Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4 - The Now Show - 11th November

Episode Date: December 9, 2022

Steve Punt is joined by Gemma Arrowsmith (standing in for Hugh Dennis) to present the week via topical stand-up and sketches. They're joined by Catherine Bohart, Fin Taylor and Jazz Emu.Catherine Bohart wraps her head around the Elon Musk era at Twitter, Fin Taylor takes on the climate crisis, and Jazz Emu brings an original song that’ll turn your art perspective upside-down.The show was written by the cast and Hugh Dennis with additional material from Tasha Dhanraj, Katie Storey, Carl Carzana and Cameron Loxdale.Voice actors: Gemma Arrowsmith and Daniel BarkerSound: David Thomas Executive Producer: Pete Strauss Producer: Rajiv Karia Production Coordinator: Sarah NichollsA BBC Studios Production

This is the BBC. This podcast is supported by advertising outside the UK. All day long. Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Steve Punt. And I'm Gemma Arrowsmith. With us are Catherine Bohart, Finn Taylor, Daniel Barker and Jazz Emu. And this is... Oh, no, do I have to do this?

The Now Show! Thank you very much. Well, this was the week the public fought back. In the US, the expected swing against the Democrats didn't happen, while here in Britain, the expected swing against Matt Hancock very much did happen. Although his very presence has made that whole programme a bit more engaged with politics. On tonight's Bush Tucker trial,

if Matt can endure ten voicemails from Gavin Williamson without breaking down in tears, while saying, I'm a Member of Parliament, get me out of here. He can win up to ten meals for camp from the subsidised Commons dining room. Now, Gavin Williamson, of course, has now resigned, and his behaviour has

been reported to the Bullying Watchdog. To be clear, that's a watchdog that investigates bullying, not a watchdog that puts you in a headlock till you hand over your dinner money. Yeah, its official name is the Parliamentary Independent Complaints and Grievance System and it works rather like Ofcom or Ofwhat.

Except this one's called... They Did What? Talking of things getting heated, Matt Hancock wasn't the only one popping up late in foreign climes this week. It's a surprise entry to Shamil Sheikh. It's UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. In yet another screeching U-turn, Downing Street decided maybe turning up at the COP27 climate summit would be a good thing after all.

Hello, my name is Rishi. I'm the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom for November. And like everyone else, I'm here because I've been told it'll be good for my career. Yes, it's true. There was a last-minute rush for environmental credibility. Boris Johnson turned up and made a speech, only to be annoyed afterwards when he asked who to invoice. What do you mean? It counts as a charity geek.

Look, could I at least have a free holiday? I haven't had one for three weeks. It's nice that COP27 is in the parched deserts of Egypt. If nothing else, it will give Rishi a good idea of what East Anglia will look like by 2050. Now, it all seems a bit odd,

considering that King Charles was banned by the government from going when he famously cares about the environment. Although, to be fair, he does start with the advantage of running entirely on power passed down for generations. Although the current government, of course, have also shown that they are fully committed to being endlessly renewable.

Of course, at the last COP summit, everyone talked up a deal until the last second. India and China turned round and said they wouldn't commit to any of it. How do you break that cycle? Well, through a combination of incentives and enforceable sanctions, the so-called good COP27, bad COP27 approach. You see, I said we should have used the Ricky Gervais joke instead.

You did. That story rumbled on, by the way. James Corden, allegedly the Gavin Williamson of showbiz, denied bullying his staff or using Gervais' material, and his writers backed him up by writing him a heartfelt denial in which he said,

I think I've created an atmosphere where I'm a friend first and a boss second. Probably an entertainer third. And speaking of celebrities Greta Thunberg has explained her decision not to attend COP27 saying that

We must make people realise what a scam this is Now the word scam seems a bit unfair here since if there's one place where an African prince can quite legitimately send requests for financial assistance it's a climate conference. Just to drive home the point about climate,

we're two weeks off a World Cup played in air-conditioned stadiums because it's being held in a country that's too hot to play football in. The thing is, if hosting the World Cup was Qatar's attempt at sports washing, they've done a really terrible job. Welcome to this first match in a country that most people could barely spell ten years ago. That's right, whereas now, of course, they know in detail about their human rights abuses

and terrible record on LGBT rights. Indeed, in fact, you could argue that Qatar has spent £6.5 billion in order to completely ruin their reputation all over the world. Although, to be fair, Martin, that's about six times less than it cost Elon Musk. Now, public opinion has had an effect in all these cases, although, of course, the public can only base their opinions on information available to them.

Yeah, it was revealed this week that detectives investigating the disappearance of Lord Lucan 48 years ago found three Cluedo cards in his car. For some reason, this information has never been made public until now. So either Lord Luke left them in the car as some kind of twisted confession or Cluedo's marketing department have really misjudged their Christmas PR stunt. Public pressure is also telling on the new series of The Crown,

whose stars have been forced to defend the show after critics accused it of crude sensationalism. Actor Dominic West said... I think a lot of people are very sensitive about this show since the Queen died. What? Oh, talk about a spoiler! Now, make his debut on The Now Show, please welcome Finn Taylor.

Hey, hello. Yes, it's COP27 this week, the United Nations Conference on Climate Change, back for its 27th instalment, meaning there have now been more COPs than there have Bond films. But so far, these conferences have been about as effective as Moneypenny's complaints to HR. There's been controversy around who would and wouldn't go.

Rishi Sunak didn't want to go, but was pressured into going. King Charles wanted to go, but was pressured into not going. And Prince Andrew's not there because... Well... 27's a bit too old for him to cop. Now, this year, the conference is taking place in Sharm el-Sheikh, so Joe Biden will be there, obviously, nice and warm. If Barack Obama made history as the first black president,

then Biden is the first one who could be feasibly assassinated by winter. A bit close to the bone for some of you in here. Now, he'll be there to seek out some November sun and see the pyramids again. He's not seen them since his first trip to Egypt when they were being built. Because the climate crisis is in the news, we've seen more direct action from protesters here in the UK. This week, Just Stop Oil repeatedly shut down the M25,

even managing to time it with train strikes, which meant there was a moment on Thursday when the quickest way to get from Croydon to Slough was to fly from Gatwick to Heathrow. Now, some have said that Just Stop Oil protests have succeeded in raising awareness, whereas others have said the only awareness they've raised is of just how annoying vegans can

be. But although the public support action on the climate, they don't support these protests. And I thought I'd try and explore why. You see, for ages now, the focus of environmental protest has been on hypocrisy. Politicians are all talk and no action. Indeed, it has become a cliche to attack world leaders for flying private jets to climate conferences. But in their defense, you are asking them to act faster. It's not as if they can come out and say, this is the conference that will save humanity and I will

be there as soon as I disembark from this three-week cruise. But with recent actions of groups like Just Stop Pile, it seems that charge of hypocrisy is now being levelled at us, ordinary citizens. Now, unlike most people, I'm actually quite comfortable being called a hypocrite, mainly because I don't have any beliefs.

I have opinions, but they all contradict each other. Like, I really do think the climate crisis is urgent. We need to stop using petrol vehicles. We have to transition to electric vehicles. As soon as possible, stop driving, stop flying. We have to transition to electric vehicles. But I also think that anyone that uses an e-scooter should be lined up against a wall and shot.

If I was Prime Minister, I'd pay bus drivers more so whenever they saw one out their wing mirror, they'd just stuck an arm out and just... And I'd be sat in Downing Street on the line map watching all the little scooters disappear, like, ha-ha-ha-ha, just sort of laughing. Like a little man, just kidding. So when people ask me about my opinion on climate change,

I'm like, well, which one, you know? Like, I think Greta Thunberg is amazing because she started activism when she was 15. 15! That's more than what the world leaders were doing when they were teenagers. Rishi Sunak because she started activism when she was 15. 15! That's more than what the world leaders were doing when they were teenagers. Rishi Sunak wasn't doing that when he was 15. Joe Biden wasn't doing that when he was 15.

When he was 15, Justin Trudeau was just a young black kid in Canada. On the other hand, Greta Thunberg started protesting when she was 15. Who cares what she thinks? She's 15! The only advice I'm going to take on 15-year- olds is Smirnoff Ice recommendations and Warhammer tactics. No wonder she wants everyone to stop flying and start sailing.

She was born in 2003. She's never seen Titanic. That's why she wants to stop the ice melting, whereas I'm like, let it melt. Those bastards ruined a beautiful romance. She wants to clean up all the rubbish from the ocean, but if it wasn't for that old door, Rose wouldn't have lived. It's a complicated issue. I thought becoming a father would make me more sure of what I think, but it's just made me more confused.

In 2019, when we saw the school strikes, five-year-olds, six-year-olds shouting, you have stolen our future. I felt guilty at my apathy about the climate crisis. But then I had a kid of my own who now can't go more than a week without giving me a stomach bug, and I sort of think, meh. Arguably, you've stolen my present. So why don't we call this one all?

And here lies the problem, I think, is that when it comes to the climate crisis, none of us hold consistent opinions. It's not possible to, because the biggest contributing factor to the crisis is human beings being human. Let's think about the best things in life, the things we all enjoy most. Travelling, eating, burning tyres in the back garden, crawling past junctions 27 to 30 of the M25, the Dartford Crossing. Life's simple joys are now loaded with existential guilt. And these days, it feels like everyone is constantly offsetting life's pleasures against each other

in order to build up enough climate credit to not feel guilty about going on holiday. Going abroad has turned into a GCSE maths problem, hasn't it? If Roger separates his rubbish into six bins but drives two cars, eats red meat but drinks oat milk, lives in an insulated home but spends his weekends on Twitter telling Green Party councillors they smell, is he allowed to fly to Spain?

And this is my problem, I think, with these latest protesters, is they don't seem to be movements of ordinary people. They seem to be purists who view anyone unwilling to martyr themselves as a deserving target. And I'm not sure that will work, because I think people will always choose to live their lives over supporting a cause that asks them not to. What's needed, I think, is a form of direct action

that motivates the public rather than angers them. So, if anyone from Just Stop Oil is listening, here's my pitch. Instead of blocking the M25, stopping people going to work, seeing loved ones, why don't you block the roads outside Shell, BP or any of the oil majors' headquarters? And instead of joylessly gluing yourself to roads or climbing up gantries, why don't you do this in a way the public would enjoy? By piling up every e-scooter in the country and setting them all on fire. Thank you very much. every e-scooter in the country and setting them all on fire.

Thank you very much. Now, next Monday is the 100th anniversary of the BBC's first broadcast. The Consortium of Radio Manufacturers got together to form the British Broadcasting Company after realising that manufacturing radios was pointless without something for people to listen to. From then on, it's been non-stop. The first BBC broadcast was made on November 14th, 1922.

The first Daily Mail article saying the licence fee was a waste of money appeared on November 15th, 1922. In 1924, the shipping forecast began. Very few ships had radios, so it was also broadcast twice, once spoken and once in Morse code. Aha! What does it say for North at zero? Hang on. No, we must have missed it. I think this is the Archers.

Also in 1924, the pips were introduced as a time signal at the top of the hour. They could have used bells or a little tune, but John Reith was a very serious man. I want to sound like the world's least interesting ice cream van. Imagine, if you will, the front doorbell of a member of Kraftwerk. The first royal broadcast came in, guess what, 1924, when King George V addressed the nation, the first time a monarch could speak to the whole country at once.

Hello. I am delighted to open this exhibition, which I am able to do, since my government will not allow me to attend the COP1 summit. In May 1932, the newly built Broadcasting House opened, and some of its original visitors are still there trying to get through security. Meanwhile, television was rapidly developing. By 1936, there were two competing technologies

vying for the BBC's television contract, the Baird Company's 240-line mechanical television system and Marconi EMI's 405-line electronic system. On the first night of the new regular TV service, all shows are broadcast twice, once on Baird and then the same show again via Marconi EMI, making the second ever TV show on the BBC a repeat. The BBC's first outside broadcast took place in 1937.

It was, of course, the coronation of King George VI, the grandfather of King Charles. Here's a clip from the service where he goes to sign the register. This blasted pen! Every stinking time! Around 750 people were watching. What was, in fact, an exhausting day for George VI, as he had to be crowned twice, once on the Baird system

and once on... LAUGHTER Marconi. No, he didn't. They got rid of that after a few months. But it was the beginning of a pattern of big royal events driving new technologies. The big breakthrough, of course, came in 1953 when millions of people bought or hired a TV to see Elizabeth crowned. 1973 saw a lot of colour sets sold for Princess Anne's wedding.

1981 saw a lot of video recorders sold for Charles and Diana's wedding. 1997 saw a lot of digital TVs sold for Diana's funeral. And 2011 saw a lot of widescreen TVs sold for William and Kate's wedding. And 2016, a lot of Netflix subscriptions were sold so people could watch it all again, but this time in a clunkily written fictional version that made a lot of stuff up. There was the first female radio announcer in 1933.

Sadly, she only lasted three months because of complaints from listeners. Yeah, I was sad to leave, but I went on to have a great career recording relaxation records! After the war, Today in Parliament began in October 1945, featuring many politicians of a bygone age, like Attlee, Churchill and Jacob Rees-Mogg.

In the 1950s, the BBC began using video machines to record programmes in advance, allowing for the very first time the chance to wipe them all for posterity. In the 1960s, the BBC opened its first full-colour television channel, BBC Two, followed two years later by BBC One. This was unfortunate, since they'd just spent a year making a wildlife series specifically for black and white,

featuring episodes on zebras, pandas, badgers, polar bears and the Lloyds Bank horse. In 1967, Radio One was launched to cater for the youth market, and many of the original Radio 1 DJs are still working on prison radio throughout Britain. The 60s saw a strange transformation, where the BBC turned, apparently overnight, from being staid old Aunty Beeb

to being Britain's official home of filth, and opposition began to develop, focused on the compulsory licence fee. Yes, now the licence fee is 99 years old. It derives from the state monopoly on communications introduced by Elizabeth I, and sits there like the vulnerable, anachronistic, but incredibly good value compared to everything else thing that it is. You can tell no one really dares to defend it much because of the terrifyingly strict security that you have to go through in order to watch content on iPlayer. Do you have a TV licence?

Please click yes if you want to watch the programme. Or no if you're a complete idiot. Just asking people to click a box is like asking a man holding a bagmarked swag if he promises not to burgle your house. I absolutely pinky swear I will not take anything. What's that crowbar for, then? That's my emotional support crowbar.

Another objection is how much the BBC pays a tiny handful of presenters like Gary Lineker and Graham Norton, but many stars are paid nothing like what you'd think. Yeah, since their launch in 1997, for example, the Teletubbies have made over a billion pounds in merchandising, yet they're still living on toast and custard. How is that just, ladies and gentlemen? And how come the BBC are so hard up anyway?

I mean, they've been early investors in every new technology for the last century, but they never benefit. They launched a website in 97, a digital streaming service in 2007. If you had an auntie who was that astute, you wouldn't be trying to kill her off. You'd be begging her for investment advice. The government, meanwhile, have only just got round

to making tax digital now. And even then, you have to pay roughly twice the cost of the licence fee every year to a private software company for the privilege of paying tax. And not a word about that from the papers, I guess, because none of their owners need to know how you pay tax. So as we set out on the second hundred years, who knows what the future will bring? What we do know is that radio waves travel at the speed of light. So the BBC's first broadcasts have now reached 100 light years from Earth. That means there will be some exoplanets currently enjoying the BBC's early output.

So on top of all the other complaints the BBC fields every day, we can expect extraterrestrial complaints sooner or later. Dear BBC, the depiction of extraterrestrial beings in the latest episode of The Goon Show was stereotypical and offensive. I demand an apology and a signed photo of Harry Seacombe. Now, here to talk about Elon Musk's Twitter takeover, it's Catherine Bohart. Elon Musk waxing space obsessed

overlord has recently enthusiastically and of his own accord bought Twitter his first move after paying 44 billion

for one of the world's largest social media platforms was presumably to ask whatever happened to Myspace and Friends United anyway

I hope it was something good but his second was to proclaim that comedy is now legal. Phew. I'd been getting away with it. The thing you have to know about Elon Musk though

is that he isn't a regular CEO. He's a cool CEO. He's the rich kid who was never invited to the popular kids parties, so bought the popular kids parents house, not realising it was always more about the vibes than the architectural features. But who needs friends when you've named all of your kids after spam bots?

Twitter users quickly began parodying Musk. They changed their name to his name, their bios to his bio and wrote really funny stuff like, my wife just left me and there's nothing better than waking up and enjoying a fresh steaming cup of my own urine. But hey, Elon's cool, remember? So he had them banned. He did, he banned them all, actually. The man was quick on the draw to ban. But free speech is cool and comedy is legal, okay guys?

Another thing you should know about the billionaire who just paid for 400 million friends to listen to his every random thought is that he hates social divides. On day one in his new job, before he'd even been shown the photocopier or been allocated a spot for his $150 million space rocket in the car park, he denounced the lords and peasants system, which allowed verified celebrities, as well as comedians who have been on the Now Show a couple of times, to have a blue tick on their accounts.

Instead, the evil and hierarchical structure will be replaced by that famously equal access and non-divisive system, capitalism. Musk was originally planning to charge a hefty $20 a month for the privilege of being verified, but immediately received some important consumer feedback, in the form of horror writer Stephen King telling him, F that, they should pay me. If this gets instituted, I'm gone like Enron. So instead, Elon rapidly shrank the price to only $8 a month, meaning Stephen King has done more for the cost of living crisis in a single tweet than any world government.

I guess the question Elon should have been asking is why did Twitter create the verified account system in the first place? It's because on a website that's all about people speaking their minds, it's useful to know which mind the speaking is coming from. The president of Russia tweeting he's pressed the nuclear button hits a bit different from a guy with the handle at Vlad loves bears 1952 doing this. And knowing, say, the BBC news account is the real account means you don't believe any imposters writing absurd stories like dog learns to sing national anthem, smoking is good for you now, or United

Kingdom on its third prime minister in two months. But of course, Elon has thought of another very clever solution to this problem too. He's just going to ban parody accounts. This man loves comedy. Is your speech feeling free yet? Yes? You can now have a parody account only if you specifically state it's a parody account, because Elon loves comedy and can definitely tell when it's happening, but would also like you to tell him that it is, just in case other less cool dudes might not know. But if Donald Trump has taught us anything, it's that a lot of the time it's hard to tell what's a parody account

and who's the actual President of the United States. And how is Twitter meant to know who I am when I'm not even sure? If you think about the things that make you uniquely identifiable as you, you quickly discover you're not special at all. I'm gay. I'm Irish. I'm clinically depressive. Am I me or am I any character from a Sally Rooney novel? In reaction to Musk's managerial makeover, Twitter users are voting with their feet or at least the point of their index finger and tweeting about leaving Twitter. Look, I want to quit my Twitter account, at Catherine Bowhart, gosh I do, but if I don't stay on Twitter as at Catherine Bowhart, then how will people find out about

the live shows I'm selling for frankly more than eight dollars a pop? And where will I get my news? And by news I mean someone else's opinion on a hot take about a feeling someone had having read some of a headline written about a headline they'd read? Ultimately, speech can only be free if we protect those whose voices are otherwise drowned out, and those people generally don't resemble Elon Musk and can't necessarily pay $8 a month to prove that they are who they say they are and not at Elon Musk has a Harry Back parody,

both of which should be allowed. But of course, if you disagree with me, come and tell me. I can hear your complaints best when you sit in the front row of my shows. The next one's at Leicester Square Theatre and I'd love to hear your thoughts in 280 characters or less. Do just buy a ticket first. This has been a comedy set about Elon Musk. I would not

like to defend this in court. Thankfully, I'm not worried because comedy is legal now, right? Cheers, lads. That's Limbo Hart there. Now, thinking about Gavin Williamson and his dodgy texts, we have asked our audience here, have they ever had to deal with a difficult colleague at work? And what did they do?

I once sat next to someone who every day would put fish in the microwave for lunch. Soon the boss is caught on and he lost his job in the aquarium. I used to work for someone who never did his work, lied about it to his boss and even had an affair at the office. And now I have to watch him every night on I'm a Celebrity. So, thank you very much for sharing those.

HR have been informed. And that's about it for this week Gemma Yes finally an art historian discovered that a painting by Dutch abstract artist Mondrian has been hanging upside down for 75 years. Our musical guest

is here to put things the right way round It's Jazz Emu They told me I was insane They told me it was a nutjob conspiracy theory with no evidence whatsoever. But this Mondrian painting story, it finally proves my theory. The theory I've held for all these years.

Every piece of art is the wrong way round. Every piece of art is the wrong way round. The government have been fooling us By inverting all the pieces of art The angel of the north should really be a sculpture of Satan upside down on the ground In Kent Every piece of art is the wrong way round

Every piece of art is the wrong way around. Every piece of art is the wrong way around. Why do we argue about whether Mona Lisa's wearing a smile or a frown? The more important question is why didn't the Louvre hang her facing the wall? She's meant to be the back of the canvas. Do you think she wanted us to look at plain canvas? facing the wall. She's meant to be the back of the canvas. Do you think she wanted us to look at plain canvas? Every piece of art is the wrong way round. Every piece of art is the wrong way round.

Why do we read the Bayeux Tapestry? Is the death of a great British king. The story's way cooler if you choose to read right to left and you see a zombie coming back from the dead who can shoot arrows out of his eyes. Every piece of art is the wrong way round. Every piece of art is the wrong way round. Every piece of art is the wrong way round. The government is making a chump of a nation by inverting all the pieces of art.

Back to the future should be viewed in reverse. Its original name was forward to the past. Wait a minute, I have got this wrong If every single piece of art's the wrong way round That must also include this song Okay, we can go, oh god Round way round the ears, art of peace every Round way round the ears, art of peace every Us fool wrong the ears Art of peace every

Us fooling bin Have governed the fur Art of peace is the all-inverting bye Art of peace is the all-inverting bye-bye Thank you so much. You've been listening to The Now Show, starring Steve Punt, Gemma Arrowsmith, Catherine Bohart, Finn Taylor and Daniel Barker.

The show was written by the cast and Hugh Dennis, with additional material from Tasha Danraj, Katie Storey, Carl Kazana and Cameron Loxdale. The song was written and performed by Jazz Emu, the producer was Raju Kharia, and it was a BBC Studios production, available in both Baird and Marconi. The spirits of Button House are back to haunt your screens. And now, your ears as a podcast, as we go Inside Ghosts.

Series 4 is here and we'll be following our favourite phantoms and the spooky stories that unfold episode by episode. I'm Nathan Bryan and join me for ghostly gossip with the stars from the show and take an exclusive peekaboo behind the scenes. The world's gone absolutely topsy-turvy. Inside Ghosts. Listen on BBC Sounds.