Weaknesses in 'Global Financial Crisis' Episode
00:02:25
Speaker
we're looking at a comedy vehicle series one episode four which is the global financial crisis and as you'll probably hear we kind of wander off quite a lot in this episode because well to be honest it's it's not one of the stronger the stronger episodes which is sort of reflected in in the the dvd commentary i think stew himself felt that way round about the time anyway anyway i'm not sure what his feelings are now um but overall this isn't one of the stronger episodes of the series to be fair and you know i feel that way in in general about the earlier series anyway i think that i think comedy vehicle only got stronger as it went on but um you know in terms of this particular episode it wasn't one of the best so so joe and i kind of got distracted and wandered off on a lot of stuff um but you know
00:03:13
Speaker
That is what it is. That's that's the nature of discussion. That's the nature of podcasting. That's kind of what happens. So You get what you get and you don't get upset Basically, I think is is the way
Edinburgh Show & Hay Fever
00:03:24
Speaker
of it. So Yeah, also, ah like I said, I am going to Edinburgh. I'm gonna be there. I'm gonna be at the space The space UK just off the Royal Mile ah and I'll stick some links in the in the description for that if anyone oh god i've got hair fever as well so um literally been drowned by my own mucus uh yeah so i am i'm gonna be in edinburgh uh only for a short run because i'm uh i'm not a rich person so um i'm gonna be there for about a week but i'm gonna be doing a work in progress run of my solo show that i took to Brighton uh earlier this year and uh
00:04:06
Speaker
Yeah, if you want to see a man try and be sincere whilst talking to the puppet anus of a dead cat that looked like Hitler, please do come and see that. But without further ado, this is me and Joe talking about Comedy Vehicle Series 1, Episode 4, Global Financial Crisis.
00:04:26
Speaker
Hello. Hello.
Recording Challenges in Brighton
00:04:28
Speaker
prever i always I always feel really weird doing this bit because we've been talking for 10 or 15 minutes already. yeah so Yeah. Across this universe, the two pilots have finally... yeah Intertwined yeah come come on the same more back in Well basically right so what's what's happened is we've ended up in a situation where I thought We had a little while to to give well you a break obviously and and me some time to catch up with other stuff because we're both Putting shows on at the minute. I'm going to Edinburgh. You were gonna be going to Edinburgh. There's a lot going on, right? Yeah, so I figured
00:05:07
Speaker
I figured we'd have about a month or two ah if if I just released the Dave Cohen chart which went up about a month ago and then the the two Brighton episodes, one with No Money in the Bank and one with Daniel Cooper. yeah um And then the the recordings from Brighton let me down significantly. a and Basically, because you you did your show in the same bar, right? In Barbara. Yeah. yeah a the The drag cabaret that was on downstairs was so oppressively loud. It didn't particularly affect us that much for the conversation in the room, like it was just part of the ambiance, right? But on the recording, and it was so muddy. So they were basically unusable.
00:05:55
Speaker
right yeah because yeah we had different experiences of that bar i think anyway well we we did i mean there was one point in which i didn't interrupt but i didn't make a thing i made a thing i mean because obviously my shows about drugs yeah and when i was talking about ecstasy yeah and there was uh like a hen party downstairs or something yeah and at that moment there And there I went, whoa! I was like, well, they're on it now. Yeah, exactly. yeah And that kind of worked. But other than that, I didn't really get much noise bleed at all. No, it was massive. And then it's because I was on a bit earlier. Yeah. Yeah, I was on.
Learning from Bad Gigs
00:06:39
Speaker
Cut into full swing. I was on. I did my I did my show at eight at eight p.m. My work in progress show. and Yeah, that was i was me.
00:06:48
Speaker
and then straight after did, um, the Stuntiverse records at quarter past nine. So yeah, basically by that point the party downstairs was in full swing. And I don't know, just in general, like, I always like working with with Ben at half a camel because he's really good and he kind of really supports the artists that he books. Yeah, shout out to Ben. yeah brilliant but um and you know all the fucking work he puts in he puts so much work in uh this is brand seeing seeing his seeing his show as well his show was outstanding yeah watching a man how like you would have adored it it was a man having a mental breakdown on stage yeah and eventually because it's musical comedy as well eventually it's him
00:07:36
Speaker
Sank stood in the front half of the camel costume. Yeah with a guitar singing Maybe I'm not a camel half empty Maybe I'll have a laughful that's amazing and only time I my wife doesn't very famously doesn't laugh things which is a nightmare for me She doesn't find things funny. show ah like she'll just like There's no reaction, but the things that she does find funny, she really laughs at and she laughed properly out loud at one of his one of his jokes that he said that he hated yeah because he hated himself for writing an actual joke. because He's that sort of performer where he stood in the half a camel and he goes,
00:08:29
Speaker
You know what? I think this camera costume is just a front.
00:08:36
Speaker
It's so good. And she properly burst out laughing at it. And he's like, I hate myself. And I messaged him afterwards. I was like, oh, by the way, my wife and doesn't laugh. But she read. I tell you what, right. We're going to get really nerdy now because I just had just to close off. We'll come back to that joke, right? Because I really like yeah I want to get proper nerdy about it. But just to close off the Brighton chap Basically ah my issues with that venue were twofold number one um And obviously it's partly my fault because it was a cabaret bar. So yeah, you know you kind of know But to remove of a gay bar or on a saturday night on a Friday and yeah saturday friday night yeah um in Brighton as well, so, you know, it's
00:09:25
Speaker
partly my fault but the couple of things that kind of frustrated me was no one at the venue knew what was going on yeah like is that it was their first time as as a venue all right okay well that makes sense that's right that makes sense um but then also like obviously we sent them flyers we sent them posters yeah and i found half of what i'd sent them screwed up in a rubbish box in the ginger And the only place I saw posters for my show or this unni universe record was in the room where it took place, which is kind of pointless. yeah
00:10:00
Speaker
yeah that's all them Yeah, I I was doing a picture next to it going, hey. Yeah, they were the audience. one Yeah, and they were still up a week after. Yeah. So, you know, it was kind of, it felt like a bit of a pointless endeavor. But anyway, for people that were in watching other shows might have come and seen that. Maybe. But, you know, it's it's one of them. It is what it is. You live and learn. um And I mean, I'm having a year off next year anyway, because we're going on holiday. So. i'm I'm having a year off, not full not full year off, but just a year off of festivals. and Well, i'm i'm I think that this may be a yeah ah yeah an exclusive. but I'm thinking of having ah um a year off comedy completely. Completely. Yeah. To be fair, it is all consume um so yeah just to kind of
00:10:53
Speaker
like decompress, and i've I've done quite a lot in the two years that I've done
Taking a Break from Comedy
00:10:59
Speaker
it. In fairness, you've zoomed out very quickly. Yeah. And I'll still probably, like, um because I sort of already think that my current show is done now, even though it isn't. I mean, it's not far off, to be honest with you. It needs a couple of tweaks. I've done a few, and I'll still probably do them every so often. Yeah. um for people that haven't seen it, I won't be gigging every week. yeah
00:11:25
Speaker
Yeah, just give myself a bit of a break. To be honest, i don't I don't blame you because at the end of the day, and obviously we're not going to get into it, but life happens as well. um Yeah. You know, so like I do get it. and And with you, like the interesting thing about you, and I hope you don't mind me saying this, right? But you burn really bright, really quickly. and Like you came out as you come on. Pretty much the first time I met you, you were like, I've got an hour in my back pocket. I was like, you come. it was about six months in I think it was well whatever the point is when I met you you've done about eight you've done about eight gigs I think it was about eight in six months you had an hour in your back pocket and then I saw you do it the first time and I was like this is gonna be fucking awful and I hope it's awful and it wasn't awful just to make myself feel better because I'm um well to be fair i I was thinking the other day I was listening to Stu Goldsmiths
00:12:17
Speaker
come compound yeah with who was it with Mike wasn't it yeah and they were talking about um advice and stuff and I was like you know what i I'll mention this that some of the best piece of advice I got was from you for me yeah why would did I say and I bombed at Santiago's you'd I think you'd left early or you weren't there There was something, because I messaged you yeah directly. So either you'd left early or you weren't there. And I messaged you and said, oh my god, I've just died for like eight minutes. yeah It was horrific. I've never had that before. like It was like my first bomb. And the first thing you said to me was good.
00:13:12
Speaker
you had good and I was like in that the kind of emotional place and I was like I was expecting some like, oh, don't worry, mate. Because I was like, oh, Dan's my biggest fan. Dan really likes me. So i he'll tell me. Don't worry. Don't worry, mate. And he was like, and you went, good. And anyway i'm um he went, out you went i'm um um'm I'm glad. ah no And I went,
Performing at the Frog and Bucket
00:13:42
Speaker
why? What? And he was like,
00:13:45
Speaker
I've been thinking for a while you need you need a bad gig because they're the ones that you learn from. like You've done really well up until now yeah and actually the longer this goes on before you die yeah you're gonna struggle when it actually happens and you need to learn and so it was good advice in the end just upro but first it's just like you've seen genuinely but and and you were like I'm genuinely really pleased that you've died because because you were like this is what I have to endure every week and I was like but you don't it it ended up having a conversation about um about what it's like yeah to to actually die in your hole because I hadn't
00:14:31
Speaker
experienced here until that point. yeah And it was genuinely like being on the worst roller coaster I've ever been on. Honestly, right? Because like the first couple of times that, well, you know, the first couple of times I ganked was at gong shows that I did really badly. yeah But I was on for face like 90 seconds or whatever. I don't really remember. Yeah, you didn't get time to acclimatize to it. and and but I don't remember it being that bad. its like because tom Is it Tom that has this opinion? Either Tom or possibly Kyle that I was speaking to about hating guns? I think it's Tom because he's like... but
00:15:13
Speaker
They don't give you the skill of learning how to dial your hole for 10 minutes. yeah you want You get let off because you get to go. Because I don't really remember them. Because I remember having bankers, like the whole the ones that you know, and that didn't happen. And I remember going, oh, oh, no. yeah and yeah And it's that first thing of you see them yeah start to dip on the the ones in front of you dipping um on the roller coaster and you're on it and you can't get off. yeah And you're like, ah oh, this is what's going to happen. Do you know what it is, though? Right. It's like so I have a theory that
00:15:56
Speaker
to be any good or to get any good or to actually get to a point where you are both good and you kind of enjoy what you're doing. The majority of your gigs should be meh. right Yeah, because otherwise you don't need to others otherwise you don't need to work for it. You don't die, right? The majority of your gigs should just be, yeah, that was all right. because you don't So you don't die, right? Like a horrific death like we're talking about now. But also you don't smash the roof off the place, right? You just have a gig where it's like, you get up there, you do your thing, it goes okay, you leave. The majority of your gig should be like that, right?
00:16:32
Speaker
Because if you're lurching between Incredible tragedy incredible tragedy like yeah, it's just not a cool You know, it's not a cool kind of emotional things hard to go to it's it's not good either way because either way it affects you negatively Yes, because even if you smut you smash it that yes, that's a That's not an accurate representation of your whole career. yeah It's an accurate representation of of what happened in the room. yeah So andm I'm not taking it away from when you do smash it. yep but But yeah, it's it's not an average of what of what actually happens. I mean, I've done i've done hundreds of gigs, right? um And I can count on one hand the number of gigs where I can truly say that I've smashed it.
00:17:22
Speaker
All right. Like really truly. And I'm not getting less than five. and That doesn't mean that like some gig. I've had good gigs. then There might be 30, 40, 50 within that couple of hundred, few hundred where I got near. But what I'm talking about is like literally, you know, where you just, it's going so well that you just, you almost outside of it, look at it. Like I can count on one hand. Yeah. My most recent, uh, one frog. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. The one that you've got the clips from. Well, I've got two from that. Is it the one that you showed me the two that, the two that i did, they were both very similar. Yeah.
The Craft of Joke Writing
00:18:06
Speaker
Um, but.
00:18:08
Speaker
the The ones where I've got to five minutes, I adjust. like See, the the one time it goes well there the one time I did it, I beat the frog, but I still don't think it was a good gig. no it can't it's it's very hit and miss at the front because it depends on who had the cards yeah it depends on how lenient they're being some ah sometimes they're really really harsh and also who else is in the room like the night i did it um there was a stag party even from glasgow right yeah and they they didn't have the cards but what they essentially did was contribute to an atmosphere of
00:18:42
Speaker
like i don't know like uh they were out for blood the whole crowd were kind of out for blood and i think it was because they were stacked you didn't want to to to get to five then if because even like good people don't get to five when they're out for blood or like it depends on how many people on how many people the uh the act spring as well i was surprised some of them where they've got like an entire section just their mates i was surprised so that to be honest um that because i was only about 10 gigs in at this point and i was genuinely surprised that i was able to think on my feet enough
00:19:22
Speaker
um to pivot and do lots and lots of cock jokes yeah like yeah that's the thing you got you have to know what like i have a frog set that i only really do at frog yeah because and the way i'll do it yeah will only be be because it has to be you have to go up and be cocky Well, not necessarily cocky, but you have to be confident. Because if they smell fear, yeah then they will annihilate you.
00:19:56
Speaker
But there's also a line as well, because if you overstep that, but yeah, but but ah right yeah you have to be able to get them to laugh. You have to get them to laugh first. yeah And then you can go. Yeah. Right. OK. Now we know I can tell a joke. yeah Let's go like this. It needs to be a joke really quickly. Like the ah my opening joke, you need like three or four. Yeah. Bum, bum, bum. Right. off first in the first service thats ah So they laugh properly and then they go. ah okay he's not going to be completely shit yeah we'll give him we'll give him another minute um but yeah the like the way my stuff is now i i realize because i've been starting to try and figure this out because i've been taking a massive interest in laughs per minute um all right even you know obviously it's um kind of an antithesis to kind of the sort of thing that we're talking about here in stewart lee because he spends a lot of time sometimes going out of his way to avoid laughs
00:20:48
Speaker
Yes, um but we ah ah I've been looking at it a lot recently and what I realised was it takes me, my current opening joke, just 30 seconds before the laugh. Oh right, oh wow. Because of the build up to it. Yeah, don't do that out of front then. and Exactly. So I'm trying to figure out a way to keep the essence of it but cut it down into about 15-20 seconds.
Analyzing a Joke's Mechanics
00:21:15
Speaker
Speaking of jokes, let's go back to half a camel joke. please, because right the reason um the reason I wanted to do that is so recently
00:21:23
Speaker
I've been, and to people listening who are saying, why aren't you talking about Stuart Lee yet? This is all relevant, trust me. yeah um So the i was reading ah I've been reading a book recently and by a comedy writer called Joel Morris. um So he's the he's one of the guys who does the Rule of Three podcast. all right I don't know if you've listened to that. No, I haven't had that one. It's incredible, you should listen to it. um But basically, Joel's a comedy writer. He created he was one of the creators of Philomena Kunk. Oh, wow. um wrote on the Paddington films and all that kind of like he's a big deal. ah Yeah, she's fantastic. Yeah, exactly. And so he's written this book called Be Funny or Die. Right. And it's about like why we have jokes and what they are and why it matters. Right. Yeah. And he goes into firstly, kind of why jokes happen at a like a human level, like what they mean, they create tribes and all that kind of stuff like, you know, the anthropological side of it.
00:22:20
Speaker
yeah But then he also goes into the construction of jokes, and and he's highlighted a few things that I was like, that's so genius and yet so simple. right So all jokes, he calls it a comedy keyboard. He says there are three notes, or four notes, sorry, on every comedy keyboard. Three of them are correct, one of them's wrong. Right. And on every comedy keyboard, you have construct, confirm, confirmed, right? Yeah. So tell us what's happening. Confirm it, break it. Yeah. Right. So it's like a classic rule of three type thing, but you can apply it to almost every joke. Um, the fourth note that you shouldn't use is confuse.
00:23:04
Speaker
Right, OK. So like, but thinking about Ben's joke. Because of his two left field. Yeah, but thinking about, yeah, well, it's more just about does it make sense? Because basically what happens with every every time someone tells a joke, what happens is we hear the opening, we go, OK, I know where we are. We hear that if there's a confirmed note, we hear it and we go, OK, I understand this now. Yes, that's correct. I'm following this. And then when we hear the confound, the brain initially goes, that's wrong. But it quickly, very quickly, in microseconds, goes back to the start of the joke, reinterprets it, and goes, oh, that's brilliant. Like, do you know what I mean? That's kind of how it works so on a microprocessor level. But um I'm interested in Ben's joke, so tell me again. So it's this camera costume's on the front. Right, OK. So all he's got is construct and confound.
00:24:00
Speaker
Yeah. So he's telling us he's in a camel costume. Yeah. And it's all a front. So it's a two beat. Yeah. Yeah. Because it's it's all a front, which is what and the way he says it is it's so that people think he also says it without a comma. It's he might say it with a comma. Maybe I've but the the point is that he says it in such a way that it's like it's in a bit where he's feeling sorry for himself and it's just like, somebody would go, oh yeah, it's all off-run. And then they reinterpret it. Yeah, it's the double meaning. It's all off-run. Yeah. And that's the, that's the, the, yeah the confirmed bit is they go back over it and go, oh, he means it in this way.
'The Incredibles' Central Question
00:24:46
Speaker
Um, but honestly, right. So there was another thing that came out of this, uh, this John Morris book, and we'll get onto that shortly stuff in a sec. Cause I'm aware we're on limited time, but the, it made me look at things very differently. So he did like a deconstruction of the Incredibles in the film, the Incredibles. Yeah. And he basically says every, every comedic piece, whether it's a joke or whatever has a, um, a central question. Right? And The Incredibles, the central question in The Incredibles is, can you be both a superhero? can you Can you express yourself, express who you are really, and maintain a stable family? That's the central question at the heart of The Incredibles, right? yeah And every single scene answers that question with either a yes or a no. Right, yeah.
00:25:39
Speaker
So like you know if you go if you go into the the opening, it's Mr. Incredible beating the shit out of someone, the answer is yes. yeah And then the second bit is where like he's getting in trouble for it or whatever, so the answer is no. And it just constantly, all the way through the film, just goes, yes, no, yes, no. yeah And that's them working out the sort of pros and cons. Yeah. Like whether it works. But also basically the audience. It keeps the audience's interest because it continually shows the two. It keeps flipping the corner. Does it do it like, like literally?
00:26:16
Speaker
One teen on, one teen off. Yeah, literally. All the way through the film. One teen on, one teen off. If you go back through and watch it, right, and if you watch The Incredibles, you watch the opening scene. I'd have to do it without my wife because she'd get raging if I'd point that out. I mean, don't point it out, but you can say it in your head. But anyway. So I was listening to that and I was thinking, okay, so technically what Joel's saying is that I'm Mr. Incredible.
Balancing Comedy and Family Life
00:26:42
Speaker
yeah Because the central question that I have right now is, can I do what I want to do in comedy and maintain a stable family relationship? Yeah. I wonder what my my question is with my... Your central question? Yeah, with my creature. This is us having main character syndrome right now. Yeah. Well, we are, like, this is a bit of bar sauce.
00:27:08
Speaker
tra like I don't know what the central question is. I tell you what, you have a think on that and we'll do this. And then we might do a ah little one-off where we get into the psychiatry.
Speculative Story & Financial Crisis
00:27:21
Speaker
Right, so basically what we're here looking at now is a speculative story. Exactly, a speculative story. Episode four, yep which is global financial crisis. so Is that what it's called? Yeah, so to set the scene, ah I think that's what it's called anyway, but to set the scene, we're in about 2008, 2009. Can I add you have a bit to say? Yeah, go. So I've i've watched some stuff this week. I watched an episode it's in 2009. I think is it's a middle aged man in a black and white suit that doesn't fit him sometimes. ah Topical. yeah Really topical. Really funny.
00:28:10
Speaker
as cutscenes. They're a bit wacky. Look looks straight into the camera. yep Talk straight into the camera. Who am I talking about? Well, i'm goingnna there's going to be a confound note here, so it's not Stewart Lee, is it? ah Harry Hill. Harry Hill's TV burp is Stewart Lee. It's comedy vehicle for morons. No, that's not true. But I was watching it, and I know that there was so many like things where he's like looking into the camera and like doing separate things. And I was like, weirdly, this is, at this because it's out at the same time, yeah I was like, how many things that are like, it's like the opposite of. yeah But it's weirdly similar.
Comparing Harry Hill to Stewart Lee
00:29:00
Speaker
You know that Stu script-edited Harry Hill's TV show?
00:29:05
Speaker
Oh, did he? What? TVBub? Not TVBub, no. the So when he was when he was not a stand-up for a bit. Right. 2000-ish to 2004. I think it was the the Harry Hill TV show. I don't think I watched that. I only watched TV burp but I was massively into TV burp. But just anything he does. but the Them opening sections, yeah when it just picks a tiny thing, i that's what I wanted my job to be. Where it was like,
00:29:39
Speaker
fish goes for on holiday on uh so-and-so on then you watch and it's a fish being carried by a bird yeah just like that and it's just like the tiniest thing or like angry arm on coronation street there's like just a tiny little thing yeah yeah and they're beautiful yeah and i was watching it the other day and it just made me think of shelly for some reason Well, you know, the format of it, it'd be interesting to look into the credits for it, because I would imagine if the director of it is Tim Kirby, then it would make sense. I think it's Tim Kirby who did Comedy Vehicle. Let me see. Have they got the same director for series two? Yeah, Tim Kirby. Yeah, so this is number four of... was it too late? Number four of six, series one.
00:30:34
Speaker
But yeah the yeah, I didn't think the sermon was as strong. No, and to be honest with you, so like I say, as part of kind of looking at these, I also listened to the DVD commentary and I think Stu feels that way as well, or at least he did at the time when he recorded the commentary. Let me see, there's there is a lot from him about, so we'll just kind of get into it, but He he gets into setting the scene, you know, he does the whole intro this is stuart lee's comedy vehicle. Let's go off road You know how he always does like a cheesy a cheesy little joke to kind of set the scene. Yeah and I assumed that was kind of to almost Piss off or subvert the kind of format of cheesy light entertainment do you I mean like they the the BBC have probably said to him do do something like this and And he's gone, nah. He decided to go another way. But anyway, so getting to kind of the whole set in the sea, global financial crisis.
Audience Taunting During Financial Crisis
00:31:29
Speaker
And he goes on about, and this is something that he he's used this device a couple of times, especially in the later series where he's talking about UKIP and stuff, I think series three or series four.
00:31:41
Speaker
where he says, this won't go out until three months after it's recorded and the speed at which things are deteriorating, the viewer at home may not have a home to watch this in. In fact, the likelihood you're pressed up against the window of an electrical goods shop just going errr and shivering. yeah so like he's He's using this device to basically say, he's talking to the audience at home saying, life's probably very different for you people now. ah And he goes on this big run about how the audience in the studio are taunting the audience at home because they're in the past, you know is it off off their face on heels and welks. They're still all right because it's now here whereas you know you're not
00:32:24
Speaker
these people are happy but in three months time when they watch themselves in the past they can be profoundly depressed and he picks on a guy and he says look at you in your shoes me yeah i don't like that but where did you get him he did but the best bit where he sort of says how much did your shoes cost and the guy says they cost me nothing and he says you vain arrogant man
00:32:46
Speaker
But like in the commentary, so he's basically saying that he, looking back on it, and I can't remember where the when the commentary was recorded in relation to the episodes, but he basically said, looking back on it, that he felt it was misjudged.
Reflections on Financial Commentary
00:32:59
Speaker
right That like essentially, he said, because the perception is, right even if it's not correct, the perception is if you're on the television, yeah you earn a lot of money. yeah right He said basically that's the perception is I'm i'm on the television. yeah So I'm effectively making fun of people who are struggling financially. right ah see it The perception is that because I'm on the television I earn vastly greater sums of money than they do. yeah He said it's not necessarily always the case. At that time. yeah you know He said it's not necessarily always the case. We get paid sort of well but it's it's not what you think.
00:33:38
Speaker
But he said looking back on it, he can see how, you know, berating people for using the tube, you know, you'll be looking at yourself in the future, seeing your past self as an insult to your future self. And for those of you watching at home who have seen me on TV for 10 to 15 years and are thinking he's put away, I'm not fat, I'm inflation proof, which is quite a good joke. But I mean, as a as an actual fat person, yeah, Like, I don't use the word offended because I don't get offended. But I'm always like, ugh, what fat do I do with it? Yeah, when so when it's by someone who isn't fat.
00:34:15
Speaker
but like and um but like he doesn't look overweight yeah like at all I would say it's interesting that right let's dig into that a bit because I I make fun of my own struggles with weight quite a lot right but in comparison to some people I'm not actually that fat no no exactly so I ah i often wonder and i'm ah I'm asking your opinion on this genuinely when i stand up there and do those jokes about being obese does it look like could that be a confusion for the audiences to sort of say you're not really obese are you i would say using the word obese yeah it would be a confusing thing because you're not you're absolutely not obese Well, now here's the thing, it depends on it because, right, as per the NHS definition of obesity, yes, I am. Yeah, but as per the definition of the NHS as obesity, so is Arnold Schwarzenegger. Exactly. It is morbidly obese. Yeah. And maybe because it's just based on height and weight. And maybe, maybe that's something to
Fat Jokes in Comedy
00:35:21
Speaker
go into as a as a
00:35:24
Speaker
I think if you were to say, like, again, it's also I don't want to be like, oh, you're actually this. You're actually fat. You're not obese sort of thing. But I want all the other. I think I think well, no, because obese, I would say is like a certain level. Yeah. Whereas I would say you're more chunky than obese or even fat. yeah like i would say like If my grandma was trying to be polite she'd say stocky.
00:36:07
Speaker
My grand's never polite. I remember going home from from university yeah and and I went skinny and I came back fat and I went back and I hadn't seen her in about three years and I walked in and she looked at me and went, God, you've pawned, mate. before hello yeah first thing first thing but yeah so so in that sense right so you're not not a massive fan of the whole fat jokes thing however but I get it because it is also isn't it's an it's a cheap laugh yeah then just like and and also it's how people feel as well some people feel but and and and it's not like it offends me no it's just it's it's like I
00:36:52
Speaker
Well, I'm like, but hum think yeah if you if you think you're fat, I'll find you think I am. It can come across a bit hack at times, and it's an easy route to last, to be honest. but So you know he's got he's got the fat jokes in, you know this early sort of precursor to the whole let himself go thing. yeah But you know he's saying that even Woolworth's gift vouchers have lost their value. try and spend a Woolworth's gift voucher, you'd be laughed out of the shop. And he does a joke here that I really, really like. He says, trying to spend a Woolworth's gift voucher now is like trying to spend a Scottish banknote in a grocer's in Hastings, right? Which is, yeah it's not a great joke, right? But it sets up an even better one where he says, it can't be done. The only thing less welcome than non-English currency in grocer's shops in Hastings is non-English customers.
00:37:45
Speaker
which I think is a fantastic joke and sort of a weird precursor to where the country's actually gone, I think. Yeah. you know, after the whole Brexit thing, not to get into it, but after the whole Brexit thing, we've moved even deeper into that. You know, and then this this next line sort of sets up the the sketch, which I'll tell you what I will say, right, about, obviously, overall, this episode not being massively strong. The sketches in this one are brilliant.
Stewart Lee's Evolution as a Performer
00:38:13
Speaker
Yeah, I think I'm actually thinking about it. Yeah. What I realized was that it wasn't that I i didn't think it was as strong. Yeah. Partly the issue with it is
00:38:25
Speaker
I did what he told us to do, and instead of laughing, I just agreed to fuck off. And that's what that's what it was, was especially in hindsight. yeah Everything as well. He's like, but yeah you' right yeah well, he asked by yeah, It's like it wasn't funny. It was just true. Well I think the interesting interesting thing is right if you look at and obviously we're going to step through more and more of his work as we go along but if you look at his evolution as a performer he he's now tipped into a thing in his 50s where he's almost an amalgamation of
00:39:04
Speaker
the things that he used to be which is like this this kind of like quite serious quite studious quite clever stuff that isn't necessarily always hilarious but it's you know it's interesting to listen to whereas now he's a mixture of that and the sort of stuff that he makes fun of yeah because he's he's got much more of a kind of light, entertainment feel about him now than he used to do. he's He's very sort of, hey guys, don't you think this? And yeah you know what I mean? Because he does have the <unk>s got authority yeah that he is undermining. yeah so i'll say like It's harder to do that when you're, because essentially he is, if he goes too far, he's being a hypocrite.
00:39:54
Speaker
by attacking the establishment that he is part of yeah but it's it's interesting because basically gos you goldsmi said this heard few years ago when he interviewed and where he sort of said, yeah you're not only having your cake and eating it, you're having it again and eating it again. yeah You know, in that sense, because you you sort of, he is slowly but surely becoming more and more of a performer, which is the type of thing that he sort of disparages. Do you know what I mean? He's much more performative now than he was even here um in this episode. Like, if if you watch, have you watched Snowflake Tornado yet? You won't have done, will you? Not yet, no.
00:40:33
Speaker
well when we get to it you'll see there's there's much more of a kind of like sort of like I've seen men's of sort of like feel to it yeah the Ricky Gervais stuff and whatever yeah but he's much more of a performer now than he was here here he's just a man standing there saying stuff with incredible skill you know but yeah not not to the degree of like I wouldn't call it a performance here I'd call it a I don't know, I don't know what to call
Accidental Joke Similarities
00:41:00
Speaker
it, but it's not a performance, it's just a man saying things. No. Yeah. Very competently and very well. Whereas in series, you know, three, series four of comedy vehicle, their performances. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Anyway, someone's just stolen your hairdryer, Joe. Yeah. I made that joke last time. Yeah. Oh, God. So repetitive. Yeah.
00:41:27
Speaker
and so but Anyway, so he uses this to set up for me what is a brilliant sketch, not the best sketch in the episode, but a brilliant sketch and nice to see Tim Vine as well. Yes, I noticed that. I was like, oh my gosh. Yeah, really nice to see Tim Vine as well. Yeah. and with but what his name? The Wintwine or something. Vintwine. ah part of prizes yeah um Yeah. It's weird. It's the only time I've ever seen Tim Vine not say a pun. I don't watch him. I suppose know he was in. Not going out. To be fair, he did loads of puns in there. Well, yeah. and to To be fair, he has my favorite joke.
00:42:14
Speaker
ever what is it when he's got he's got the props and stuff but she always has anyway yeah but it's the it's the like big sheet of card yeah with a circle in it with a hole in it he just puts it over his head and goes I don't know why I put myself through this
00:42:33
Speaker
and it's one of the ones where he does really seriously yeah but then he's got like a then he does a rice smile afterwards and it's just oh beautiful there's there's so many of his jokes that have just become like the the jokes people tell each other now so like yeah yeah exactly you know you get people doing open mics and stuff because they don't realize that yeah from tip yeah so the other night um at Santiago's a guy did a joke he said about so something being bang out of order right which is basically like yeah where Tim Vines got that pick yeah the a got
00:43:14
Speaker
such a good joke yeah well there was um there was a guy jokes after you left yeah came um and absolutely i think he's on the spectrum yeah um quite severely on the spectrum but he did jokes that were like dad jokes from from a book or something. from like Yeah, yeah, definitely. crackcker yeah And it's one of them that I was like, I don't know what to kind of say to it, but sort of, he did so of had some because he did he did the joke that you probably already heard, yeah which is the three people going to a magical swimming pool. Right. I don't know if I have, but go on. So it's so it's true three guys go to a magic swimming pool and it's, I think he said,
00:43:59
Speaker
I don't think he said, I think the classic one was like Englishman, Scottishman and Irishman about the Irishman being stupid, sort of thing. But it was like, I don't think he did that, I think he just said three men. And there's a slide in this poll. And as you go down the slide, the yeah the man who they, whatever you say, yeah that what well, that well' be with the the poll yes okay yeah no i have heard this joke yeah and it's and and it's the whole thing of leading up to him going wee yeah yeah exactly yeah yeah and then he goes and he stopped it and he just completely stopped till he went because um because because then the brilliant then the then the poem would be full of weight full of full of weight wouldn't it brilliant and he's like and i did wonder yeah i did wonder if
00:44:54
Speaker
if if he complained someone complained to the man yeah that ran the swimming pool and said, you're in trouble. out but But it was so dry that I was like, how and this is either unintentional, which I think it's unintentional, if I'm honest, yeah with the way that it is. yeah But if it is intentional, it's genius. it's hard to know but like talking about that thing of doing sort of jokes by accident because obviously you know either he's brazen there are some people who do it on purpose yeah just use jokes that they know for a fact aren't there I think he just wanted to because he just wanted he wants to do comedy yeah and it was it was an opportunity to do comedy and he hadn't really written any jokes
00:45:55
Speaker
I think he'd written down some from a joke book or something. Yeah, and I was sort of like Who am I to say no term to do that that it's like it's not like he's earning money off it. Yeah It's it's an open mic. It's giving him something because there was an audience member that was like properly like and I had to kind of be a Bit vigilant. Yeah about whether or not where the line was, as to whether he's laughing with him or or at him. Yeah, of course. That's all I think. But I think he stayed on the right.
00:46:31
Speaker
on the right side of it because afterwards it was chatting to him and he was like I like the dry delivery kind of delivery and actually keep going with that and that's actually I think it was all right yeah but yeah like in terms of actual joke stealing yeah I haven't noticed it be rife in our kind of our level don't know i've seen I've seen a bit of it but the the other side of it is that what I've also noticed is that sometimes you can do it by accident yeah So like, I did it i did it once and you you mentioned to me I accidentally did one of Alex Mitchell's jokes, just because it popped into my head at the time and I thought that's a thing I could say. And I think your founder's name now is Alex Mitchell, Britain's Got Talent finalist. Yeah, no, that's what I think. I think that is his legal name change. It's just a bit of a mouthful though, isn't it Joe? Yeah, true. You missed a that's what he said.
00:47:30
Speaker
and Because it's a 25-year-old joke, Dan. Yeah, of course it is. I'm not bothered. Said the actress to the bishop. Anyway, right. And I noticed somebody mentioned to me the other day one of the jokes. I do a joke that it's very similar to a Stewart Lee joke. Oh, is it? Yeah. It's basically the same. Which one is it? It annoys me, though, because now I know about it. I'm trying to train myself out. Yeah. i think i remember you telling me it's in the rhythm now so it's the one where i talk about my lazy eye yeah so i talk about my eyelids so far to the left the guardian name it person of the year and then the topper to that is however the older you know as i get older it does start to drift to the right
00:48:11
Speaker
Yeah. and Which I think is a joke that Stuart Lee does about his genitals and stuff. Right, okay. So ah I do ah do need to fix that. But it was obviously... That's such a good joke. It's in the ether of things. Yeah, but it's because he wrote it. That's what he did. So do you think you've just like... That's an interesting thing. like and primp Because you've definitely seen that enough for it to know about it. like do you think that's an example of what what was it they call it uh dual thinking or whatever so yeah it could only be dual thinking could parallel thinking no it because i know for a fact i'd watched stuff like about 100 times before i wrote that joke yeah so well yeah but but but that's what i mean like do you think it's
00:49:03
Speaker
that that's kind of become part of you so you are like by accident aping what he's doing or yeah I think it exists it's accidental thinking no it's that it's accidental assimilation I think i I've just seen it that much that it basically what happened was I've written a joke and that joke about my eye is similar to his joke but it's not stealing it's kind of yeah You know, to be honest, the eye joke I had a long way before I saw Snowflake, but the topper came later. And that's the bit where I think it's, you know, it's made its way into my subconscious and I need to get rid of it. And that's the thing, you've essentially inceptioned yourself. Yeah, of course I have, yeah. Where it's so deep that it makes you think that it's your idea.
00:49:58
Speaker
yeah but also like you know yourself it's really difficult once you've kind of got a thing up and running and it's in a rhythm you say it almost out of instinct yeah um but now that i need to i need to reverse engineer it and get rid of it anyway let's get back on topic right So we're into
Tim Vine's Financial Terms Comedy
00:50:15
Speaker
this sketch now. Tim Vine's in this sketch. You join us here in the city of London, literally literally the beating heart of the financial world where ah all around me stocks are falling and then literally the stock's falling from this guy the sky. The economy's collapsing and commodity markets are crashing literally. And then there's this bit about money literally running out. A bit of money. Yeah. And there's just people dressed as money running. so Saying that they're going to, what is it saying? They're going to an Irish bank.
00:50:40
Speaker
top of the morning to he says here on the ground i'm joined by a rat who is also fle and then excitement it wasly played by but just get Is it Simon Monnery? I thought it was Kevin Elder. No, it's Simon Monnery. I'm so used to Kevin Elder doing that sort of role. No, the rats Monnery. top Because of he says, the what is he says? morning to Oh, here we go. you. He says, here on the ground, I'm joined by a rat who is also fleeing. Oh, yes, the old rats does it in a sinking ship thing. Look around you. There's bankers, insurance brokers, office workers, stock market traders, but pick on the rats. Why don't you ratist?
Episode's Sketch Reliance
00:51:21
Speaker
yeah ah you know and and and obviously i don't know it's a it's a weird one because it's not like it's not like a proper sketch it's just ah a thing to underline his point that he was making yeah ah but it's really funny nonetheless They get really quickly into another sketch to be honest. yeah because then there's a and this this I suppose this goes back to your original point of it kind of being maybe not the strongest episode and I think they've recognised that by putting loads of sketches into it. Yeah maybe. So they go from the from the Tim Vine kind of stock market crash sketch.
Satirical TV Program Commentary
00:51:55
Speaker
into him talking about television programs about doing up a house and selling a house. And these programs presented by vile, shallow women whom one couldn't help but find strangely attractive, despite despising them and everything they stood for. Are they, is he talking about, well, it's like Sarah. Is he talking about Sarah Beanie? You know, that kind of. Yeah, my wife is obsessed with the escape to the country. Is Kirsty Olsop the kind of, is she the one that came up with the whole stop drinking coffees and cancelling it? I think I do recognise that. I can't say for certain, but I'm pretty sure she she was definitely one of the ones that was saying about buying a eating avocado on toast.
00:52:46
Speaker
So stupid. I don't even like avocado. No, I don't either. But anyway, so that that's kind of what that's where he's at now. So he's gone from talking about the financial crisis to talking about the housing housing market and and in between these programs about how to buy a house or do up a house or sell a house for more than you paid for it.
Suing and Absurdity
00:53:06
Speaker
There were adverts telling you how to get money to do this, money that wasn't really yours by taking out a loan or by suing someone for something that happened. to you that was obviously your fault and then he he gets into like a little routine about did you slip into some cheese did it make you hate cheese which you had previously loved why not sue a cheese maker sue him for all the cheese he's got and i can see the kind of satirical point that he's trying to make yeah but you know even himself in the in the commentary he's kind of saying he's not sure about this bit i think this is the bit where i was just like it's not making me laugh
00:53:43
Speaker
But I agree with it. Yeah.
Modern Ownership Critique
00:53:45
Speaker
Because it makes me think of, so there's not a topic, but in terms of there's a relatively famous philosopher called Alan Watt. Yeah. Alan Watts, sorry, um who does like, has a lot of conversations about Stuff obviously as a philosopher. Yeah, and I've listened to a lot of him whilst high But also like especially on on mushrooms is incredible that changes your brain chemistry But even cyber and stuff I want and he's got a specific bit about buying a house. Yeah, and the idea of like this thing of you
00:54:29
Speaker
you grow up and your your dad tells you okay so you find a wife and then what do you have to do you have to yeah yeah have to get a job because you then have to buy a house because you need a house to live in so to get a house you have to get a job yeah and then that the job then pays for your car which you use to get to the job that you need to pay for the car yeah exactly and obviously he's a philosopher so he explains it in such and and he's got a very incredible voice I recommend anyone listen to him bay but but it's just that it's that thing of someone just saying something and I'm like yeah that and that's the that that is what it is.
00:55:18
Speaker
yeah well that's like can That's what it feels like. well the I think part of the part of the point that he's making is that essentially what we're doing is we're working to pay for things that we don't really own. Do you know what I mean? Like no one really owns anything anymore. He makes a point about like higher purchase
Debt Consolidation Absurdity
00:55:35
Speaker
agreements and stuff. Credit, yeah. And the television that you don't really own. and and all that kind of stuff but he's saying about these property programs and you know doing doing up all these houses and there's a brilliant line in this where he says or else you could take out loan you could consolidate all your existing debt into one single more manageable but equally massive debt I do get the point but it does if you do that it does it does help tend to reduce
00:56:01
Speaker
it would youly amount so and reduces the burden yeah exactly so so you are reducing yeah exactly but that doesn't fit with the it's still funny with the joke that he's making yeah so isn't so it's one of them But obviously he's using this to basically say the property market has crashed. He does another couple of fat jokes. ah Could I just point out at this juncture? And to be fair, I think this is quite a good one where he says, I could point out at this juncture that I'm not fat. I've merely consolidated all my existing fat into one single more manageable, but he could massive unit of fat. Yeah.
Valueless Luxury Homes
00:56:31
Speaker
she's quite fast yeah so The property market has crashed. There's no need for those programs. Now, ah all Channel 4 should do is make programs which encourage us to turn our luxury houses back into the valueless state they were before we built them in the hope of escaping negative equity, which gets us into this this destroy your home on Channel 4 sketch.
00:56:55
Speaker
yeah which i think next to the because my favorite one is the miles jump on the estate edge one i love that sketch great even though you said your wife would appreciate you watching it it's horrific but it's still funny but um the i really like this one because of kevin alden's performance yeah i just think it's so unhinged it is like he does the he does really well the kind of like i don't know jack nickelson in the shining mental breakdown shit that where he's sort of looking down but like looking yeah i'm like the guy from full metal jacket or whatever yeah vincent and vincent and afria yeah that's the one private pile
00:57:37
Speaker
Yeah. And he just does that really, really well here. but It's how he repeats word where she says, well, Colin, it's bad news, isn't it? Colin, what shall we do now? My aim is the destruction of all that I have done. The annihilation of the self in the hope that I can somehow turn back time back to before. And she says, before you invested all your savings in the property. And he just goes, before. yeah I just love it. It's the end when then just like lied naked in the bath and he's like it's just it and I thought of it like that but yeah it's very shining.
00:58:22
Speaker
Yeah, ask.
Housing Market Reflections
00:58:23
Speaker
It's very weird, but it's interesting as well because in the commentary, they, uh, shortly and Paul Putnam were kind of ribbing him gently about it, saying that that was his first nude scene on screen with a woman. So apparently they were both laid in that bath pretty much naked. Right. yeah and Well, ah they'll have had underwear on probably. I was going to say, I imagine that they wouldn't have had underwear, and because why wouldn't you? If they didn if they didn't need to. yeah That's an incredibly method of them. but But yeah, I really, really like that one. And I think it does underline the point of like that's kind of where we are as a society. It's not aspirational anymore to own a home. It's kind of a threat. And it spews like grand designs quite well, yeah I think. it well because it like Because obviously, it's it's sort of like the ones about
00:59:15
Speaker
where they're doing up a normal heart. But I feel like the grand designs ones are the ones because it is such a big undertaking and they always ah inevitably end up running over budget and 90% of them by the end the family is broken up yeah exactly like because like and it's genuinely sad yeah that they've like ruined their life over this this idea yeah exactly yeah i mean like you say he is making some some interesting wider points and it's it's an interesting thing watching this now 15 years later thinking we are in the same situation again yeah yeah
01:00:00
Speaker
but It's weird because i I bought my first house round about the time of the the financial collapse. 2008, we bought our first house, right? and Basically, it was it was really easy then to a degree as long as you could get the loan because housing prices were so cheap. you know so As long as you could get a a lender to give you it, like you could get on the
Political Leaders and Voting Preferences
01:00:24
Speaker
property line. and Whereas now, you can't even get a lender to give you it yeah exactly because i really do i do envy people you know i do i do not envy people i i feel really bad for people who who can't who i who never like my kids they'll probably never order home unless i give them yeah you know like we won't own a home it's man's i don't get it unless um yeah like you're saying unless we're getting a good one
01:00:50
Speaker
yeah well that's it and that's I don't know which is unlikely and it's mad to watch something that was kind of almost making fun of this 15 years ago to think that we're still in the same situation now oh yeah well that's what happened in your regulatory government well that's it was happening in the intervening 4th of July yeah please everyone do please I imagine those that are listening to this podcast will be for I would hope. The lobby lefty wanker would be fine. Surely. Yeah, the liberal elite. Surely lefty wanker. Although, to be fair, I will un admit, my local counsellor is annoying me that much. He's twisting the knife and wrap before in Labour. Because he's a Labour counsellor, but he's obviously spent a lot of money on Facebook ads.
01:01:40
Speaker
Yeah. on and And every single time I open Facebook or YouTube or anything that's going to give me an ad, yeah it's his face. He's like, I'm Mark Siwentz. Or he goes, there's that that's one of them, the other one, because I live on Sherwell Hill. He goes, I was grown up, I grew up on Sherwell Hill. no from there And I'm like, and it and i'm and now I've heard it so many times, I'm like, I mean, I still won't vote for him, obviously, because his labor is not conservatives. But still, it's still on me. It's hard to know though, right? Because at the minute, like, you know, not again, I'm going to get us back on topic in a minute, but just to cut this bit off is it's like deciding which piece of turd you'd like to eat. Yeah, absolutely. You know what I mean? like
01:02:32
Speaker
yeah Either way you're gonna have to eat some shit.
Credit and Media Portrayal of Working-Class Luxury
01:02:35
Speaker
Yeah because the last general election we we end up voting in a conservative. Yeah. Who didn't, he who's never even lived in the area. Exactly. And then because we were talking about it the other day at Rachel's parents and we're like how did she get in? How did she get in? And then they clicked and went oh she was running against dead balls yeah exactly it's like oh well that's why it's just that she she was she was the lesser of two evils yeah no exactly i uh what was i gonna say just coming back to this whole point of of there being a lot of sketches in this episode i've just i've just had a look right so between the property sketch yeah and the the next sketch which is the miles jump one yeah because obviously we're still on the housing market at this point right yeah
01:03:27
Speaker
There are 20 lines. Wow. And that's it. So yeah, is japacked on it's It's jam packed with the sketches. And again, the sketches are quite long in this as well. And I do think it is a case of. Maybe that's why I didn't think it was a strolling because there wasn't as much there as well. Yeah, this this routine sort of maybe didn't catch fire as well as the others. It doesn't have like a ah long rambling bit as well. Well, no, because wait does I suppose it ends on like a long rambling bit, really. But so if you look at the bit between these two sketches, so it's dangerous to mess with the abstract ideas of financial value of things. No one understands the abstract financial value of things. It's incomprehensible. So that's three lines. No joke. Yeah. Right. When they try to explain it on the news, I half expect an expert to come out and say they're going to destroy debt forever by shooting debt down a massive underground tube in Switzerland and smashing it into credit.
01:04:24
Speaker
Which I quite enjoyed. Which is it's an interesting line. It's not like I find that more just an interesting observation. Well it's good like it because obviously at the time it will have been the well it will have been at the same time as they were doing the Higgs bosons. Yeah of course yeah I think. So like it will have been funny at the time because it was more relevant. where is Where is this next one? Everything's on credit now, isn't it? Are you watching this perhaps on a flat screen television which you've bought on HP that is not yours? A massive flat screen television you don't really own. Round television's not good enough for you. A ah massive flat television visits with its three times the normal emissions rate, driving up the sea level, drowning people in the South Pacific yeah on a television that you don't own. You make me sick.
01:05:09
Speaker
Um, if you're watching this on a flat screen television that you don't own turn it off and read a book Yeah, I want to admit the irony. Yeah Watching it on on a flat screen and an even bigger flat screen television. Yeah, that is 4k rated Did you rate f? Honestly global warming is all coming from my let play netflix account plus um like watching this post-bright house scandal as well.
Societal Pressures and Financial Hypocrisy
01:05:41
Speaker
I remember back then as well, yeah it would be quite ah it was a big thing about the whole kind of benefit.
01:05:49
Speaker
cheat or whatever that was sat with, a 50-inch TV. Yeah. And then they got off bright out or whatever. Because I've now got a joke about it. and Because when you're from Bradford City, you probably remember. Oh, no, but I don't remember Crazy George's. Crazy George's. Crazy George's. No. So that was a place in Bradford where you could get stuff on like 70% interest credit. Oh, no. It was mental. No, the city, not City Hall, City Park, yeah when that was made. yeah And they had that big massive TV. a Then now I've turned that into a joke when I've ran into jokes in Bradford about the fella that Bradford Council bought down.
01:06:38
Speaker
from Bright House. And then now they're going to get the money back from it. It's very much a Bradford Only reference. because Yeah, yeah. like only people brad but yeah So like he's in this section talking about like you know people, flat screen TVs that they don't own and all that kind of stuff. and and And again, in the commentary, he's talking about just feeling a bit uneasy about this routine because, if fact you know, the crux of it is, right, that there's a lot happens in the in the news to kind of demonise working class people saying, you can't afford a house because you buy flat screen TVs, you can't afford a house because you do this, that and the other.
Nostalgia for Woolworths and its Impact
01:07:14
Speaker
But the end of the day, life's fucking miserable, man.
01:07:17
Speaker
yeah sometimes like i don't know about you like i don't begrudge people having nice things if it just means that they feel better about themselves yeah like you know because i'll think about but um single parents smoking or whatever oh fuck off will you which is like like i have a cigarette taste expensive yeah i i have a problem with smoking in general because of the kind of the health in implications the burden on the chest and all that kind of stuff but you know they people need to have some joy something yeah people need to have a joy in life right and and the the other side of the the fence are quick enough to uh be more than the left has been sort of some you know kill joy
01:08:01
Speaker
you know, work, can't say anything anymore, that kind of thing. But they're very blinkered when it comes to telling the other side what to do. Yeah, like it's just, I just find it interesting. But anyway, so he's on this track. But like I say, simultaneously in the commentary, he's saying about how he feels uneasy about how he's pointing fingers at people struggling. but then he turns his gaze to like buildings you know his buildings previously worth millions are now not even worth the paper that the property developers selling them <unk> it previously covered in outright lies which is a great like you know the the idiom of not worth the paper it's printed on yeah i just i think this is this is a brilliant example of
01:08:45
Speaker
Stu taking a thing that we all know, a common idiom, and building a clever joke out of it. like yeah you know A lot of jokes out of idioms, I've got some, and they're quite you know they can be quite low hanging fruit at times.
Miles Jupp Property Sketch
01:08:59
Speaker
whereas he's he's taken an idiom here and turned it on its head and made it interesting, which takes us into the the Miles Jupp property sketch, or Miles Piles, as he's called in this. His world's fallen apart, the global financial market has crashed, but Miles is a scheme which he hopes will turn his plummeting fortunes around, and he gets Kevin Elden. I can't remember the name of the lady, but he's got Kevin Elden. A lady played his wife and a young kid comes into the estate agent's office. They sit down
01:09:26
Speaker
And he says, I have a small, intimate space may suit a young family. And he says, would you like to see it now? Yeah. I thought, I'll admit, I thought I'd got it nailed. I was like, I know what this is going to be. What would you think was going to happen? I thought it was going to be his desk drawer. Yeah, exactly. And I think that's what they think they want you to think. Yeah. Because it goes into the drawer as well. And I was like, There we go. At what point? A rate on probe. Yeah, exactly. what So he produces this probe, hands it to Kevin Elduc, and asks him to hold onto to it for a second. and Puts the
Absurd Property Scenario in Sketch
01:10:10
Speaker
KY jelly onto his hands.
01:10:13
Speaker
covers it covers the end of the probe so the first verbal you say ah at what point and did you think well so the kyjally gave me an idea but the first verbal confirmation is the line you're offering your own anal passage as a possible home miles jump just goes yep
01:10:34
Speaker
Which is brilliant, right? Now, so again, so what you've got is you've got construct, confirm, and then with the anal probe, you've got confound, right? yeah Then what happens is they press the confound button again, because Kevin Elden and his family are genuinely interested in it. And so they're like, will it be used which as a working anal passage? right so What do you mean? I've got some insight
Comedic Improvisation in Sketch
01:11:03
Speaker
into that bit because they talked about this a lot on the commentary, basically saying about they were making fun of Kevin Elden for his beard, basically. But other than that, they talked about it could this one really coming together in the rehearsal where like what was written on the page ended up changing. yeah So they do the they do that sort of the standard stuff that they do when you show it to them. I can imagine it being
01:11:27
Speaker
like rift on yeah but where he says uh they say oh how old is it and he says 29 years how many bedrooms three ah Kevin Elden says three
Crafting Jokes from Idioms
01:11:40
Speaker
it's not as small as it looks then yeah miles jump says it's deceptively big is there room for an extension once you're in there you can pretty much do what you want you right and then but then again this is this is just a constant stream of pressing confound right pressing that confound button push in the confound is where he says to the kid you'd like to live in a property developer's duodendom wouldn't you Leon?
01:12:10
Speaker
Have you just have a look around on or on the right? That'd be great for storage space, wouldn't it? You have to say that a man's actual anal passage isn't the kind of place we'd normally consider for a family home. It's very tempting, but there's one thing. If we live there, would your anal passage be functioning as an actual anal passage? What do you mean? What I'm trying to say is, would your human excrement be coming down through our home? And he just goes, yes right yeah and at that point right so this is where this is where the rehearsals came in is that so they basically said this line that Kevin Alden says next uh came out in rehearsals and it just had everyone dying he to the woman and said that's a hell of a lot of work for you love
01:13:06
Speaker
and drink around mother
01:13:11
Speaker
Right, which they said that wasn't in the script. That would annihilate me on stage.
01:13:21
Speaker
got didn't really escape You think you know where it's going and that's what happens. But this is the genius of Kevin Oldham though he's so fucking good. Have you watched that? I can't remember if I told you about this before but there's a there's a 10 minute clip online of him doing stand-up from the alternative comedy experience that Stuart Lee. No I haven't seen him other than seriously if you've got 10 minutes at some point do watch it because it's fucking incredible and it shows you just how good he is but that there that's a hell of a lot of work for you love is they said after that they basically abandoned what was going to be like the punch line to the sketch right okay because then all they're saying what the punch line was going to be i can't remember i'll see if i've got it i'll see if i've got it written down but they they did mention that there was going to be another
Sketch Review Process
01:14:12
Speaker
there was going to be another another line, but it got cut because... Here we go. Yeah, so so they cut the punch line, which was supposed to just be some some version of, we'll take it, you know? okay You know, that the kind of just the normal way that one of those conversations would have ended. and it because he'd said that and then I think the the next line was something that came out which is the one they actually ended on where he said uh is your anus in a chain yeah he said oh beautiful you know he said no you can move in tomorrow but yeah basically so a lot of that sketch was was pretty much rift and for something that's so it builds so well it's proper traditional in in like ah a real sketch sense yeah
01:14:58
Speaker
But, you know, like I said, going taking it back to like what Joe Morris says in his book like that is a genuine case of. showing how you can do those notes almost in any order or with any variation as long as you construct the thing at the start. Yeah. You know, you you can pretty much do what you want. And that was just a case of them pressing. Just you twist it one way. Then you twist it another way. Then you twist it another way. and It was it's. so Expectations obviously what yeah what you what normal would be. Yeah.
01:15:30
Speaker
which would be what the fuck are you under my heart? yeah well it's again he mentioned something else in his book about the the guys who created South Park and their storytelling yeah strategy which is every scene should end with a but or therefore right yeah so like from if your scene can end with the word and yeah then it means the next scene follows on with no relation to the previous one yeah you know it has to yeah because right because when you're doing half an hour yeah short form thing like every scene counts yeah what happens at the end of one scene has to directly impact what's going to happen in the next scene or you know change it in some way and that's essentially what they kept doing here with every line and it is it's probably the strongest bit of the episode for me really is that sketch
01:16:23
Speaker
but and so like you know you're back into the stand-up he says we should have known it was all over you should have known Woolworths and MFi and Xavi all went down in the same week and i like this because i'm nostalgic for these names right yeah also the way that he uses these jokes is great because he he sets up a bit where it's people being nostalgic for Woolmuffs right so they had Woolmuffs in the you know 60s 70s whatever and he's like you go down there you buy a seven inch single they used to have a seven inch single in the charts on the vinyl the old vinyl they used to have in the 70s so he's doing this pastiche of like a nostalgic comedy you know peter k type shit yeah
01:16:58
Speaker
you know, all the proper bands from then when we were kids, the Rubettes and Mud and Chicory Tip. On the contrary, he basically says, like, he he was just pulling for interesting sounding band names, you know, each night. And I think Chicory Tip is a really funny reference. That's the hard consonants.
Nostalgia Expressed for Old Bands and Stores
01:17:19
Speaker
Exactly, yeah. They're not like the bands they have now. Stupid modern bands all made out of wires and electricity. Does he say about scouting for girls? Yeah, he does. But he sort of says, he says about being very nostalgic towards Woolworth's, the pick and mix, ah all the sweets individually wrapped. And he's just basically layering the nostalgia at this point. Proper old fashioned sweets, not like the sweets they have now with knives in them and ends.
01:17:44
Speaker
Which seems a bit cheap for him, but it's quite funny. yeah um Proper old-fashioned sweets they used to have. And he keeps repeating this very nostalgic for Woolworths, very nostalgic for Woolworths. And again, he's sort of subliminally saying to the audience, this is a routine yeah about this. Like, i want you to I want you to be imagining that I am one of these types of comedians. yeah And then he gets to MFI. MFI, of course, if you're a certain age, you probably have very nostalgic feelings for MFI. He used to go to MFI on a Saturday morning with the pocket money and get a bit of flat pack furniture. So at this point, he's taken the the ro routine into a surreal direction, right? Yeah. You know, this is the genius of the character, right? Because this is and this is on two levels, really, for me. It's it's stewardly the operator, so the person who knows what he's doing. Yeah.
01:18:33
Speaker
is knowingly using these tropes to talk about something that it doesn't fit. He knows it doesn't fit, but he's doing it anyway. Whereas the comedian of Stuart Lee, who's meant to be a potentially someone who doesn't necessarily know what he's doing, yeah um at times, he's trying to use that nostalgic. Oh, you used to go down there when you were a kid, didn't you? But he's he's doing it unknowingly. doing it yeah so So the two versions of the person suitably are simultaneously doing this knowingly and unknowingly, yeah which I find
Mundane Tasks Turned Comedic
01:19:08
Speaker
quite interesting. And then he does like a bit of I quite like this because he always does and he does it quite famously in content provider where he goes he does a whole routine about the economics of selling stand-up DVDs.
01:19:22
Speaker
right yeah where it' essentially it's not really comedy, it's just admin. It's just him talking about admin, right? yeah ah And he's doing it here where he says, in in a bit of a smaller way, obviously, because he's only got a half hour, but he says, do you remember, it was a big thing in our house in the early 80s when MFI amalgamated with the Allied Carpets Group. Again, he's talking about this thing that this really dry sort of corporate takeover shit, yeah like it was pop culture news. right You remember that? Everyone was around the television watching that, I remember. and It couldn't last, could it? It couldn't last. Like two cats in a bag, wasn't it? It couldn't last. It was like when Gillian joined Sabbath. So again, he's he's throwing out these references that are deliberately obtuse, that he doesn't necessarily want people to understand.
01:20:14
Speaker
And he wants them to laugh at the fact that he's deliberately making shit references, you know? And again, he's repeating himself at this point.
Repetitive Nostalgic References
01:20:23
Speaker
It's almost like he's lost in a trance. It couldn't last the MFI carpets, Allied carpets team up. It wasn't going to last. And then he drops back into the familiar rift, very amazed and very nostalgic feelings for the MFI. Do you remember in the eighties when Currys acted as a retail outlet for MFI's Hygiena kitchens range? So he's getting into like, I just I just love it I love how he's it's not a joke no it's him convincing the audience that he's telling a joke yeah without telling a joke and I think what this proves really and again it came up in the came up in the Joel Morris book so there's obviously you know there's something in it if if lots of different very clever very good comedy people are talking about this but there is something in the fact that the content doesn't really matter
01:21:09
Speaker
The words that you say don't really matter. It's the rhythm that you say them in. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? And as long as the hard beats and the soft beats London. Yeah. I think the words help. Yeah. ah no they In certain ways, like in terms of like, like you can select Mark Simmons. Yeah. Is is heavily into like the kind of the words specifically that you use. But i think there's i think there's two I think there's two sides of it, though. i think I think the words can matter, but I don't think they have to. Right, yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah, the words on on their own, yeah without the rhythm, won't be enough. No.
01:21:51
Speaker
Words plus rhythm will work, but also rhythm with gibberish, as we can see, also work. Do you know To go back to something you were saying earlier, one of the one of the greatest kind of proponents of that was
Consumer Habits of the Past
01:22:06
Speaker
Harry Hill. Yeah. Because the vast majority of what Harry Hill says is utter bobbins. It's just nonsense. And yet you cry watching him because it's so funny. But anyway, do you remember you used to go in on the Saturday mornings with your pocket money and you'd get a hygiene kitchen?
01:22:23
Speaker
So again, escalating, escalating into the absurd, right? Proper old kitchens from the past. Not like now kids today. They're not interested in kitchens. They don't even know what a kitchen is. I saw that on the Jamie Oliver.
01:22:38
Speaker
They don't cut, they just eat kebabs out of a ditch. He likes the word ditch. He uses the word ditch quite a lot. And again, going back to very nostalgic feelings for the MFI. So he's he's in a bit of a trance-like thing, repetitive trance. This is the bit, this is what I'm saying, where this is the long, rambly bit. yeah This for me is the bit where, of the stand-up, this is the best bit. Right. For me. um Because this is the most stewardly, if that makes sense. right where he's so He's talking about shelves and he's talking about MFI storage genie range of shelves and covers. Do you remember them? The old storage genie. and Proper shelves, not like they have now. Proper shelves like from the 70s that you might put a gymnastics award on. A little statuette of a horse. Not like the shelves they have now with all hypodermic needles and dildos on them.
01:23:34
Speaker
so yes he's doing He's doing an extended old mug yells at cloud routine. yeah Yeah, that's the central is. But this is the truth. This is the the real sort of genius meat bit of the of the routine is when he gets into talking about Xavi, right? Yeah. So he's done the whole surreal spending your pocket money on a kitchen, spending your pocket money on a on a flat pack furniture or whatever. But he takes it, he twists it in a different direction here where he says he starts talking about Xavi and he says Xavi's went down, didn't it? The old Xavi, very nostalgic feelings I have for Xavi. So already you're like, well, that at this point, Xavi had only gone down about
01:24:12
Speaker
a year ago. I was going to say it didn't feel like it was. No, because I used to go into town when I was like 18 and 19, 20 and go to Zavi. So, you know, if we think about this being 2009, I was like 23. Yeah, because and and I remember um remember even before that it being like a bigger store. Yeah, exactly. so i'd i'd imagine I think Zavi went down sometime around 2008. Obviously, he's he's talking nostalgically about a place that has literally closed in last six months. Zavi's went down. I have not very nostalgic feelings there for Zavi. I don't know about you. I remember when Zavi up and I must have been, oh, 38, 39.
01:24:56
Speaker
Which is just, that's the point where you're like, okay,
Mocking Nostalgic Comedy
01:24:59
Speaker
we're winning now. Maybe he's mocking the at the time. He's mocking this logic property. But I'll say if there was a big thing about Zavi closing yeah and him being like, well, something just opened. So he's mocking, maybe it's mock he's mocking something like that as well. He is, but he's like I say, he is... It's it it's in it's in the wheelhouse of everything he's been talking up to now. it's in It's part of the global financial crisis, these companies going down. it's It's on topic, but also what it's allowing him to do is make fun indirectly. He's not stating that he's doing it like he sometimes does. No, yeah. You know, it often he'll tell you what it is he's making fun of.
01:25:40
Speaker
yeah whereas here he's not he's not outright saying it but what he's doing is he's making fun of peter care saying do you remember the past do you know what i mean like that's that's what he's doing but interestingly he's not said it and normally he takes great pleasure in telling you what it is he's showing you yeah and he hasn't done that here which i find interesting interesting but He's at that point where he says, I must have been 38, 39. I used to go into the Zavi on the Saturday mornings. I'm going up the Zavi mum. Go on then, here's your pocket money. I'm 38 years old. Go up the Zavi with your pocket when you get one of the singles, one of the singles in the form of a memory stick.
01:26:24
Speaker
all the proper bands they had then didn't they in the old days it's obvious now this is a joke that i really like because he says all the proper bands they had the editors and scouting for girls and the killers not like the stupid ones they have now like the editors and scouting for girls and the killers
Critique of Consumer Culture via Sensory Nostalgia
01:26:40
Speaker
i think it's a brilliant joke but he also says in the commentary uh how he doesn't actually know what any of these bands sound like he just picked their names out of the charts Yeah. ah He knows they're kind of vaguely indie guitar bums. Yeah, exactly. And that was the era of landfill indie, wasn't it? So I kind of get it.
01:27:04
Speaker
But that that joke is a perfect joke. All the proper bands like the Killers and the Scouting for Girls and the Editors, not the stupid bands they have now like the Killers and Scouting for Girls and the Editors. I just I really, really like that joke. He says what I remember about those shops, though, is the smell of them. ah The thing you remember the most, you go in Woolworths and Woolworths used to smell of vinyl and toffee and MFI smelled of sawdust and hope. He said Zavi used to smell of stickers, say, in three for 10 pounds. yeah and of physical objects in a virtual world.
01:27:37
Speaker
me They couldn't have seen it coming. Everyone said it was best to put your money in bricks and mortar. Turns out it would have been better hiding it in plastic bags under our beds like our grands used to do in the 70s. And to be fair, this sketch is is great as well. yeah with So the guy in this sketch, the old Scottish guy, is a guy called Arnold Brown, but who obviously old Scottish comic didn't didn't ever become like world famous but like mega circuit famous like so well revered on the circuit and Stu said that Arnold Brown was one of the reasons he does comedy is that when he first visited Edinburgh in 87 the first bill he ever saw the first comedy bill that he ever saw was Arnold Brown, Norman Lovett, Jerry Sadowitz and Arthur Smith
Influence of Arnold Brown on Stuart Lee
01:28:27
Speaker
doing like a four way, you know, maybe 15 minutes each or something in Edinburgh in 1987. He said that was the first he said the first 10 years of his career was just him doing an amalgamation of impressions of all four of those people. Yeah. But I really, I really love. They told this story about Arnold Brown having a line about going into, do you remember our price records? No. So there used to be, it was years and years ago, like 80s, I think closed in the early 90s, but whole price records, right? And Arnold Brown used to have a routine about going into our price records and he had a line in it where he said, I'd go into our price records as I have every right saw to do.
01:29:17
Speaker
at least and stew and kevin alderman and paul putter were basically saying that like it's that unnecessary bit on the end that makes it what it is
01:29:32
Speaker
you know it's it's yeah someone getting angry yeah but just got not even angry just like it was just a very pretty great soul to do like it was so fucking funny um it kind of feels like something i don't know someone like joe licey would say as is my right or what like you know it'd be that kind of thing now wouldn't it like really performative and massive whereas he just it almost feels like i'll embed it you know what i mean to to do stuff like that which uh you can kind of see a bit of that in stew like doing these these lines that sound fun but won't be unnecessary mother said to go to our price records mother that said yeah but mother said to go to our price records as was her prerogative to be fair
01:30:20
Speaker
Do you know what I mean? It's that, it's that kind of thing. So, you know, he says, uh, hello, I'm a little old man, just like you. And so is my wife. if The wife speaks, you've got a really gruff voice. Now that guy, uh, doing the wife's part, it's a guy called Eugene cheese. Um, who's like an old, aron named well, obviously not, but I don't know his actual name, but he
Absurd Hidden Money Sketch
01:30:45
Speaker
was like an old variety performer. Yeah. But apparently he started as a kid at at the tail end of like the music hall tradition stuff. His dad used to like, his dad used to take him round doing a ah music hall double act. Take my wife, please. Yeah, that kind of thing. I take her everywhere, but she finds her way home.
01:31:04
Speaker
oh henny youngman um but yeah anyway so i just i found that sketch really really funny because there's a line in it where he says uh i can't be bothered with these newfangled banks and buildings societies the saving schemes and eyesores and ipods and emails and she mails and he mails and islamics and herlamics and his lummox and neither can my wife and it's just the way that he says that whole little bit it's just so funny and then they start hiding the the hiding the money around the house putting it in the toilets and in ah in our pants and in our bras but then there's there's a little bit where he says we have a saying in Scotland many a mickle make a muckle
01:31:53
Speaker
Is that right? I'm not kidding. I rewound that bit. I rewound that bit about eight times.
01:32:07
Speaker
I literally, I laughed about that for about ten solid minutes. Many a mickle, make a muckle. That's stupid and surreal and nothing.
01:32:19
Speaker
ah And then Paul turns up at the end, the punch line, he turns up at the end to say, I've come to read here. Is that I've come to Rob read the meter? Yeah. Better come in then. Oh, no, it wasn't even it wasn't Arnold Brown that answered the door for
Estate Agents as Household Pests
01:32:35
Speaker
that one, was it? It was Eugene Cheese dressed as a woman. uber
01:32:42
Speaker
But yes, I do like that sketch as well. And that's what I'm saying. this This whole episode is literally all about the sketches for me, except except the Xavi routine, which I do really like. So like I said, this episode for me is is kind of all all about the sketches and no more so. like So the the little bit between the Arnold Brown hiding the money sketch um and the the next sketch is a bit about estate agents. You know, where he sort of says, he says, home is a basic requirement like food. When a hamster hides food ah in his hamster cheeks, he doesn't keep it there in the hope that it will rise in value. When a squirrel hides a nut, he's not trying to play the acorn market.
01:33:29
Speaker
um And having eaten the nut, he doesn't keep the shell in the hope of setting up a lucrative sideline making tiny hats for elves. Construct, confirm, confirm. And when a dog buries a bone, he doesn't keep that bone buried until the point where it's reached its maximum market value, digs it up and he's hungry. and if estate agents were dogs burying bones not only would they leave those bones buried behind until they'd reached their maximum market value they'd run around starting rumors about the imminent increases in the price of bones in the hope of driving up the market and that they'd invite loads of boneless dogs to view all the boat to view the bone at the same time in the hope of giving the impression that there was a massive demand for bones and there'd be a photograph in the bone as such photograph of the bone in such a way as to make it look much more juicy than it really is airbrushing out the maggots and cropping off the rotten meat you know and he's talking about he's talking about estate agents right and he said we shouldn't hate estate agents they're just living things like us they struggle to survive
01:34:29
Speaker
The struggles to survive that estate agents are going through are a barometer of some of the problems that we as humans might face in future. I remember in London, experts say you're never more than 10 feet away from an estate agent. So obviously, like you know it's setting up the premise
Manipulation by Estate Agents
01:34:43
Speaker
of the sketch. you Estate agents are rats. yeah right And what I really love ah about this sketch is just the opening bit. I can't remember the name of the lady who's in it. I forget all the names of all the women. I must have some sort of unconscious.
01:34:59
Speaker
terrible and definitely really but over all the men yeah i remember all the men all of them even eugene cheese <unk> but i forget i forget the names of the women um this is under normal circumstances estate agents keep out of most humans we're hiding in their brightly lit offices or sometimes in properties like these which show clear signs of their presence and she says a few years ago we'd sometimes see the odd one But one morning I was sitting on the WC doing my business, a poo action. Which again, crass, stupid, properly up my street. I just loved it. And again I rewound that bit as well. I just thought the way she delivered the line, a poo action.
01:35:41
Speaker
It's just unnecessary. And I heard a sort of scratchy noise sounding like it was coming from inside the wall. So we got someone in to look at it and it turned out the whole fit the whole house was infested. And Kevin Olden said, Stuart Lee says, with estate agents. And she goes, that's right. And he'd go in and there's all of the signs everywhere. one arrived This one arrived last night just before I went to bed. And then when I got up this morning, all of this had appeared. And it's all the signs all over the living room. And then Kevin Olden says, when one of them's made their mark, the others feel that they have to as well. They're very competitive for territory. And then when he picks up the little champagne glass and calls it fresh droppings.
01:36:18
Speaker
o But what I really liked about this one was, again, this is another one in the commentary where Stuart Lee was saying that, in hindsight, I think this is really funny and that, you know, it is generally good, but in hindsight, it's very dark.
Dark Humor in Estate Agents Sketches
01:36:33
Speaker
Do you think? The way he sort of put it is it's essentially let's kill all the estate agents. We need to kill all the estate agents. There's a joke in it. It's just a joke. Wokey. You can't say anything. You can't even shout for the mass.
01:36:56
Speaker
Killing of all the station. There's a there's a meta routine in that isn't there of Stewart Lee going back over his jokes and saying I can't even say anything anymore in the past So, you know, they they got Kevin Elden in and then he opens a cupboard and one of them jumps out of the cupboard And they're saying that they the guy that they got in he was an acrobat He can the reason the reason they got him was that Not only could he fold himself up really small to fit in a cupboard but also from that position he could jump up onto the counter.
01:37:29
Speaker
which is incredible which is like you know it's really quite difficult to do and then he was jumping around and Kevin Elden was chasing him with the bat trying to hit him and one of my favorite lines here is where they find that there's the the image of the estate agent in the loft chewing the tape measure and Kevin Elden says once I seen two estate agents fight each other to the death and he stops and says to the death mind okay but just it's those little flourishes for me that really over the deeds to a two bedroom flat in Gossport and it weren't even double glazed. Now some people say the only good estate agent is a dead estate agent and I don't know if I agree with them and then he sort of starts swatting the estate agent because it's clearly not dead in the back of the truck. He says if anything they're even less use when they're dead you try buying a partial loft conversion off of one of them
01:38:27
Speaker
and then drives away in his flatbed truck full of dead estate agents. Bring out your dude. But did you notice on the on the side of the the van as well what the name of his company was? No. So it was it was Est Control.
01:38:46
Speaker
which is fucking great really. So we get into the home stretch right now this final bit is again this is like a bit of a ranty bit it doesn't have a massive point or at least it if it has a point it's a meandering point where he's sort of like who's to blame for all this you know we could blame the deregulated economy it cannot economics can't give me words out economics of the Thatcher Reagan years We could blame Gordon Brown, we could blame the banks, which lent us money we didn't
Economic Troubles and Blame Shifting
01:39:16
Speaker
couldn't afford to have. But really, we're to blame. So he gets around for kind of saying, it's all our fault, really. We can't you know we can't complain about it. But then he takes it off himself and says, well, you're to blame. I'm not really to blame. I've always been very frugal. I've never taken out a loan. I'm not in debt. I've lived in the same small flat for 11 years. It's finished to a very low spec, so I'm told. I don't have any light fittings. Have you got light fittings? Yes.
01:39:41
Speaker
I don't have any door handles. I just put my hand in a bowl and pull them back. I don't have a dishwasher. Do you have a dishwasher? I don't. Oh, I can't wash dishes. And then he starts saying, this suit isn't mine. It was this. I was lent this suit by the BBC who told me that I didn't own any clothes that were suitable to wear on television. You know he says we confused the nation the notion of property with the notion of home and we thought that our homes made us rich because the estate agents lied to us but obviously about how much they were worth. Then we spent the money that we didn't really have on rubbish. A new car, an expensive car, a complete set of the Planet of the Apes films, a DVD and a box which no one needs.
01:40:16
Speaker
No one needs a box set of all the Planet of the Apes films. Maybe one and two. Planet of the Apes and Beneath the Planet of the Apes. Maybe the third one, Escape From, At A Push. But Battle For and Conquest, no one needs those. In a box, it doesn't make them any better putting them in a box.
Over-consumption and Misplaced Priorities
01:40:31
Speaker
You can't put a turd in a box. then But then he says, laque it ah you can't put a turd in a box. You can put a turd in a box. Many liberal democrat MPs have.
01:40:45
Speaker
ah You can't polish a turd, but you can lacquer a turd. You can make it into a paperweight or a cudgel. I quite like the word cudgel. yeah You can lacquer a turd, but that's not the point. The point is our homes, which we don't own, are full of rubbish that we bought on credit and someone else. Now someone's got to pay. You remember that sculpture, the sculpture you bought in IKEA or Habitat? It was like a copy of an abstract Henry More type sculpture. but it's an abstract Henry Moore type sculpture that was made by Henry Moore himself with some kind of veiled purpose in mind but a copy of an abstract Henry Moore type sculpture on sale in IKEA or Habitat was made by an employee of IKEA or Habitat to stand as a sign to say that you should have liked the kind of thing that ought to have been there but isn't which i again I didn't find funny yeah but I just found that a really interesting thought yeah well it is and I thought about it pro i for ages
Perceived Culture in Modern Homes
01:41:41
Speaker
It's that kind of, what is it? What am I trying to say? it's it It's wanting to give the impression that you're cultured but not wanting to engage with culture. Yeah. You you don't want to go to a museum and look at a Henry Moore art piece. You want to have a miniature version of it that says to people who come in your home, I like Henry Moore art pieces when you don't really. Yeah. you know it's that thing of having a shelf full of books that you haven't read and all that kind of shit in it you know you kind of you're projecting an image and and i think that's kind of what he's going after here where he's basically saying that um it's a meaningless copy of something that once had meaning and in 2009 british homes are full of sculptures of nothing sculptures of nothing in houses of sand ah sculptures of nothing in houses of sand artfully backlit by designer lamps against neutral beige backgrounds because that's what estate agents told us would help sell the house
01:42:35
Speaker
So he's not trying to be funny here, he's making a point. yeah Sculptures of Nothing in Houses of Sand standing nowhere with nothing to say and then he literally signs off by saying and that ladies and gentlemen is how you finish a comedy show during a financial downturn. Like literally doesn't even try to save it.
Reflection on Political and Social Despondency
01:42:57
Speaker
yeah we're just mad yeah but i don't know like you look back on it and you kind of think that was probably the prevailing mood at the time do you know what i mean was just um despondency do you know what i mean yeah still isn't so in a lot of ways well i don't know i think we had a couple of good years in the middle and then we've got back to it but you know when the torrey government first came in and they weren't immediately nefarious
01:43:23
Speaker
Yeah, because there were it was a ah coalition. yeah but Do you know what I mean? They got us out of the financial slump and they went, look how great we are now, give us all your money. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. But yeah, so I suppose the villain in the film is usually yeah not identified straight away. To use a reference that
Hans from Frozen as an Analogy
01:43:45
Speaker
my kids would understand, because all I watch these days are kids films, it's Hans from Frozen, isn't it? I was also thinking of Hans from Frozen. Good, I'm glad. It's not just me. I was also thinking of Hans from Frozen. But that's what it is, at the start, you're like, oh, he's so dreamy. Oh, God, he's a psychopath. Yeah. Right. So we pretty much rushed to the end there because I've got a meeting in three minutes.
Rushed Conclusion and IT Issues
01:44:03
Speaker
Yeah.
01:44:04
Speaker
and um I've been quietly trying to get back on my work computer Is it working? No No, um I'll figure it out. i need I've got some IT issues I need to start out. Final thoughts on this episode? I know obviously at the start you kind of said it wasn't. Strong sketches. You reckon that's the gist of it? in yeah yeah yeah Strong sketches. and in but and religion i think But to be honest though, i having been through this,
Appeal Beyond Humor
01:44:40
Speaker
and having been through this now, watched it twice, once with and once without the commentary and walk through this with you here. Even the stand-up bits, like you say, they're not all funny and I do think it starts really slow but gets better yeah maybe and I think by the time you get to the Xavi routine and then beyond that when they talk about your estate agents and all that kind of stuff, it gets better but not only that, I think it's kind of better for not being funny at the end because yeah I like the tone of it, it's making a proper point. a you know what it's I think it should be talked about in a serious way.
Wrap Up and Future Episodes
01:45:19
Speaker
No, it doesn't have any money. you know i mean like Let's really seriously analyse this. I do think he puts forward some really good points. It's not the funniest episode of the series, but far from it. but
01:45:31
Speaker
I did like it. I noticed that I wasn't laughing as much. No, of course. And to be honest, you don't really laugh that much on your own anyway, do you? sometimes century but um But yeah, so cool. ah Well, I must say, Joe, it's been a pleasure to get back to doing these after a little and you extended break. And yeah, we'll we'll try and get the next one out soon. We'll get the next one out as soon as we can. Cool. ah Cool. All right. Nice one. Have a good weekend. Thanks everyone. Bye.
01:46:05
Speaker
ah