"CHEERING AND APPLAUSE" "Go-o-o-o-o-d evening! because our theme is greatness itself. it's David Mitchell!" "CHEERING AND APPLAUSE" "Great balls of fire" " Sean Lock!" "CHEERING" "Thank you." "The Great Panjandrum Jo Brand!" "CHEERING" "What's a panjandrum?" "it's Alan Davies." "CHEERING" "Sean goes... gracious Great balls of fire!" "# yes I'm the great pretender. #" "David goes..." "MUSIC:" "Theme tune to The Great Escape actually." "Alan goes..." "PHONE RINGING" "'Thank you for calling Great Eastern Railways...'" "LAUGHTER DROWNS MESSAGE" "Very good." "Excellent." "Why are so many great men short?" "really?" "you've hit the nail on the head." "as they would say in Latin." "son"." "wasn't he?" "he was above average height." "which was taller then than it is now." "right." "Yeah." "Average height was about 5'6"-ish." "put him down a bit." "Yes!" "It was a particular cartoonist called Gillray." "there was a famous one of George III like that." "I cannot but conclude you to be one of the most pernicious little odious reptiles that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the Earth." "There." "Right." "It's snappy." "It's a snappy one." "for example." "Nelson was three inches shorter than Napoleon." "It's certainly true that..." "Nelson was 5'4"?" "Yeah." "Like Danny DeVito?" "a short chap." "No wonder they put him on such a big column." "he's tall in Trafalgar Square." "Is that short-man syndrome a kind of retrospective thing" "They're all short"?" "there's no question." "Stalin was surprisingly short." "He was only 5'5"." "Mussolini was 5'6"." "Franco was 5'4"." "no." "Idi Amin was 6'4"." "big fella." "That's my height." "Fidel Castro is 6'1"." "which is rather tall for a Chinese person." "are they?" "No." "They're not." "They're not." "But all..." "We'll let that go. than people of average or tall stature." "though." "It's probably the one thing that short people have got to cling on to." "they might be a dictator." "Well..." "And we've just taken that away from them." "That little hope. will be made up for when I kill millions of people." "I can stand on their bodies..." "Reach the jam. and then you decide he's a bit like Hitler." "That's it." "You notice when a short man has a tantrum..." "Yeah." "Napoleon complex." "you just leg it." "Exactly." "I'm rather shocked by this." "Heightism does exist." "than tall people." "The disparity is comparable in magnitude to race and gender." "A survey of Fortune 500 companies..." "They should rise up!" "Yeah!" "Hey!" "The chief executive officers of Fortune 500 companies - 90% are above average height." "really." "And 30% of those are over 6'2"." "They're the tallest 4%... a little short fella breaks through." "stop!" "Gets away." "Yippee!" "I made it!" "It is rather shocking that there is this disparity." "tall wife." "Bernie Ecclestone." "I've seen her with him." "She's actually much taller than that above him." "She's bending her knee there." "He has to jump up to slap her on the bum." "He can run through her legs." "Who's the couple on the left?" "That's Carla Bruni and..." "Sarkozy. .." "Nicolas Sarkozy." "which I think is quite nice." "it seems." "are actually tall. founder of modern Europe." "in fact..." "We've been digging into your family trees in that sort of Who Do You Think You Are?" "way." "And we've come up with some rather exciting news." "See if you can guess which of you is descended from Charlemagne." "is it?" "I think Alan." "Alan?" "Is it all of us?" "if they're European." "He was a love machine." "everyone has two parents eight great-grandparents." "It's that grain of rice on the chess board thing. you have more direct ancestors than there have ever been human beings." "by the time you get back that far." "My brain..." "I..." "All you have to do..." "You have more ancestors than there are people that's ever been?" "That's it." "I see." "they have to be shared." "Are your brothers here tonight?" "Sorry?" "Are your brothers here tonight?" "I've only got one brother." "I thought they might be related to you." "if they were your brothers?" "Wouldn't you love it?" "cos they don't exist." "to find out you were related to someone fictional." "You'd start to doubt your own existence." "he's just historical." "obviously." "one of them's got to be Winnie The Pooh." "That's very odd." "at Dublin University." "He discovered that his wife was King Edward III's great-granddaughter 20 generations down the line." "And he looked further into it and realised that so was Hermann Goering pioneer." "and he's the one who's given us that." "I'm just thinking about Charlemagne." "That would be a really good name for an aftershave." "Charlemagne." "Let's smell medieval." "I'm everybody's..." "I'm everybody's daddy." "APPLAUSE it seems." "Computer models have shown that anyone living in the 8th century who had plenty of children and grandchildren is likely to be related to everyone in Europe today." "So tell me - what good did the Great Fire of London do?" "# Pretender... # dear!" "KLAXON SOUNDS but it's just not true." "There's no evidence." "the plague was already over." "not in the city. but it was the place that was destroyed by the fire." "By the time September 1666 happened - the fire - there were very few deaths." "but it wasn't the fire." "Did it make it easier for them to knock down a load of places that they had their eye on?" "Essentially." "It gave the chance for Christopher Wren to get some church-building done." "of course." "They had lots of grandiose plans please." "Which it is." "But I think Christopher Wren was a bit depressed about it." "Yeah." "The best thing about the Great Fire of London was that it got Wren an opportunity to build St Paul's." "just how great were the Great Train Robbers?" "cos they got caught and locked up." "They got caught almost immediately." "And they got caught in very stupid ways." "Do you know how?" "They went to this farm and played Monopoly using the stolen money." "And then they cleared out and left their fingerprints over everything." "Over all the Monopoly set." "they were all known blaggers." "two were never caught." "basically." "Who's the most famous of the Great Train Robbers?" "Ronnie Biggs." "You all say Ronnie Biggs." "What was his role?" "Was he the mastermind?" "Is that why he's the best-known?" "No." "he was SUCH a small peg in the whole thing." "Was he the driver? "I'm planning this blag..." "I'm planning a game of Monopoly." "Just got to pick something up on the way." "I've lost all the fake money." "And the only way of replacing it I can think of... they didn't want to know." "' I said." "I will cut you in on a big job that's going down." "that's like..." "That's not like someone who can melt diamonds with their eyes." "Someone who can drive a diesel..." "Apparently they exist." "Someone." "There must be someone." "is... or Stan Agate - cos he was never caught." "That'll be Old Pete the train driver." "So his job..." "After Casey Jones had turned him down." "000 which in today's money is 1.6 million." "to the scene." "I don't know to drive that." "but Old Pete was useless." "he'd been lying all the time." "I can horse ride." "too." "A train?" "Through China?" "No problem!" "he went through his Spotlight." "he was very well reviewed in Much Ado About Nothing." "He's trained in modern dance." "That could come in handy." "The Great Train Robbers weren't particularly great." "Most of them were caught because they left fingerprints on the Monopoly set at the safe house." "From criminal bungling to a great scientific mystery." "Why did it take 300 years to give the giant tortoise a scientific name?" "ie the Latin name." "It turned out to be called Geochelone...you know." "Is it because they just thought that was pretty good?" "Giant tortoise?" "We'll leave it at that." "Yeah." "I..." "I was going to say something about..." "Now it's unusable." "I'm going to have to say it now." "Go on!" "They thought that... is what I was going to say." "I couldn't get that concept." "Would it actually be further away?" "Then a normal one further away would be an absolutely minute one." "that's a bit...?" "What you're saying is..." "It's just a thought." "Just a certain way." "They go..." "You know what?" "I'll go that way. just a normal tortoise." "my God!" "It's over there and it's massive!" "You have them on a huge beach with no other points of reference." "Exactly." "Are they..." "That's not the reason." "Are they particularly litigious?" "I'll sue you." It wasn't that." "It's a nice thought." "which was most unfortunate for them." "the tortoises did?" "Yeah." "They were edible." "They were SO edible." "they just had to eat it straightaway." "One of those..." "I don't know what they're called." "Just get one." "They're really good." "We just call them "dinner"." "either." "they're brilliant." "No Latin name for Maltesers." "It's true." "None of them made it to London." "None of them made it to Europe." "this time..." "This time we're going to take it..." "Leave it." "No." "We're taking it back." "there's a bloke going..." "Leaving the door where the tortoise is kept." "I haven't been..." "We'll eat eight." "Now absolutely..." "Come on..." "The sea's becalmed." "the sea's becalmed." "There's one tortoise left." "Let's just go back and get some more. we are twats." "I'm too full." "Even Darwin..." "There were dozens of them... but he ate that one." "I'm eating that." "mutton and butter and saying how much better they are than all of those things." "No-one who'd ever eaten tortoise had ever eaten anything better." "every part of it was unbelievably delicious." "mostly." "Are there flights over there?" "They are now protected!" "All 12 species. no need to look." "Burp!" "Oops!" "They're fine." "There's a border round them like North Korea. like those piles of tyres you see in a scrap yard." "however." "Let me tell you about a very extraordinary one." "That bloke there is just befriending that one." "mate." "I'm trying to think of a name... apart from how delicious they are." "Adwaita died in 2006 and he was Clive of India's pet." "There he is." "200 years old or something." "before the French Revolution." "isn't it?" "You can list his achievements on the back of a stamp." "Well!" "Why would he need to achieve..." "He lived 255 years. and he was well cared for." "But that's astonishing." "So it lived to 255 years and is massive." "I've achieved 50% of that." "I don't see why that's so great." "all of them endangered." "Do they all taste nice?" "I don't know." "But it's very sad that so many other species because they were so lovely." "They were also used as water stores." "They have a special internal bladder that stores water so perfectly that it's drinkable." "you also get a gallon of fresh water." "Wow." "So they would stack them up on boats - tons of them." "They couldn't move." "so they contributed a lot because they were used as a foodstuff and a water supply." "like a Kinder egg." "you've got to get the balls in the holes. if they're so delicious and slow-moving and massively useful?" "They didn't have any natural predators until man discovered them." "They were evolutionarily complacent." "like a lot of island species." "And it's only man who crosses islands in the way we do." "Those ridiculous flightless birds on New Zealand." "they got lazy." ""What's the point of flying?" "you are." "it's easier." "giant tortoises weren't properly catalogued until the early 19th century because they were so delicious that no samples ever made it back home." "Time for the great test of general ignorance." "Fingers on buzzers." "How did Catherine the Great die?" "I don't know." "Horse." "She didn't have sex with a horse." "Correct." "She... .." "Died on a commode." "no... dear." "On the loo?" "You're on fine form." "There are those..." "Elvis Presley was said to have died that way." "George II died at stool." "rather splendidly." "Straining away. but she died in bed." "Is that a euphemism?" "dear!" "for a minute." "she didn't." "No." "That horse's head is too small." "painting horses with small heads." "She never had sex with one horse?" "No." "Donkey?" "Nor a donkey." "is it?" "no." "the Tsar - as did the French." "right... my mum." "You won't believe it." "She's had sex with a horse." "That's why I'm so good at showjumping. following a stroke." "where does most of your heat escape from?" "Er..." "Er..." "Your head." "What?" "Your head." "really?" "KLAXON SOUNDS that's what I've been told." "Is it not just that your head is more naked than the rest of you?" "more would escape from your arm. because you lose most heat through your buttocks." "no need in these days to cover your buttocks all the time." "Everyone used to wear hats." "Now they go around bareheaded a lot." "but I'm glad my grandmother's dead." "Because that would blow her mind." "I'm not glad she's dead." "No." "so it doesn't affect her at all." "You're glad she isn't here to hear it." "Yes." "it's a shame she never saw me on a plane sitting next to Lionel Blair." "That would have been a lovely moment." "Has that happened to you?" "She died before I was able to tell her that." "She would have seen that as the absolute pinnacle of human achievement." "it was very nice. you would lose more heat through an exposed leg or arm than a bare head." "What was the lingua franca of Ancient Rome?" "Dutch." "I knew that's not going to come up." "Jo." "You've got to think - what they wouldn't put up." "Cheers(!" ")" "Latin." "KLAXON SOUNDS" "I did that deliberately." "I know!" "She's going for the record." "or one of those games." "Such a brilliant game." "Isn't it?" "What does lingua franca mean?" "A language commonly used - everybody's second language." "Is it Greek?" "Yes!" "It is Greek." "Greek is the language people would use in Rome if they weren't Latin speakers." "how many men have been President of the United States?" "46 or something?" "should we ask the great man himself?" "Shall we ask the current President?" "Is he here?" "Is he here tonight?" "Ladies and gentlemen..." "What a waste of a guest!" "I'd have given up my seat and sat in the audience for this one." "of the United States?" "I thank President Bush for his service to our nation." "As well as the generosity and co-operation he has shown throughout this transition." "44 Americans have now taken the Presidential oath." "He's wrong!" "He made a mistake." "He's only been on once and he's wrong already. and he's the 43rd." "Do you know why?" "One of them was invisible?" "then came back?" "who was the 22nd and the 24th." "Why did they count him as two?" "Yet they count Clinton as one." "Because his terms were consecutive. then he was 24th." "This was Grover Cleveland." "I'd have gone for the number of different men." "Yes." "You get a new number if you're a different man." "Exactly." "they didn't do that. although he'd been the 22nd." "He was actually Stalin." "He does look a bit like him. he was two Presidents of the United States." "It's a weird system." "That's a CV." "Now we know what he was doing in between presidencies." "Exactly." "because Cleveland making him the 22nd and 24th President." "but that is the end of the show and time to look at the scores." "my word!" "My word! it's David Mitchell!" "APPLAUSE AND CHEERING" "In second place with plus two is Alan Davies!" "CHEERING AND APPLAUSE" "In third place with minus six is Sean Lock." "Thank you very much." "it's Barack Obama!" "LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE where are you?" "Minus ten." "Jo Brand!" "APPLAUSE AND CHEERING and to leave you with this thought from the great Jack Handy." "you should walk a mile in their shoes. and you'll have their shoes!" "Good night." "CHEERING AND APPLAUSE" "Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd" "E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk"