Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4 - The Now Show - 12th November ft Gareth Gwynn, Michael Spicer, Priya Hall and Ignacio Lopez

Episode Date: November 12, 2021

Steve Punt and Gareth Gwynn present the week via topical stand-up and sketches in front of a remote audience - and all from their own home!Joining them from a safe distance is Michael Spicer tackling non-sensical poiticians, Priya Hall wonders why we're experiencing shortages of pretty much everything and Igancio Lopez plays us out with a Bowie-inspired song about billionaires in space.Voice Actors: Luke Kempner and Karen Bartke.Producer: Pete Strauss & Rajiv Karia Production Co-Ordinator: Sarah SharpeBBC Studios Production

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Steve Punt. With me are Gareth Gwynne, Priya Hall, Michael Spicer, Karen Barkie, Luke Kempner and Ignacio Lopez. And this is... ..The No Show. Oh, I can't do it. Thank you very much. And by now, there is a fairly well-worn system for dealing with bad news for the government.

A series of obedient underlings are wheeled out to say... We've drawn a line under that and we're moving on. And normally it works, because all the papers, other than the Mirror and the Guardian, are absolutely fine with that. But this week, something very odd happened. The Daily Express, a paper so right-wing that only fish caught in British waters can be legally wrapped in it, has mildly criticised Boris Johnson.

Just say sorry for the mess, Prime Minister, said their front page, the mess, of course, being the parliamentary sleaze that has dominated the front pages recently. Ironically, the story would have been over and gone on Monday evening if the Prime Minister had turned up in Parliament and apologised, but his non-appearance ensured it rumbled on all week and is still going. Annoying MPs whose second jobs are now under threat or at the very least may have to update their constituency name

to be a bit more accurate. Order! Order! I now call upon the member for Bertelsby South West and the hot drinks vending industry. Tory MPs are apparently furious with Johnson because the public are now questioning arrangements which have existed for ages, affecting lots of well-known MPs. Andrew Mitchell boasts a number of financial advisory roles.

John Redwood does work for an investment company. And Jacob Rees-Mogg is paid by the National Trust to haunt a number of stately homes. LAUGHTER haunt a number of stately homes. Please make your way to the gift shop. But so often with these things, what began as a very specific accusation has now become an all-purpose trawl for anything involving second jobs,

lobbying expenses or parliamentary standards, with not much attempt to distinguish between sleaze, corruption and scandal, all of which sound like Christmas perfumes with ridiculously pretentious adverts. Corruption, the unsavoury fragrance from Westminster. Former Attorney-General Geoffrey Cox has been criticised this week for using his Westminster office for legal work,

as well as spending a month during lockdown working in the British Virgin Islands, although he claims that was just a particularly convincing Zoom background, adding that he's also worked in front of Sydney Opera House and in the Simpsons living room. I have no idea how he got to the Virgin Islands during lockdown. How did he manage to leave the country? Perhaps Rishi Sunak could explain.

It was part of our government's initiative, sneak out to help out. I know the public don't have much sympathy for MPs, but it is a bit odd to complain that they have outside interests when we also complain about professional politicians with no real world experience. Plus, without all those expensive lawyers in Parliament, we wouldn't have the solid and watertight agreement over the Irish border that we so skilfully negotiated. But an outright ban on second jobs would mean the likes of Conservative MP Caroline Johnson

would be unable to continue her work as a paediatrician, or Labour MP Rosina Allen-Khan would be unable to continue work as an A&E doctor, and brace yourselves, it would also mean that Nadine Dorries would be unable to continue writing novels. The attractive Culture Secretary flashed her intelligent eyes as the Chief Whip told her the news. She knew what she must do next. Blame the BBC. LAUGHTER

The thing is, though, none of this is new. None of the tentacles of this multi-limbed octopus of a story are new. The Prime Minister famously wrote a highly paid column for the Daily Telegraph for years while serving as an MP and no one seemed to mind. And let's not forget the original purveyor of the Cash for Honours scandal, Tony Blair, whose noughties Labour government were reportedly offering peerages for £1 million. Rishi Sunak should make a note of that. Mr Speaker, we can be proud of our achievements

when economic growth is so strong that since we came to power, a seat in the House of Lords is now worth three times what it was under the last government. Yes, £3 million is now the going rate, which means those rich enough have to decide which is better value for money, a seat in the Lords for life or a seat on Jeff Bezos' space rocket for 11 minutes.

It's less time, but you're more likely to spend it awake. What is... What is a bit worrying is that not that many ordinary people can afford either of them, but the average footballer could buy a seat in the Lords for a couple of weeks' wages. Before you know it, Lord Harry Kane will be making his maiden speech. Yeah, it's great to be here in the Lords,

this great bunch of people. I'm proud to wear the robes. And, um... Listen, it was a lot of money, I know, but at the end of the day, it was the only way I was ever going to get out of Tottenham. LAUGHTER lot of money, I know, but at the end of the day, it was the only way I was ever going to get out of Tottenham. But we don't really know where it will stop. I mean, for all we know, for the right money, maybe Boris will record you an outgoing answer phone message.

Ah, hello. You've reached the Prime Minister. I'm not here. Right, now, because I'm away, dodging accountability, as always. So please leave a message and I'll get back to you. Although that's more of an aspiration and not a firm commitment. Thank you. Thank you. This week, we learnt what most voters think when publicly funded people take second jobs. You'll have noticed Hugh Dennis isn't here this week.

So this week, please welcome back to The Now Show to look into how we used to argue with France before it was just about fish. It is Gareth Gwynne. France and the UK are currently in a big row over fish, and to bring you up to speed on this, fish is the stuff in the sea that isn't plastic. It turns out bickering with France is an age-old tradition,

like in 2005, when we were competing to host the Olympics and President Jacques Chirac got involved. President Chirac has now flown in here to boost the Paris bid, cross-channel relations more fraught than ever, after he's reported to have said that British cooking is lousy. British cooking is not lousy, it's thorough. There's a difference. Now, I didn't want to do all the old clichés about what the French are like,

but one of the older clips I found was from 1956, celebrating ten years of post-war BBC television. Stations around the world sent messages of congratulations, the Netherlands, America, and then it came to France. Now, we were going to call Paris tonight, but unfortunately they've got a problem of their own. They, in fact, have a television strike. By the 80s, our relationship with France

was all about the Channel Tunnel and the media was obsessed. This is Roland Ratt on Saturday Superstore in 1986 answering children's phone calls. What's your question, then? What do you think of the Channel Crossing? The Channel Tunnel? What a waste of time. Good question. I mean, those stuck-up French, what do we want to go over there for?

And you can catch Roland these days on GB News. Realising the tunnel was a hot topic, Saturday Superstore doubled down. Now the question is this one. Is it a good idea to build a channel tunnel? Fun! Whatever you called in about,

you had to vote in John Craven's Eurotunnel poll and the best callers he'd get on air, including this one, who is definitely not a member of production staff doing a voice. Hello, Rupert. Where are you phoning from? Well, I'm phoning from London. Yeah, from the production office in London. LAUGHTER

I think it would be a very good idea. Have you studied the plans at all? Yes, I have. I've studied quite a few of them at school. LAUGHTER Yeah, do you remember that from school, when the blueprint plans of global infrastructure projects were on the national curriculum? Anyway, here's the best bit.

And which one do you like best? Well, I like the tunnel rail link, where during the crossing you could get out of your car or lorry, sit down, have a coffee, and it would be easier to travel. Sounds good fun, doesn't it? Yeah, you remember when you were nine and your idea of fun was parking your lorry and getting a coffee.

So, to get the opinions of real children, let's head to Newsround, who, in 1988, did a report from a school that had been affected by the construction work. We had to move because of the Channel Tunnel and we only had a few weeks' notice. And we had quite a big area of land and a nice house and we had a nice dog and we had to get rid of that

because it didn't want to leave our house. had a nice dog and we had to get rid of that because it didn't want to leave our house. When our cat died, my parents told me it had run away. They didn't tell me that Jess had been sacrificed as part of the construction of the second Severn Bridge. What is nice about looking up the Channel Tunnel in the archive is that it's all very positive, dead dogs and xenophobic rats aside. But there is a real sense of wonder at the technical achievement, but also at the idea that by working together,

we're going to change our relationship with what they keep calling our nearest neighbour, forgetting we are literally joined to Ireland by land. But from 1994 onwards, it's BSE, bad food and Brexit. So all I'm saying is, can't we all just get along? Or did that young boy's dog die in vain? Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you, Gareth. Now, you know what time of year it is when national papers are saying things like...

Record numbers have been given their booster jabs as the race to save Christmas accelerates. Every year now, Christmas has to be saved. The threat to Christmas can be anything. It used to be political correctness. Loony lefty council to force schools to sing winterful carols in Urdu. Labour government will introduce vegan nativity plays. Ran the headlines, adding that

there would be no shepherds and the baby Jesus would be laid in a seed tray. Then last year, it was Covid. I will ensure that Christmas is saved. Said Boris, meaning there would be no lockdown. But we knew there would be one as soon as we heard he was going to be in the Arctic Circle

when this was debated in Parliament. This year, as there's Covid, plus the shortages we've heard about, and even if we find all the food, given the shortage of workers to pick it and package it and deliver it, there's the shortage of gas to cook it with. No wonder there's a... Race to Save Christmas! And it's getting closer.

This year's John Lewis ad launched this week. I don't know if you've seen it yet, but it tells the wholesome tale of an alien playing with and kissing a human boy before returning to its home planet carrying two things, a present and asymptomatic Covid. The nation's big brands are pouring money into Christmas. Supermarkets, Amazon, Argos, even those ads based on the idea that Santander

sounds a bit like Ant and Dec, even though it doesn't. They're all gearing up for Christmas, so it must be saved. There are thousands of retail and delivery jobs still available and not enough people applying, despite many MPs taking on third, fourth and even fifth jobs. How else do we know that the race is on? Christmas stories are everywhere. The papers reported this know that the race is on? Christmas stories are everywhere. The papers reported this week that the Queen asks all her Christmas guests

to weigh themselves before and after eating. Why would the Queen insist people weigh themselves on arrival? Two possibilities. One, it's a unique family tradition. Or two, she thinks everybody who isn't a monarch is a jockey. And either way, for tradition's sake, we must make sure that we win the... Race to Save Christmas! Because there is currently a shortage of crisps and apparently may be a shortage of wine

as there aren't enough drivers for the wine lorries. This combination of no wine and no crisps may also mean a shortage of people bothering with the office party this year. In an attempt to... Save Christmas! We learnt that a special train will be used to deliver 600,000 bottles of wine to a storage depot in the Midlands.

Or so they hope. The train at platform two is the special service to Northampton, calling at Bury St Edmunds and then a siding near Royston where it will mysteriously disappear. Will there be shortages of presents to buy? Well, never fear, eBay will have plenty, as we discovered this week

that millions of people bought things during lockdown that they now regret buying. These include Peloton bikes, pizza ovens and hot tubs that they no longer use. Although, frankly, anyone with a hot tub who can get hold of any of the contents of the disappearing train will be able to store enough mulled wine...

LAUGHTER ..to keep an entire street going till New Year. Those with Peloton bikes will have to carry on watching their screens and appearing to make progress while actually getting nowhere and console themselves that £1,200 is a fair price to own the perfect metaphor for a climate summit. And if not, they can just wrap it up and give it away to someone else, thus helping with the...

Race to Save Christmas! Now, please welcome to The Now Show a man who's mostly known for being heard behind closed doors. Please join us as we finally let in Michael Spicer. Hello, thank you. We all know politicians don't answer questions. It's in their DNA. But over the years, the practice of not answering questions from politicians has evolved.

Or rather, it's not evolved. It's gone the other way. It's grown some gills and retreated back into the swamp. During the new Labour years, there was a well-oiled spin machine firmly in place. Tony Blair and his colleagues were not answering questions and they were doing it brilliantly. Their non-answers were beautifully constructed and well presented

and left the interviewer feeling satisfied, like they had somehow got the answers they'd came for, even though, of course, they hadn't at all. They just came away with a big bag of nothing. It's kind of like the equivalent to shaking hands with Derren Brown and then finding he's got your wristwatch, your credit card and your reason for existing. Anyway, this carried on into the 2000s

with a number of Blair replicants continuing the trend, most notably David Cameron, whose legacy is essentially a paper bag full of offal bursting in our faces forever. And Nick Clegg, who was once hailed as the UK's answer to Barack Obama and is now just Mark Zuckerberg's go-to guy for when Facebook finally exports your soul as a PDF and hides it behind a paywall. But then 2019 happened and suddenly

every politician adopted a less polished approach. With the arrival of Boris Johnson's government, there came a new method of not answering the question which is to say as many extraneous words as possible and make so much incessant noise that you're just grateful when they stop. To talk to a cabinet minister these days is to allow yourself to be overwhelmed by a deluge of word soup and grammatical blancmange, like being in a parliamentary version of Noel Edmonds' Gunge Tank. In the age of Boris Johnson, the non-answer is now a deadly weapon used by MPs

whenever Kay Burley or Nick Robinson try to outsmart them. Although, let's be honest, outsmarting the likes of Gavin Williamson isn't exactly a challenge you'd find on the Krypton Factor. But I'm not criticising MPs. Well, I am, obviously. But I want to acknowledge what a skill it is to keep talking and talking and never once showing your true colours or breaking down at any point and just owning up to your staggering incompetence. Because frankly frankly wouldn't that just be the easier option?

I mean perhaps MPs practice this skill in their day-to-day lives too just to remain sharp. So Mr Hancock as your dentist I must reiterate the importance of flossing and I have to ask have you been flossing regularly? Well look I've been very clear on this and I continue to be very clear on this. Flossing is vitally important for teeth and for those who have teeth, not just in this country but throughout the world globally on a global scale worldwide. I've been up and down the country talking to people who have teeth and they've said to me that flossing is vitally important and I take that very seriously and this government takes that very seriously. Yes, but do you floss? We have already seen a huge change in attitudes towards flossing in this country and I'm happy to one day contribute to this process

and to be part of a more positive movement towards greater dental hygiene, not just in this country but across the world, globally, worldwide, across the global, worldwide world. But do you floss? No! Thank you very much. That was Michael Spicer, and now making her debut appearance on The Now Show, someone whose BBC One Wales sitcom pilot, Bina and Amrit,

is on BBC iPlayer right now. Please welcome Priya Hall. Not that you'd know it from news coverage, but the supply chain crisis rages on. A perfect storm of labour shortages, rising natural gas prices and global supply chain constraints mean that we, the consumer,

are seeing essentials disappear from the shops. Do you remember when we all used to laugh at survivalists? We thought they were paranoid weirdos, but now I'm the one hoarding wartime tins of spam while they're living like kings in their sexy, sexy camouflage get-ups. While news of the supply chain crisis gets buried by big stories like the heat death of our planet and this pesky pandemic. It is definitely happening. And nowhere is that clearer than on the shelves of our supermarkets. The only thing my local shop consistently stocks at this point are goo desserts pots.

Arguably the most European food in the world. How did that little umlauted rip-off survive Brexit? Shoppers can expect to see a 5% rise in supermarket prices in the coming weeks. Add to that the recent changes in the alcohol tax system, and for the first time in history, a bottle of Lambrini Bianco will be cheaper than a Freddo. Britain's National Pig Association has warned that up to 120,000 pigs face being culled within weeks

because of a lack of butchers and abattoir workers. And people were worried it wouldn't feel festive this year. It's just like that lovely Christmassy song, on the 13th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me 120,000 pigs to cull. The crisis is affecting everyone, not just Remainers like me. Weatherspoon's pubs have reported there's a shortage of salt in their venues. Apparently staff has wasted most of it

just trying to form a protective circle around the pubs just in case they get a visit from Tim Martin. At least the petrol crisis has relaxed a bit for now. But you know what? I'm going to miss driving my neighbour's lawnmower to gigs. The crisis is also affecting the toy industry, with the entertainer stores warning that delays at UK ports will result in shortages this Christmas.

Not even Santa's jumping those queues. Speaking of Christmas, farmers have warned of a Christmas turkey shortage because visa changes to allow labour recruitment from abroad have come too late. I say let the turkeys live and see if they fancy a job in an abattoir. The government has been urged to act on the supply chain issues before things escalate further, but their response so far has been to point the finger at the haulage industry, farmers, and finally us, the consumer. That's right, maybe if you weren't so greedy there'd be enough gruel to go around.

To be fair though, this isn't just a British issue. Supply chain problems are being felt worldwide. Does anyone have eyes on the Suez Canal? Spanish bars could run out of whiskey, gin, vodka and rum, also known as the four horsemen of the hangover apocalypse. The Spanish beer industry will be fine, though, as 90% of the beer consumed in Spain is brewed in Spain. We don't need your Estrella, I live in Wales. Once I figure out how to make

moonshine out of moss, turnips and rainwater, we'll be just fine, thank you. Especially if I can hire some turkeys to run the distillery and really scale up production. If there is any glimmer of hope to get from this whole situation, it's this. The Confederation of British Industry has said that its latest data shows 70% of companies were planning pay rises in a bid to tackle labour shortages. Maybe it's high time we recognised the value

of supposedly unskilled work in this country and give the turkeys pay raises. Vive la révolution du turkey! I've been Priya Hall, you've been lovely, good night. Now, you may have seen this week that a man was arrested after he fulfilled a lifelong bucket list dream of mooning a traffic camera. It was a modest yet odd ambition, so we asked

listeners via Twitter and email if they had any strange things on their bucket list. Any strange things on your bucket list? I want the courage, when asked, to pick between two obviously different sized pieces of cake, to look the other person in the eyes and very

deliberately pick the bigger one. person in the eyes and very deliberately pick the bigger one. Phil says, I would like to cut down on my consultancy work in order to spend more time as an MP. Sam says, I'd like to see how much damage a bull would actually do in a china shop.

So, thank you for sharing your dreams with us, you weird people. And finally, this week, Ignacio Lopez will pay a musical tribute to the plutocrat pioneers of the final frontier. This is ground control to the billionaires It's been 97 years since you left Packed up all your money and took it to the skies You haven't been missed, I won't lie We've actually been having a good old laugh

At the rich man who shot for the stars Bezos Branson And the other one Bezos heard your wife got Planet Earth in the divorce Branson's in a pickle Dr drinking Tannhauser Gatorade. Sick of playing with toy cars, must vaping CBD all over Mars.

The year is 21-something-four. Football is still not home Brexit still in disarray Climate protests on the Milky Way How are things going billionaires in space Does Venus pay

living wage, Are there toilet breaks? Flying in your adult toy-shaped rocket ships In your billion dollar space suit straight from Quick Fit Other popular car repair

places are available But you won't get quicker than these car repair place fitters in particular Jeff, Richard, Elon tell us who won the race how are things going billionaires in space

applause music music music You've been listening to The Now Show, starring Steve Punt, Gareth Gwynne, Priya Hall, Michael Spicer, Karen Barkey and Luke Kempner. The song was written and performed by Ignacio Lopez.

The show was written by the cast, with additional material from Simon Alcock, Hannah Platt, Aidan Fitzmaurice and Rajiv Kharia. The producers were Pete Strauss and Rajiv Kharia. It was a BBC Studios production to save Christmas!