Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4 - The Now Show - 13th March 2020 - ft Chris McCausland, Sara Barron and Huge Davies...

Episode Date: March 13, 2020

Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis present the week via topical stand-up and sketchesJoin The Now Show team with their unique take on the week's events. Chris McCausland visits A Quiet Place, Sara Barron is in splendid isolation and Huge Davies washes his hands of it all...Additional voices by Gemma ArrowsmithWritten by the cast, with additional material from Catherine Brinkworth, Jon Hunter, Aidan Fitzmaurice and Simon AlcockProducer: Adnan AhmedA BBC Studios Production

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Thank you for downloading the Friday Night Comedy podcast from the BBC. This week, it's The Now Show. Hello, I'm Steve Puntz. And I'm Hugh Dennis. With us are Chris McCausland, Sarah Barron, Hugh Davis and Gemma Arrowsmith. And this is... The Now Show! Woo!

Thank you. So, this week, the government stepped up the fight against COVID-19. The strategy moved from contain to delay. Next, it might go from delay to lockdown. If that fails, the final option is to put Priti Patel in charge of the response and hope the virus quits. Meanwhile, the antivirus budget was announced by the new and weirdly enthusiastic Chancellor, Rishi Sunak.

The budget was a full-on borrow and spend fest, including a massive £27 billion for roads. Which tells us how confident they are that HS2 will ever be finished. The tampon tax was finally abolished. Which will save women money at the chemist that they can then put towards building up a fund to buy a bottle of hand sanitiser. Duties on spirits, beer, cider and wine were all frozen.

Which is clearly to help people who work in the financial sector. It's going to be fine. It's going to be fine. Six pints in a kebab may come up as well as goes out. Now, the papers, of course, immediately dubbed it Black Monday. Which is just plain wrong, because markets which are in the black are actually doing fine. No trader goes...

Oh, my God! Oh, my God! The screens are a sea of... Black. Finance, of course, is full of the most anxiety-prone people in the world. They come on one day going... This is what analysts call an exponential reverse yield price negativity curve. It's very common at this stage of the cycle and nothing to worry about.

Then the next day... The screens are a sea of red that are metaphorically black! As always, there were pictures of brokers and traders sitting with their heads in their hands, which is bad. Leave your hands where they are. Doing that is against medical advice and is likely to make the crisis worse. There's two basic options for the Bank of England.

They could print more paper money. Or they could create a more valuable commodity by leaving the paper blank, putting little perforations through it, double-quilting it and wrapping it round a cardboard sheet. Because, um... Because everything's ramping up. This week, I saw the headline, who declared COVID-19 a pandemic? And I thought, shaft. Damn right. In case you're confused, here's our medical correspondent. Well, there are four levels.

Outbreak, which is confined to a small area, epidemic, which is spreading across a large area, pandemic, which is simultaneous spreading across many areas, and academic, which is what might have happened if governments had paid attention when it was just an outbreak. Now it's worldwide. Even Tom Hanks has got coronavirus and he's in self-isolation. I've heard he's really good in it. and is in self-isolation. I've heard he's really good in it. Macaulay Culkin, as far as we know, hasn't got it and isn't at home in self-isolation.

But he is thinking, I wonder if there might be a remake in this. Talking of Home Alone 2, one of its cast, a Mr D Trump, has banned travel from EU countries and wants Congress to sign the Stable Door Shutting Act of 2020. Given his general level of medical knowledge, it could be that he thinks germs come from Germany or... LAUGHTER ..or possibly Mexico, since he announced this week that...

We need the wall more than ever. More than ever, we need the wall. Yes, because infectious diseases from China always arrive over the southern border. It was all he could do not to add, Who will pay for the wall? The virus will pay for the wall. Now, the ban exempts the UK and Ireland,

which just happen to be the two countries where Trump has golf course resorts that might lose business. For everyone else, shares collapsed. But on the plus side, all the various suspended visas and travel restrictions do mean, however, that airports are now so empty that they are among the safest places on earth. This summer, we're staying safe.

We're going to spend two weeks in departures in Luton. It's got everything we need, a bookshop, a restaurant and seating areas all over the building so I can isolate myself from my family or holiday. And companies everywhere are spotting the opportunities of having large numbers of customers wanting to stay indoors. Yes, it's lockdown month on Sky. Stay where you are for box set binge bonanza. We've got wall-to-wall, Game of Thrones, Fortitude and Boardwalk Empire. Or to show you the kind of thing that can happen

if you go out, there's Chernobyl. It's all got very serious and conspiracy theories about the virus are popping up everywhere. This is just a liberal plot to bring down the president. I've heard it's just a ploy to increase profits for Big Pharma and Big Toilet Roll. What it is, is highly infectious, and we're now seeing an effect on large gatherings and sports events.

The Premier League has suspended all matches until 3rd April. That's a three-and-a-half-week gap until any further action, about the same time as the average VAR decision. And Cheltenham Festival went ahead this week, but then again, horse racing is about gambling, so maybe that's the perfect setting. Odds on contracting an infectious

virus are on your phone screen now, and therefore all over your hands. Please gamble responsibly, and remember, when the coughing starts, stop. All in all, it's difficult at the moment to know whether to be hopeful or despairing. It all depends on whether you see the supermarket shelves

as half full or half empty. Thank you very much. So soon to be touring with his new show, Speaky Blinder, is Chris McCausland. APPLAUSE Last week, it was announced that the new Bond film was having its release delayed until November because of the coronavirus.

Probably partly because Universal were worried that no-one would turn up to watch it, but also probably because they realised that it was a really bad time to be going around the place, promoting the fact that it was no time to die. Another Hollywood casualty has been the film A Quiet Place Part 2. I'm blind, but although I'm blind, I still watch films.

I still call it watching a film, reading a book, going out to see me mates, because it just gets clunky, doesn't it? To be pedantically accurate about it all the time. And me wife will be like, where do you think you're going? Well, I'm just going out to listen to me mates. Sounds rubbish, doesn't it? I do go to the cinema, though, because I do think that fruit pastels taste so much better

when you pay £4.50 for them. There's certain types of films I get on with better than others. You know, I don't really get on with the new brand of CGI, action-packed superhero blockbusters. I can kind of follow bits and pieces along the way, but

mainly they just tend to be over two hours of nothing but explosions and wallops and bangs set to classical music. I might as well stay at home and put the knives and forks in the microwave. Stick a little bit of radio 3L in the background. But the thing about the film A Quiet Place is it just sounded so interesting. It's a film about evil killer aliens.

Evil killer aliens that are blind. These evil killer aliens use sound to navigate their surroundings and identify their prey before attacking them in a frenzied, gruesome bloodbath. How brilliant's that? These evil killer aliens aren't letting their disability hold them back from getting out there into the world, even though it's not even their world. The problem with the film A Quiet Place, though, is that it was really quiet. Because these evil killer aliens attack anything that makes a sound,

the entire film was just everybody trying not to make any noise for 90 minutes, which I'm sure you've already figured out makes it damn difficult to follow if you're only listening to it. It was 40 minutes before anybody even spoke. 40 minutes before anybody uttered a single word. And even then they just said things like, shh, don't say anything.

I won't say anything. Be quiet. We don't want these blind aliens and, as an unfortunate consequence, anybody blind that is watching to know what we're doing. They spent most of the film doing sign language to each other. Now, although this film was mainly silent, I wasn't left completely in the dark because what all of the cinema releases have these days is audio description

and I am sure you all know how that sounds. A man stands talking into a microphone. He's middle-aged, with a receding hairline. I'm 42, by the way, and it's not receding, it's just thin.

But you've all probably at some point pressed that wrong button on your remote control. He m pressed that wrong button on your remote control. He mimes pressing a button on a remote control. And being stuck with that annoying voice. He opens and closes his hand like a talking mouth. Telling you every single thing that's happening. He scratches his face.

On the programme that you're watching. He scratches his arse. He looks annoyed that I told you that. But here's something that might surprise you. I find it annoying as well, because the truth is, it tells you way too much. Someone will go, See you later, bye.

He closes the door. I'm not stupid, I know what a door sounds like. I don't need you telling me every single thing that happens in the programme. Hello, my name's Steve. He enters the room wearing a green t-shirt. Exactly how key to the plot is the colour of this t-shirt. Audio description isn't new though. I first encountered it in the late 90s. It was an extra audio track on DVDs that you could select so that if you were blind, you could get a DVD, you could sit down and you could watch a film on your own. Brilliant. What a fantastic idea.

The only trouble was, though, you needed to be able to see the menus to turn it on. You had to find settings and then audio channel and then scroll down to whatever audio description might be in the list. I was stuck in French half the time. Bonjour, je m'appelle Steve. What colour is his T-shirt? But over the years, audio description has shown massive improvements.

And as much as it does tell you too much information, and as much as I do joke about it, it is invaluable in allowing people who are blind to enjoy a whole range of TV shows and films. However, in the film A Quiet Place, it was pretty much the whole film. If you were only listening, there was nothing else apart from the audio description. I mean, I'm not saying the film shouldn't exist. Of course it should.

I'm just saying that if the audio description ends up being 95% of all spoken dialogue in the film, surely it's perfectly acceptable to think, do you know what? Maybe this film just isn't for blind people. Maybe we shouldn't bother audio describing this one. Maybe we should just put a warning on it and let them know not to bother coming.

Oi, this one's not for you. Stay at home. Because I'm perfectly happy with not everything having to be for me. I don't need to be included in everything. I would have rather saved myself the two hours rather than just being sat there bored listening to some bloke describing people doing sign language. It was like being invited out for a lovely sandwich,

but then only getting the slightest whiff of it before somebody eats it next to you and just talks you through each bite. So when A Quiet Place Part 2 finally does hit the cinemas with audio description, I will definitely not be going. Instead, I'm going to stay at home, throw some knives and forks in the microwave.

It's probably not going to be better than going to watch the film, but there's probably not a lot in it. It's certainly going to be a lot less effort on my part, and the fruit pastels will definitely be cheaper. Cheers. So the Duke and Duchess of Sussex carried out their last public engagement this week.

Their final engagement was at a ceremony held to honour the Commonwealth by snubbing the only two royals who choose to live there. The various royals in attendance had adopted clever alternative greetings to avoid shaking hands at the service. Charles was offering namaste gestures. Harry was bumping elbows. And Andrew opted for a face-down massage. Harry was bumping elbows.

And Andrew opted for a face-down massage. The Harry and Meghan saga is, I think, very traditionally British. Somewhere in our national psyche is an archetype of a long-haired, foreign, arty woman who gets hold of a popular but emotionally fragile British chap and proceeds to fill his head with hippie nonsense until they both end up leaving the country. Harry and Meghan are the John and Yoko of the 21st century. Yes, just as foreigner Yoko is compared to Lennon's British first wife,

the press have measured foreigner Meghan against English rose Kate Middleton. For a long time, they seemed to be playing a private game to see if there was anything they couldn't find, an anti-Meghan angle in somewhere. Yes, now, first, they did this with obvious things, like pregnancy. Here's the Daily Mail in March 2017. Not long to go. Pregnant Kate tenderly cradles her baby bump

while wrapping up her royal duties. Here's the Mail in January 2019. Why can't Meghan Markle keep her hands off her bump? Is it pride, vanity, acting, or a new-age bonding technique? What happened to the tender cradling, eh? We don't know, but over at the Daily Express they were already looking for a bigger target, something like avocados.

Kate's morning sickness cure? Prince William gifted with an avocado for pregnant Duchess. They said in 2017. Two years on, though, different story. Meghan Markle's beloved avocado linked to human rights abuse and drought. Now, you may think that's a bit over the top, but it's not. It's this bit that's over the top.

The pregnant Duchess of Sussex is wolfing down a fruit linked to water shortages, illegal deforestation and all-round general environmental devastation. Go home, Daily Express, you're drunk. Or you're Piers Morgan. I'm not sure which of the two it is. In both cases, a sort of pathological mania was developing where Meghan could do literally nothing right. When Kate and William set up private companies, it was...

To protect their brand, just like the Beckhams. When Harry and Meghan did it, it was... A right royal cash-in. Even something as harmless as the flower arrangements for a wedding can be a trigger for Markle phobia. Kate, the commoner-turned-duchess, painstakingly selected blooms with real meaning, hence the use of lilac in her bouquet,

which signifies the first emotions of love, the lily of the valley, meaning a return of happiness, and the ivy, which represents fidelity. Ah, the express getting all poetic about Kate and William's wedding in 2011. By the time of Harry and Meghan's wedding, however, the bride's bouquet and the matching flower garlands for the bridesmaids had a different real meaning. Express.co.uk can now reveal the children's crowns

were made of flowers that can be deadly, especially for children. What? Was it the ivy, which represents fidelity? Surely not the lily of the valley, meaning a return to happiness. Lily of the valley is a highly poisonous woodland flowering plant and Meghan's bridesmaids were so young that having this flower on their heads

could be considered a dangerous decision. Now, given that this was the Express, I'm amazed they didn't follow this up the next day with... Did Lilia the Valley kill Princess Diana? You might think the anti-Meghan propaganda couldn't get any more ridiculous, but you'd be wrong, because you'd have forgotten about The Sun, who in May 2018 ran this headline.

Meghan Markle is related to Jack the Ripper serial killer suspect. And people wonder why Harry doesn't like the press. The thing is, it hasn't stopped. Everybody's got it in for them, even two Russian YouTube pranksters who phoned Harry up and got through to him on his landline in Canada by pretending to be Greta Thunberg. Yes, and Harry fell for it. Now, he really should have guessed. If only because no 17-year-old is going to be calling on a landline.

But the media are now speculating on how the pair will make money in the future. But they're hardly the first royals to run a commercial enterprise. Prince Charles has his duchy range of organic food, while the Queen has a whole range of banknotes and stamps with her face on them. Whatever they do, though, the palace has banned them from using their domain name, Sussex Royal,

which is a shame because already it sounds like an insurance company. Are you concerned about involuntary redundancy and worried about paying the bills? At Sussex Royal, we understand your problems. Has an unexpected turn of events meant eviction from your property? And are you seeking alternative accommodation? Believe me, at Sussex Royal, we know exactly what that is like too. Are you in your 90s with a recent accident meaning you can't get car insurance?

Here at Sussex Royal, we think it's probably for the best, Grandad. Now, leave us alone, or we'll send you a free bunch of Lily of the Valley. Now, a pandemic means a worldwide crisis, and here to give us an American view on the global disaster

of the moment, the biggest thing to come out of Chicago since tiny, tiny pizzas, it's Sarah Barron. Hello, everyone. Despite my commitment to life here in the UK, I like to keep abreast of news from the old country. And I don't know if you guys are going to be able to relate to this, but back in the States, the country's being run by this barely coherent blonde guy. And this tragically is who we have to rely on to deal with coronavirus. And it's tough for Trump because he genuinely cannot understand it's not always a good thing to go viral. His main concern is the economy, and that's not because he cares. That's because in a recession, he doesn't get re-elected. If there was evidence that coronavirus boosted the stock market,

he'd make people French kiss hello. Instead of declaring an emergency, he's reassuring the American public. Trump said that the tests for U.S. citizens are almost as perfect as the transcript of the phone call that got him impeached. So what he's actually saying is that these tests aren't perfect. They're actually really bad, but not bad enough that he won't still be president. He's basically saying, great news, guys. No matter how many people die, I won't lose my job. He was being shown a government lab and said to assembled scientists and journalists, I like this stuff.

I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that instead of running for president, which is a bold claim from a man who, up until now, has only seen people dressed as scientists in porn films. If Trump gets coronavirus and winds up having to self-isolate, someone please, for the love of God, take his phone away from him so he can't tweet. We take away his phone and he winds up yelling insults through a keyhole at an intern. I feel great. I got the best immune system, huge immune system. My system's

probably too immune. Pass it on. Personally, I don't think self-isolation, at least if it's just as precaution, sounds that bad. And that's because I have this weird thing where I hate everyone. I didn't used to be this miserable, okay? 2010, for example, I was a ray of American sunshine. But I've lived here now for eight years, and over the course of those years, you people have exfoliated the positivity right off me. I'm miserable now, too, okay? Thanks. And self-isolation, as a result, sounds amazing. Self-isolation means I can avoid all my friends, who I hate.

Do you guys have friends who you hate? It's a phenomenon of middle age. Young people never understand it. Like a young person hears this phrase, my friend, who I hate. And they're like, wait, what? Wait, a friend who you hate? And they're like, wait, what? Wait, a friend who you, who you hate? I don't get it. Whereas people hovering around 40 and above, we hear it. We're like, uh-huh. Because we've lived, right? So we know that when you're like 16, 17, you're getting out in the world,

you're still making your friends. You're like, besties are for evsies. My friends are my chosen family. I'm like, they're not. My problem is that you only have to isolate for two weeks. And for me, that's not enough. Two weeks is not enough of a break for my friend Susan's chewing. Susan is my friend, who I hate. But I said it on the radio the other problem with self-isolation is that I still have to be in my house with my family and families are the worst don't you think

they're even worse than your friends so I have um this husband all right who is British. The lack of whooping when I say the word British, that is the self-loathing I signed on for. I love you people. I have this British husband and a British son, and I can't self-isolate from them. And oh my God, I want to. Because a husband, in my experience, is basically just like a crappy intern. Here's my impression. What should I do? Where is everything? Am I getting paid?

Terrible. And obviously, I don't mean that my husband is terrible. And obviously, I don't mean that my husband is terrible. And obviously, I don't mean that my child is terrible. My husband and child are fine. The terrible thing is the idea of having to isolate with them for two weeks. My kid is three years old and self isolating with a three-year-old? No way. Self isolating from a three-year-old? Yes, please. Because then I could sit on my own eating unhealthy takeaway and insulting celebrities on the internet. Behaviors that, luckily for me, are now considered presidential. In a way, now that I think about it, Donald Trump is better positioned than even I am to cope with this. In a way, Donald Trump is better positioned than everyone to cope with this.

I mean, his hands are so small, he'd only need to sing one verse a happy birthday. Thanks very much, guys. I've been Sarah Barron. Now, will you please put your hands together using official WHO-approved techniques for comedian Huge Davis. APPLAUSE So people have been singing Happy Birthday twice whilst washing their hands, which can be devastating if you don't have any friends.

So I've made an alternative song that you can sing whilst you're washing your hands. Here's a 20 second song to sing as you wash your hands. You first wet them in the tap, yeah, on the front and on the back. You gotta rub that soap deep in your hands before you touch your pots and pans You've been on a public tram

So remember to wash your hands Here's a 20-second song to sing As you panic, bye for your family Think 28 weeks later As you bulk by toilet paper Oh, tins and tomato spaghetti shampoo You gotta stay home for a year or two You punched a man for a can of soup

And remember to put your tissues in a bin Here's a 20 hour song to sing Whilst you're hiding in your safe room Yeah, 40 inch walls under the floor Yeah, you've sealed the doors just to be sure Your best friend whispers Please let me in! But you don't really know where he's been

You never really liked him anyway And remember to avoid touching your face, yeah It's a 20-day song to sing Three years into the apocalypse Life has become a timeless nightmare Release me from this bottomless pit You're nearly out of food and coal Not sure why you bought so much toilet roll

You've lost everything you've ever loved But please remember to sneeze Into your elbow Thank you very much. Now, the EU, they're forcing manufacturers to make mobile phones easier to repair in order that we don't have to change them so often. So we've asked our audience here what they have around their house that has lasted and that they've never thrown away.

My grandfather's gas mask. Just as well, really. What have you never thrown away? Our mother. Although I don't think she can be repaired any more. And this is my favourite one. What have you and your family never thrown away? Hereditary hair loss.

Thank you for listening and goodbye. Goodbye. Thank you for listening and goodbye. Goodbye. You've been listening to The Now Show, starring Steve Funk, Hugh Dennis, Chris McCausland, Sarah Barron, Hugh Davis and Gemma Arrowsmith. It was written by the cast with additional material from Simon Alcock, Catherine Brinkworth,

John Hunter and Adrian Fitzmaurice. The producer was Adnan Ahmed and it was a BBC Studios production. Hello, it's me, Greg Jenner, the bloke from the funny history podcast, You're Dead to Me. I've got good news. We're back for a second series

where historians, comedians alike will join me in learning things about well, Mary Shelley, the ancient Greek Olympics and their history of chocolate. Find us on the BBC Sounds app or wherever you get your podcasts

and you'll be able to hear comedians ask historians questions like this one. This is Tim Minchin asking about Neanderthals. Do they have penises like us? Search for You're Dead to Me on the BBC Sounds app.