"No, it's this thing with Alan Davies..." "No, not QI." "He's doing something on his own for Dave." "I know he's got some massive tax bill." "This gets me out the house." "I only hope Alan's changed his hairstyle." "It's been the same for about 30 years." "Ah." "I need to be alone." "Hi, I've brought a bottle." "I didn't know if that was..." "I'm not really sure what the rules are." "APPLAUSE" "Hello, I'm Alan Davies and this is As Yet Untitled." "It's a conversation between four guests and me, in which we will try to come up with the title of the show." "It's not rocket science, unless that's what we decide to call it... so please will you welcome, my guests." "CHEERING AND APPLAUSE" "Hello, hello." "Hiya." "Hello." "Hello, everyone." "So, now let's introduce you all." "Shappi Khorsandi is here." "Shappi Khorsandi has been bailed out by Nanny McPhee." "Shappi's here." "SHAPPI MOUTHS" "APPLAUSE" "Jack Dee." "Welcome to Jack." "Jack Dee was described by a fire chief as a hero and was once involved in extreme sports." "Jack Dee, everyone." "APPLAUSE" "Matthew Crosby." "Nice to see you, Matthew." "Earlier this year, he didn't go to see Morrissey." "Thank you, Matthew, that's what I like to hear." "APPLAUSE" "And I'm delighted to welcome Julian Clary." "Julian Clary blames his mother for everything." "LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE" "So, welcome." "Welcome, one and all." "Julian." "Yes?" "Your poor mother." "Why is that?" "Well, she's a great influence on my life, and a lovely woman, don't get me wrong." "ALAN LAUGHS" "And one of the rules of life that she's passed on to me is "just say yes", so this is how I've lived my life." "And it means, as a consequence, you have a more interesting life than you might otherwise have." "Except...in the early '90s, when I was a lot friskier than I am now," "I was in a nightclub in New York called Cock..." "LAUGHTER ..which..." "Picture the scene." "No, thanks." "It doesn't mess around, Cock." "It gets straight to the point." "Yes." "Would you mind giving us a little description of what you were wearing?" "It wasn't Lycra or anything." "It wasn't, you know..." "I was just casual." "I was off-duty." "An off-duty comic." "Yeah, and there was a man trying to pick me up in this club and I was having none of it - it wasn't to my liking." "And then, I went to the toilet and there was a queue, and I was in the queue, and the man behind me tapped me on the shoulder and he said, "Would you like some of this?"" "And he had a mirror with some white powder on it." "Well, it was the early '90s, I was working in television," "I was no stranger to cocaine refreshment." "Everyone was on it then - even the newsreaders." "And I thought, "Well, this won't go well, I probably shouldn't."" "But I thought, "Well, what would my mother say?"" "LAUGHTER" "I thought, "Well, she'd say, 'Yes'", so I said, "Yes", and I snorted this not overgenerous line, and I realised, as soon as I'd done this," "that this wasn't cocaine, as we know it." "It was burning at the back of my nose, and I said to this man, "What was that?"" "He said, "Oh, it's crystal meth,"" "and crystal meth..." "Phone your mum." "LAUGHTER" "I mean, it makes you very, shall we say, uninhibited." "And I realised I'd been groomed by this man." "He'd sent his friend along, cos then he was able to approach me." "They were working in tandem?" "I was more receptive." "And I went off with this man..." "and I'll just jump ahead three days." "LAUGHTER" "Please don't." "No, you don't want to know." "Oh, we do." "I came too in a multistorey car park in Harlem." "Oh, what bad luck, Julian." "Well, there's a..." "You know..." "LAUGHTER" "You go to a club, have some drugs with someone you've never met before and then all hell breaks loose." "It wasn't what I was expecting." "Were you in a car?" "I was near, shall we say, an open boot." "Were you?" "But, there's a sequel to this." "OK." "Would you like the sequel?" "Yes, please." "Does it have a happy ending?" "This is getting quite dark." "Well, you have to fast-forward a bit to..." "To now." "Well, no... ..about five years ago, where I'd cleaned myself up." "I don't take drugs any more, I don't drink, I don't smoke," "I very rarely breath." "And I live in Kent, in the country now, where nothing much happens." "And I was writing one of my lovely books and I had terrible writer's block." "And then I heard this car screech to halt, just down the lane where I live, where nothing ever happens." "And then police sirens, and this is very exciting." "So, the next day, I walked the dogs down the lane, and I could see the tyre marks there, into the ditch, where this car had turned over." "And as I walked past, a little bit of white folded paper caught my eye in the ditch." "It was a little bit of paper in one of those little mini cellophane envelopes." "So, I picked it up and went for a walk in the woods with the dogs." "The neighbours had told me that noise was some ne'er-do-well youths from Ashford who'd been joy-riding and crashed the car into a ditch, and then the police had come and I thought, obviously, they ditched their stash," "when they heard the police, in this ditch." "Right." "They, literally, ditched it." "Yeah." "I then picked it up and had it in my hand." "And I thought, "Well, because I've got writer's block," ""maybe this is God's way of helping me through it." ""This is a gift from God."" "LAUGHTER" "So, I did what anyone would do - I took it home and I dried it out in the Aga..." "LAUGHTER" "..and snorted the lot." "Did you?" "I had a terrible burning sensation..." "Not again." "..and I realised, it wasn't cocaine, it was crystal meth." "In Ashford?" "!" "I know." "And which car park did you wake up in?" "Tunbridge Wells." "LAUGHTER" "So, things are going up in your life." "LAUGHTER" "Now, Jack, tell me about your involvement with extreme sports, because I've known you a long time and you don't strike me as either sporty or extreme." "LAUGHTER Well." "I've, um..." "I'm a terrible one for wanting to have a go at things." "Yeah?" "Yeah, I know I'm bursting with enthusiasm a lot of the time and people find that infectious about me." "But I, for a long time, have been observing this thing on the beach, where people have kites and they go on surfboards." "It's called kitesurfing and I had to get involved." "I had to have a go." "So, I paid for lessons and it's..." "Well, if you were to take two really complicated hobbies and put them together, that's what you've got with kitesurfing, because I actually can't surf anyway and I hadn't really properly flown a kite, to be honest." "Do you not start on the sand with a board on wheels?" "No, you start in a park." "Oh, do you?" "You start in a park with a kite, which is really disappointing." "So, we did that to begin with, and then you progress to the beach, and then you do it standing on a surfboard on the sand, and do that, and then you get the kite out again" "and see if you can hold the kite on the sand." "And, by then, I was desperate just to get on with it and have a go." "So, he said, "Well, what we'll do is..." ""The first thing is dragging."" "And so, you get out into the sea when you're about up to here, then you get the kite going and you let the kite drag you through the water." "So, that's kite drowning." "Yeah!" "LAUGHTER" "Was this recently?" "Yeah, it was quite recent, yeah." "Cos I've..." "With my kids, one of them, particularly, she wanted to have a go as well, so she joined me." "How old are your children now?" "My kids are now between 16 and 22." "So, it was Phoebe who was doing it with me." "I think she was 17." "So, I..." "I got into the position where I was meant to..." "Standing in the water with the kite." "And he said, "Right, now position the kite so that it will pull you."" "I did this and I just..." "I was taken across the water horizontally with this kite - horizontally for..." "Are you in a wet suit or something?" "No, because it was..." "Or just in a suit and tie." "LAUGHTER As always, yeah!" "We weren't supposed to get, really, that deep into the water." "It was a hot day, it was going to be fine." "Trunks were the order of the day." "Where was this?" "Where did it happen?" "Down in West Sussex." "We were..." "I was being pulled along for what must have been, like, half an hour," "And all I could hear was this instructor running along, trying to keep up, saying, "Pull the emergency thing" ""to release you from the harness." And I couldn't do that." "What happened then was that, instead of being dragged along on top of the water, we took a detour and I ended up going up onto the beach, but still horizontal, so I wasn't able to get up." "And it..." "That chafed." "It was a stony beach." "ALAN GASPS" "And it dragged me about 200 yards up the beach and..." "Couldn't you let go?" "Eventually I got the thing to lose it's power." "I pulled this thing that collapses the kite and I was just sort of lying there." "My trunks are about 200 yards down the beach and I was there with a badly grazed penis on the beach, and a kite that had disappeared across the South Downs somewhere." "Um, and..." "Was this three days after you had some crystal meth in a club?" "LAUGHTER" "But I've always seen things like that and wanted to get involved." "It never occurs to me that there's a whole bit in between, where you've got to learn how to do that, and it'll take years to get any good at it." "My new thing, now, is I give up easily." "I just give up." "Surely you can sue someone for that." "I think I should be able to sue, for not being given the proper information - that, you know, I was unlikely to be any good at it." "LAUGHTER" "What about your daughter?" "Cos I can just imagine she was professional." "Helpless with laughter." "And fetched my trunks for me and brought them over to me like..." "Did you have a go at your penis with TCP?" "It was..." "There's the voice of experience." "LAUGHTER Yeah." "I'm just glad I had witnesses, cos it's quite difficult to explain to your other half why you've got a grazed penis, otherwise, you know." "Yes, we've all been there." "Argh!" "I kill you!" "How hairy was it when you had to leave Iran for your dad?" "Has he talked to you quite a lot about that?" "Oh, no, not really, but he didn't have to, because back then it was really normal, in the '80s, to pick up the phone and someone go, "I'm going to kill you," ""I'm going to cut your throat." And I went, "Dad, it's for you."" "Cos the revolution was what - in '79?" "The revolution was '79." "We were already in Britain on a bit of a sabbatical." "My dad was a journalist." "So, we were living in Britain for a bit." "And then, the revolution happened and my dad went back to Iran and we planned to move back." "So, you were a little girl now?" "Six or seven or something?" "I was six." "You see, they wanted my dad." "He was on - like many artists - on the list of people to kill." "And then there was an assassination plot that was foiled by Scotland Yard in 1984." "What it's meant, though, with MY stand-up..." "Like, I'll get trolled on Twitter and I'll get really upset, and my dad will go, "How many people wrote you nasty messages?"" "And I'll say, "Oh, about 20, and one of them said I've got fat legs."" "And my dad will go, "Oh, that's so sad - 20." ""That means your career isn't going very well." ""When 5,000 people hate you, then I think you're a success."" "Then he starts, like, showing off, lauding it over me." "And he was going, "You know, in Iran, after the revolution," ""tens of thousands of people spilled into the street" ""chanting for my execution." "I was so famous."" "He looks at me like I'm a piece of shit on his shoe and he goes, "Look at you - nobody even wants to kill you." "LAUGHTER" ""It's embarrassing." ""My friends, they say to me, 'Is Shappi dead yet?" "'" ""I say, 'No, she's not very ambitious.'"" "So, that was the measure of success in our family." "What sort of stuff was he doing to invoke that much rage from people?" "He was...attacking the regime." "He was a satirist and he attacked the Khomeini regime?" "Khomeini's regime, yes." "And after that assassination attempt..." "I mean, it wrecked our peace of mind, because that's what terrorists do." "Killing you is the tip of the iceberg." "What did they try to do?" "They tried to blow his car up." "Wow." "Yeah." "Was there an explosion?" "No, there wasn't, because Scotland Yard got wind of the plot and they said, "OK, you have to go to Windsor." ""We've got a safe house for you."" "So, they took us away, and this was the era of Spitting Image, and my dad had an Ayatollah Khomeini Spitting Image mask, and as the police were gently telling us kids what was going on," "my dad came in with the Khomeini mask and a black robe, going, "Argh!" "I kill you!"" "It was really traumatic." "So, um, they told..." "Do you think he really grasped the seriousness of the situation?" "LAUGHTER" "No, I think my dad was like, "Hey, he knows me personally." "I'm so famous."" "Because the trial of my father's would-be assassins was held in The Hague and I got transcripts of the trials, and my dad's death order was signed by the Ayatollah Khomeini himself, and on it was written, "The writer Hadi Khorsandi is to be shot" ""as he takes his children to school." ""Neither of the children are to be harmed."" "And I thought, "That's so cute, right?"" "Cos I'd written a letter to the Ayatollah and I said," ""We're getting death threats," ""but you need to know my dad makes up jokes about everybody - even me."" "So, when you're ten years old or something like that?" "Yeah, and I said to him, "Come to our house, you'll see he's nice." ""Our address..."" "And I gave him our address." "So, I don't know if that had anything to do with it." "LAUGHTER" "Then, after that, Scotland Yard said, "You have to take precautions now" ""and when you leave the house," ""you have to look under your car to check for bombs."" "And my dad's like, "OK, I'm a writer, I totally know what a bomb..."" "Unless it's round, with TNT written on it." "It's fizzing." "So, before school, we'd all look under the car like this and my dad's going, "I'm not a mechanic." ""I have no idea what it's meant to look like." ""Get in, get in." "We'll see what happens."" "And he'd turn the engine on, we'd be like..." ""No, we're all right, yeah, we're cool." "We're going to school."" "He got you in the car and then tried it." "Yeah, yeah." "And he didn't take on any other precaution." "After that, I thought my dad would pack up writing and go and work in a chip shop, but he never did." "So does he still get death threats?" "Is he still getting...?" "Only from my mother." "LAUGHTER" "Matthew." "Hello." "Can you tell me about not going to see Morrissey?" "Why is it significant that you didn't go to see Morrissey?" "Well, because my wife turned 30 this year, and I thought, as a nice birthday treat, we would go and see Morrissey - it's her favourite singer - in concert." "So, we booked a holiday to Brooklyn, cos that's where he was playing." "He lives in the States, he doesn't really play in Britain very often." "And then like a week before we were supposed to go, he cancelled." "He fired his support act and said, "I'm not doing the show."" "But we still had, you know, flights and everything, and a hotel, so we decided to fly anyway and have a four-day holiday." "And then his other support act put a message out on YouTube, saying," ""Hey, everyone." "I know Morrissey can't do it" ""and I'm really sad that that's the case," ""but I'm going to put on a concert anyway for free." ""Anyone who's got a ticket can come and see me do a little concert" ""at the Gramercy Theatre in Manhattan."" "And his support act was Cliff Richard." "So I was left with a dilemma as to..." "Is this a dream you had?" "No!" "LAUGHTER" "Basically, for my wife's 30th, we flew thousands of miles to see someone we actively dislike doing a show." "And I don't know, have any of you seen Cliff work?" "But it's the cheesiest show." "He has his manager come out and it's like panto." "It really is like bizarre panto." "He says, "OK, everybody, in a second I'm going to say," ""'Welcome to the stage, Cliff Richard,' and you're going to cheer." ""And we're going to do it three times before he comes out." ""So, welcome to the stage, Cliff Richard..." "Tch." ""Well, that was quite good, but we can do a little better..." ""Welcome to the stage, Cliff Richard..." "Tch." ""Well, that was quite good, but we can do a little better..." ""Welcome to the stage..." Then Cliff pushes him out the way and goes," "# "We're all going on a summer..." # It's mental!" "LAUGHTER" "And he has...he has the body of a teenager." "He's very lithe, he's very limber." "But every four songs, he has to have a sit-down and he has a Q  A with the manager." "But the Q  A is like," ""So, Cliff, you've just sung a song that says," ""'I'll love you till the 12th of never" ""'and that's a long, long, time' " ""Wouldn't you say that's how your fans feel about you?"" "And he'd be like, "Yes, yes, it is."" "And like, "Aren't you bigger than Elvis?"" ""Well, I never kept any records, but when this song was released," ""it stayed for eight weeks in the charts." ""Elvis was only in the charts for seven weeks." "I beat him."" "Literally, he knew all the stats." "And then, he was like, "So what's happening to all The Shadows?"" ""Well, Hank Marvin released an album of Django Reinhardt covers." ""Yes, it didn't sell any copies, but you should check it out." ""I think it's available for free on YouTube."" "So, he's dicking on all his old mates, saying he's bigger than Elvis, and these..." "lunatic menopausal women are screaming at him." "It was the single best night of my life, it really was." "Nothing wrong with being menopausal." "Absolutely" " I am!" "So, um..." "But I was sat next to a guy and his brother and they were both from Sheffield, and the brother looked incredibly pissed off, and he was like, "I'm a big Morrissey fan." ""Are you a Morrissey fan?" Yeah, we're Morrissey fans." "He said, "I've got to bring my brother." ""My brother has seen Cliff 60 times," ""so it would have been the perfect ever gig."" "I said, "Really?" "You've seen Cliff 60 times?"" "He went, "Yeah, but I saw him when I was 11, and I'm autistic," ""so whoever I saw then, I just loved forever."" "So, even Cliff's biggest fan is explaining away why he's a fan." "LAUGHTER" "It's absolutely insane." "Can you tell me about the time you met the Queen?" "The Queen?" "Yeah." "Oh, I know what you're after." "Do you remember telling this story?" "When you came on QI, you told this story and it really made me laugh." "Yes, I did a Royal Variety show and I was..." "Yeah, that's it." "LAUGHTER" "And, you know, you have to wait for ages in a line, and Her Majesty was proceeding graciously along, and she spent quite a long time talking to Frankie Dettori next to me." "And you know when you are aware that you've got a little bit of wind working its way through?" "And I thought, "It's nothing to worry about..." "LAUGHTER" "".." "I'll just deal with this silently."" "LAUGHTER" "And just as the queen got to me, the..." "It was the moment, you know, where the wind was making a break for it." "So, I let nature take its course." "Unfortunately, I shat myself." "LAUGHTER" "APPLAUSE" "But it wasn't..." "It wasn't a great big, you know..." "Sure." "It was just a little Nurofen Plus..." "LAUGHTER ..sort of size." "Then that worked its way down my trouser leg." "AUDIENCE GROANS" "Did you shake it out?" "I did." "I kicked it towards Christopher Biggins." "LAUGHTER" "Hoped for the best." "Awful." "But she didn't notice, did she?" "Well, she gave me that look." "LAUGHTER" ""You shat yourself." She didn't say anything to me." "Did she shake hands and then push you away?" "She's notorious for doing that." "No, she chatted to everyone, and she got to me and I just got the look and she moved on." "I think someone had warned her, "Don't speak to him."" "Yeah. "He's a shitter, Ma'am."" "LAUGHTER" ""Move on, Ma'am, he's shat himself."" "LAUGHTER" "all right, fuck this!" "Fuck this!" "LAUGHTER" "Whenever I see you, Jack Dee," "I remember you being in the Edinburgh Festival and you telling me a story with, like, a really naughty chuckle in your voice, because you'd seen Paul Morocco..." "Do you remember this?" "Yes, I know." "..Paul Morocco, the famous and quite brilliant juggler..." "Yes." "..in a bank in Edinburgh, during the festival, trying to cash a cheque and he didn't have any ID, and he was saying, "But I'm Paul Morocco." ""Look at my poster." "Look at my leaflet." ""Surely..." "It's ME." "I really need you to..."" "And Jack went up to him and said, "All right, Dave?"" "LAUGHTER" "And then said, "How's the court case coming on?"" "LAUGHTER" "And walked away." "Yes, I can be a right bastard." "Did you...?" "Was that just off the top of your head or did you know he was going in the bank?" "I could see he was in pain and desperately trying to cash his cheque, so I spoilt it for him." "Anyway." "But from that, you've become a hero, hailed by the fire brigade." "Well, you know, this was a situation that I found myself in." "You always think, "Would I behave courageously and appropriately?", if you were put in a situation." "I was with my family and we were crossing a bridge near where we live, which is a railway bridge, so it's one of those bridges that's got two big iron sides to it - do you know what I mean?" "And as we cross it, a van stopped and with smoke coming out of the bonnet." "And the driver got out and legged it, and I could see all this smoke, and then flames were starting to come out." "And I thought, "That car's going to explode."" "So I told Jane, my wife," ""Get the kids out, get them away, and I'm going to stop the traffic."" "So, I stepped out into the road and just stopped all the traffic." "And there were people being irate - "What you doing?"" "And I said, "There's a car there that's about to explode, right."" "And um..." "Ramped it up." "..they all stopped." "LAUGHTER" "They all stopped and the fire brigade came and they get out, they put the fire out." "But the chief - the one with the white hat, not the ones with the yellow hats - the one with the white hat came over to me and said," ""Did you stop the traffic?"" "And I said, "I thought I ought to," ""because I was worried it was going to explode."" "And he said, "No, that was a really heroic thing to do." "Well done."" "So, I go, "Yeah, well, you know." LAUGHTER" ""Who WAS that man?"" "And um..." "So, I go home and Jane said, "What did he say?"" "I said, "Oh, you know, he called me a hero - fairly standard..." ""It wasn't..." "Doesn't really matter." ""We'll forget about it." "The less said, the better."" "But, yeah, he said that was an amazing thing to have done, and, um...he said that he wished he could be like me." "And then I..." "But then, this is where it got difficult for me, because it happened to be November, and there was fireworks." "And that night, Jane had bought some fireworks for me to set off in the garden for the kids." "I hate fireworks anyway." "I'm always scared they're going to go wrong." "It's just one of those things..." "Anyway, I let one off and it DID go wrong." "It went badly wrong and it went, "Phoo", straight into my shed at the end of the garden, and started a fire - a small fire, basically." "And so, Jane starts to really panic, cos there's a lawnmower in there with petrol and everything." "So, Jane says, "I'm calling the fire brigade."" "And I said, "Don't call the fire brigade."" "Because then...the BEST that can happen is that he'll come and it'll ruin my reputation as a hero." "I'm now a complete dick cos I've set fire to my own house with a firework." "And the worst that can happen is the guy will think I'm an arsonist - that I started the first fire as well, and he'll think..." ""It's always you, Mr Dee."" "..I planned the whole thing." ""Ah, two fires in one day, yeah?"" "So, she was having none of it because, by now, a bush had caught fire and neighbours were saying, "You'd better call the fire brigade."" "So, Jane DID call the fire brigade, but I had to hide when they arrived." "In the shed." "Well, I was under the dining room table saying to Jane," ""Just move, get out the way."" "So, I was just hiding until they'd all gone." "But it was the same fire chief with the white hat and everything." "It would have completely ruined my whole thing, if I'd have stepped out and he said," ""Wait, weren't you there this morning?" I'd have been arrested." "The coincidence would have been too much." ""We have taken down your poster from the station." ""Not having that any more."" ""Yeah, you're not having the certificate, the commendation."" ""You're not longer a role model, you arsonist."" "LAUGHTER" "Back when I was a teacher..." "WERE you a teacher?" "I was a teacher." "What sort of teacher were you?" "A shit teacher." "LAUGHTER" "A particular subject or age group?" "What did you teach?" "I taught a bit of everything." "I was full-time in a secondary school and then when I stopped to try and do stand-up," "I went supply, and now I'm not any kind of teacher." "I had no, like, authority." "We're not even listening, are we?" "No, exactly, yeah!" "I, literally, can't even control this table." "That's how badly it's going." "ALAN YAWNS LOUDLY" "I want to throw notes at your head." "I actually..." "Here's the thing..." "Sir, you got a girlfriend?" "Oh, yeah. "What's HIS name?" - all of that stuff, yeah." "The bloke who normally sits there brings sweets." "Yeah." "I did a terrible thing..." "Sorry, sir, I used to have a shirt like that, but then my dad got a job - ha-ha!" "LAUGHTER" "All right, fuck this!" "Fuck this!" "LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE" "I actually left teaching to get rid of this kind of bullshit." "Sit down, Mr Crosby." "LAUGHTER" "Oh!" "This is terrible" " I'm being bullied for being a teacher." "Have you got elbow patches?" "I should do, yeah." "No longer a teacher - just kept the look." "Honestly, when I was supply teaching, it got to such a point - this is terrible, and probably illegal - but I was going into a classroom, a secondary school classroom, quite a rough school in London," "the kids could see I wasn't in control of the situation, someone was flicking elastic bands." "I got an elastic band and I stretched it out and just held it in front of a kid's face." "I was like, "Right, I'm holding you to ransom - take the register."" "And I made a kid take the register, basically, at gunpoint." "LAUGHTER It was awful." "Another one, talking about throwing stuff, when I had a form, when I was teaching full-time, the kids had to line up outside the classroom to be marched in, and there was a kid who wasn't in my class," "over in the corner of the playground, watching me marching the kids, with my cup of tea, and he was playing keepy-uppy, and he screamed over at me, "Oi!" "Mr Raspberry!"" "Cos, you know, my name's Mr Crosby and he's a fucking idiot." "He says, "Oi!" "Mr Raspberry!", and he was kicking the football, playing keepy-uppy, and he kicked it at me and it hit me in the chest and tea went all over my face and all over my shirt." "Oh, winner!" "Brilliant!" "So, I was, "Right, what am I going to do to win this situation back?"" "Just walk away, Mr Raspberry." "Well, I..." "LAUGHTER" "That's what Mr Raspberry should have done." "What Mr Raspberry DID do, was grab the mug, loudly scream, "Fuck!"" "and smash the mug against the wall, genuinely..." "In the playground?" "..throwing shards of porcelain over the Year 8 faces." "It was really bad." "Although, weirdly, that was the only day" "I actually did have authority in the classroom." "They were like, "Keep away from Mr Raspberry." "He's fucking mental." ""He's still holding the handle." LAUGHTER" "Did you try to be cool with the kids, and they attacked?" "I did a rap once." "Oh, no!" "NO!" ""I did a rap."" "Do it!" "Do it!" "Do it!" "Do it!" "I, literally, did that thing where..." "You're the rabble-rouser that any teacher dreads." "I got a poem and I was like, "Do you know what?" ""I know you think poetry isn't cool, guys." ""Poetry's just a bit like the kind of music YOU listen to " ""your Snoop Doggs and your Jay Z's." "So, why don't you all, like, clap?"" "And I got them all to clap..." "I'm really upset." "..and as soon as I started doing it, I was like," ""I have made a terrible..." "a huge error, a terrible error."" "Not for OUR purposes." "Best thing you've ever done." "Yeah, this is great, yeah." "We could end with that." "Do you know what the poem was?" "Come on!" "It was a Michael Rosen poem, but I can't remember what it was." "If someone ran upstairs and copied it off on a bit of A4 off the internet." "Would I rap for you?" "Yeah, go on." "Can you remember one of the lines from it, or anything?" "Give my team something to work with." "I say, "team" - it's just one bloke out there." "I tell you what, get me anything from the current GCSE poetry syllabus, and I'll do it." "It's got to rhyme." "Michael Rosen's good, because he's good for spoken word." "It's got to be Michael Rosen." "A Michael Rosen poem, if you can find a Michael Rosen poem." "When you started talking," "I thought you were going to say something about firemen." "I thought it was leading..." "But you just felt the need to..." "Yeah, I thought this was therapy, for a second." "I regressed to a previous life." "What WAS I going to say about firemen?" "He needed to unburden himself, he got carried away." "No, it's not..." "I once found a Lebanese loop on a cashpoint." "And, er..." "A what?" "A Lebanese loop." "You know..." "It's one of those things for defrauding people." "Yeah, yeah." "They fit on to a cash machine, so they look exactly like part of the cash machine." "And when someone puts their card in, it takes a photo of it, and it films you putting the pin number in, and then it doesn't give the card back and these people come and take the loop away - the whole thing." "They've got the card, they've got the pin number." "I think, if you're that clever, you deserve to make some money out of that." "I don't think we..." "Well, I recognised it, and pulled the front off and took it into the local police station." "Ah." "And I didn't realise that they have people watching the cashpoints, if they see..." "Cos they come and take them away afterwards." "Exactly, they come and clock you over the head and you fall on the ground and twitch for a little bit and they take the Lebanese loop away." "But I managed to get it to a police station." "I didn't get caught." "There was a copper saying, "Isn't that Mr Raspberry?"" "LAUGHTER" "That was it - he said, "You should join the police force."" "And I said, "Oh, I can't join the police force, I'm a teacher."" "And he went, "I couldn't do that."" "I was like, "Yeah, neither can I, but I'm still doing it!"" "LAUGHTER" "Oh, someone's just said in my ear," ""Alan, we've got the poem, we're just about to bring it in."" "Oh, no." "I sort of thought you'd forget about it." "It's quite a lot." "It's about five pages." "It's about six pages." "We would like you to do it all." "Yes." "Chocolate Cake by Michael Rosen." "This is great." "It's a good one." "I took my son to see Michael do this." "It's brilliant." "Let's see if you're as good as him." "LAUGHTER" "DO you want everyone to clap along?" "Nicely set up there, Shappi." "Yeah, I mean..." "I think WE'LL decide if we clap or not." "LAUGHTER How does the clapping start?" "It's a bit, sort of, like..." "HE CLAPS IN RHYTHM" "Like We Will Rock You, kind of thing." "OK." "EVERYONE CLAPS TO THE RHYTHM OF WE WILL ROCK YOU BY QUEEN" "I love chocolate cake" "And when I was a boy, I loved it even more." "Whoo!" "Sometimes we used to have it for tea" "And mum used to say, "If there's any left over..."" "This doesn't rhyme at all, does it?" "LAUGHTER" "APPLAUSE" "Do you think if you'd said you'd been fisting Phillip Schofield, everything would have been all right?" "Can you tell me about being bailed out by Nannie McPhee?" "What happened there?" "Oh, right." "Well, I was at a charity function where you all have dinner and there's an auction and you raise money." "I was going through a really difficult time in my life " "I was going through the extremely expensive divorce." "And I remember thinking, "I might as well marry my divorce lawyer," ""cos he's got all my money."" "And so I wasn't in a very good place." "And I was sitting at a table and opposite me was one of my heroes, Emma Thompson, who is a patron of the charity, and on either side of me were two millionaires, like multi-multi-millionaires whose names I won't mention " "mostly cos I can't remember." "LAUGHTER" "And, you know, you had different ways to support the charity - bidding in an auction or everybody on their table had the opportunity to sponsor a child." "And they weren't doing any of it, and so I started bidding defiantly in the auction, for things that I felt THEY should be bidding for." "And there was one lot that I was bidding for, which was eight of your friends getting a private room at this fancy restaurant." "So, I start bidding and I thought one of these two multi-millionaires," "I would shame them into bidding, but neither of them did and I just carried on." "There was a lot of red wine as well." "And the auction went up to £3,500." "And my hand was up and they went, "Going, going, gone," like this." "And my face went the colour of the foam on this beer." "And Emma Thompson, opposite me, she went..." "SHE WHISPERS: "Can you afford this?"" "And I went..." "SHE WHISPERS: "No."" "And she went..." "And she got it." "Ah." "She did it." "She bought the lot." "Blimey." "And I nearly cried." "She goes, "It's OK, Darling, I've got my Nanny McPhee money."" "It was one of the most beautiful things anyone has ever done for me." "Oh, what a nice thing to do." "Thanks to her, my children have shoes." "LAUGHTER" "Now, I wanted to ask you, Julian, while we've got you here..." "In 1992, the British Comedy Awards " "Julian was there and he had to present an award, didn't you?" "Mmm." "Now, at that time, was Norman Lamont the Chancellor?" "Yes, he was." "He was the Chancellor of the Exchequer in a government that was in a bit of a nose dive, tailspin - whatever you want to call it." "He was deeply unpopular at the time." "He was very unpopular." "And they thought, maybe it would be a good idea to send him down and try and curry favour with the young crowd, by showing him rubbing up with Jonathan Ross, and the like, make himself popular." "Would you like to take up the story?" "I wondered how far you were going?" "LAUGHTER" "Just trying to set the scene." "No, you have." "There's quite a lot of young people here." "There's a man behind me wearing a hoodie." "LAUGHTER Back to front." "So, that was the scene, yes." "So, I went on to present an award and I'd had to wait an awfully long time, because these evenings are interminable, you know, and I was the penultimate award - Best Comedy Actress, I believe." "The set that year was all green foliage, and Jonathan Ross was presenting, as he always does." "And it was all greenery." "And I'd had plenty of time to think of a joke - cos you have, like, your ten-second slot to say your joke." "So, I went on and I said," ""How lovely of you to recreate Hampstead Heath for me." "Um..." ""I'm sorry I'm late." "I've just been fisting Normal Lamont."" "LAUGHTER" "But the punchline was, "Talk about a red box," you see." "Oooh..." "A very good punchline." "LAUGHTER I didn't even remember that bit." "Did you say that bit?" "No-one heard that cos there was general..." "Everyone was insensible, by that point." "The laugh that came out when you said that thing." "When you said, "I've been backstage, fisting Norman Lamont,"" "there was a little..." "Were you there?" "I was watching on television." "I was there." "SHAPPI:" "I remember that." "You were there?" "I didn't go to the Comedy Awards till the following year, and there was a kind of general air of security lockdown round the place, the following year." "I've never been invited back." "No, but that's such a..." "That's the thing I wanted to ask you really, because I thought it was the funniest thing" "I'd ever heard said out loud, certainly at the Comedy Awards." "The laugh was like a gunshot." "It went on and on and on, as people realised what you'd said." "People were crying, laughing." "Jonathan was..." "Jonathan is very good at these kind of events, trying to keep it together, but really, at that point, you should have been feted as one of the most brilliant comedians around." "But things didn't go that way for you." "You were subject to some pretty harsh press coverage, shall we say." "It's so bizarre to be talking about it, all these years later, because it was only a joke." "And I know when I die, that's what people will write about, if they write about anything in my obituary." "But there was a kind of fatwa, a kind of ITV thing, that I should never appear on live television again." "But it just felt so unfair to me, that that moment seemed to be, seemed to hold your career below the waterline." "I'm now writing for Woman's Weekly." "LAUGHTER What more could I want?" "What was it like for you when the papers...?" "Did you read the papers?" "Did you go away?" "Yes..." "What was going on in your life?" "Knocking on your door, I presume." "Oh, there was a lot going on in my life, at the time, that was, sort of, more important than what the Daily Mail had to say." "I think I went to Australia and did a big tour of Australia, where, you know..." "You can talk about fisting on breakfast television there, and they don't really mind." "LAUGHTER They encourage it." "Did Norman Lamont ever comment?" "He must have been asked to." "No, he didn't." "Although, funnily enough, a few months ago, in the summer," "I went to one of these big garden parties and someone said, "Norman Lamont is over there."" "And he was, queueing up for the sausages, and um..." "LAUGHTER" "Steady, steady." "LAUGHTER" "And I thought, "Here we go again."" "And I, sort of, felt, like, maybe I should sidle up to him and say," ""Sorry if I embarrassed you."" "And then I thought, "I don't know if I am sorry."" "And then I didn't, and then I felt the urge to leave the party." "But I did send him my best wishes, because you know, time has passed." "And er..." "Such an odd thing - what was he doing there?" "Of course someone was going to make a joke about him." "Well, I was surprised no-one had." "I thought it would have to be ME, then." "And funnily enough," "I didn't know whether to make that joke about Norman Lamont at the time." "I remember thinking, "Phillip Schofield or Norman Lamont " ""Which would be funnier?"" "And I opted for Norman." "That was funnier." "Do you think if you'd said you'd been fisting Phillip Schofield, everything would have been all right?" "LAUGHTER" "Because the story was, that you were then in line to be the host of the Generation Game, or some big opportunity in prime time, and you lost that." "Is there any truth in that, do YOU know?" "I remember vague talk of the Generation Game." "It wouldn't have been appropriate, though, would it?" ""And now, live on BBC One..."" ""Fisting, with Julian Clary."" "Here's a game for all the family." "LAUGHTER" "Get a couple of people on to demonstrate it first, and then everyone has a go." "I mean, I had sort of infamy then." "I quite enjoy being infamous for that." "Well, also the Comedy Awards then had infamy, sort of on the back of your joke, in some ways." "But you were persona non grata - seemed a bit unfair." "Thank you for talking about it." "Never mind." "Well, look, we need to think of a title for the show." "My Father's Would-Be Killers." "My Father's Would-Be Killers." "Assassins." "My Father's Would-be Assassins." "Which is a great name for a rap outfit." "The Would-Be Assassins." "Mr Raspberry, I quite liked." "Yeah." "I'll take Mr Raspberry, yeah." "Walk Away, Mr Raspberry." "Yeah." "Oi, Mr Raspberry." "LAUGHTER" "Cos My Name's Crosby And He's A Fucking Idiot." "We could use the story about your penis." "Yes." "Badly Grazed Penis." "Badly Grazed Penis." "TCP On Your Penis." "Yes, TCP On The Penis." "Or just Cock." "Just call it Cock." "I Came To In A Multistorey Car Park." "So many to choose from." "LAUGHTER" "Fisting." "Yeah, Fisting Norman Lamont." "I think the legend lives on." "Well, I think I've settled on it." "Ladies and gentlemen, please will you thank" "Shappi Khorsandi, Jack Dee, Matthew Crosby, Julian Clary." "You have been watching My Father's Would-Be Assassins." "Thank you very much." "APPLAUSE" "Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd"