Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4 - The Now Show - 17th November

Episode Date: December 15, 2023

Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis present the week via topical stand-up and sketches. They are joined by Zoe Lyons, with some news of recent rare sightings, Pierre Novellie, exploring the latest in middle class crazes, and Jess Robinson, singing about the real stalwart of 10 Downing Street.The show was written by the cast with additional material from Mike Shephard, Tasha Dhanraj, David Duncan and Cody Dahler.Voice Actors: Jason Forbes & Roisin O'MahonyProducer: Sasha Bobak Production Coordinator: Katie BaumA BBC Studios Production for Radio 4

This is the BBC. This podcast is supported by advertising outside the UK. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Steve Puntz. And I'm Hugh Dennis. With us is Zoe Lyons, Piano Belli, Jason Forbes, Roshini Omani and Jess Robinson. And this is... The Now Show! Thank you very much.

Well, that was an eventful week. It had already started by 9am Monday, with a Cabinet reshuffle, leaving the four biggest jobs in government all in the hands of privately educated men for the first time in a decade. Because we're in a time of comebacks. The Beatles are in the singles chart,

the Rolling Stones are in the albums chart, and the Cabinet is back to the status quo. It was widely expected, of course, so much so that on Sunday night, Suella Braverman had a crowd of football fans outside shouting... Sacked in the morning! You're getting sacked in the morning! In her letter, she accused the Prime Minister... You have broken four promises you made to me!

..like she'd never met a politician before. Thank you for your phone call yesterday morning in which you asked me to leave government. Now, that is a bit shocking, because over the phone is the third most cowardly way to deliver bad news, after texting them or getting your mate to slip a note into their bag at break

to say you don't fancy them anymore. She also seemed aware in advance that the government might well lose their Supreme Court case over Rwanda and has positioned herself nicely as the leader of the Tory faction who are determined that they do not fall behind Labour in the field of bitter infighting right up to election day. Which Labour carried on this week with 56 MPs

rebelling on a Commons amendment tabled by the SNP reflecting concerns over the death toll in Gaza and urging longer pauses in the fighting. Yes, that's longer pauses, not a ceasefire. There is a difference. Although there was a ceasefire in the Korean War in 1953, and officially it's still in force 70 years later, and you can't get much more of a pause than that.

It was the biggest Labour rebellion since the Iraq War. The only way it would have been a bigger rebellion was if Starmer had said... I intend to bring back our former Prime Minister to sort it out. Tony. So far, 10 Labour frontbenchers have resigned over the issue, along with nearly 50 local councillors, one of whom said, you have no authority here, Keir Starmer, no authority at all. Of course, the Tories are equally divided over the reshuffle. Suella isn't the only victim. No, because in moving from Foreign Secretary to Home Secretary,

James Cleverley has lost not one but two official residences. One, Carlton Terrace in London and Chevening in Kent. Yeah, it's tough for an ex-Foreign Secretary, not just homeless, but second homeless. The big surprise, though, was of course the return of ex-Prime Minister David Cameron as Foreign Secretary. Of course, Cameron isn't an MP anymore, so he was given a peerage pretty much overnight. I had

no idea they could appoint someone to the House of Lords so quickly. And neither did Nadine Dorries. She is furious. She's been shouting since Monday morning about how come Cameron gets a peerage and I didn't. Esther McVeigh had to phone her up in her new capacity and explain, it's just common

sense. Which she is now the Minister of, according to the press. Although her official title is Minister Without Portfolio, which is a very old-fashioned sort of term. In today's language, that should really be Minister of Whatever. Would the Minister care to tell us how she intends to combat wokery? Well, you know, it is what it is, so, yeah, bit of this, bit of that.

Whatever. Order! That is the most informative answer I have heard in this house for years. Of course, according to Nadine, her request for a seat in the Lords was blocked every time by a shadowy

figure called Doctor No. And she never managed to get it seen by the person she really wanted to see it. Doctor Yes Alright, then. But I don't know how they could give Cameron a seat in the Lords just like that. I don't know how the system works. Presumably, you've got speedy boarding. Now, there are lots of questions, though, about Cameron's appointment. Members of the Lords cannot enter the Commons Chamber, for example,

so there are concerns he won't be accountable. But surely technology can get round that. They can just use Zoom. Order! Lord Cameron, you've muted yourself again. Alternatively, Sam Cam has a webcam, so Dave Cam can use her cam as a cam cam if he wants to appear as a peer. The whole thing must be a bit of a shock, though.

Cameron famously spent £25,000 on a shepherd's hut to write his memoirs in which presumably he won't be using now. No so if you see a shed on wheels on a hippie and b and inside there's a dartboard with Boris Johnson's face on it don't be surprised. Seven years though he's been gone I mean he could have just faded into well-paid obscurity and at some time in the future joins Liz Truss as a pointless answer. time in the future joins Liz Truss as a pointless answer. And what with Cameron

and Nigel Farage this week saw highly contrasting fates for the two architects of Brexit. The man who called and lost the referendum is back as Foreign Secretary, while the man who objects to having a Foreign Secretary and doesn't see why it can't be a British Secretary has gone to take part in I'm a Celebrity, his favourite

programme as it bases its decisions on who stays or leaves on an Australian points-based system. It is kind of ironic that the show's in Australia because it means Farage has become one of those people who travel thousands of miles across the world because the work opportunities are better. I can't remember what they're called. What are those people called?

Still, after standing for Parliament seven times, it'll be nice for him to finally experience the joy of the public voting for him. Rishi's new promotion criteria must have lifted the hopes of many former Cabinet ministers who thought that their time was over, but now sense another chance might be in the offing. And maybe they're right. Maybe over the next few weeks,

Rishi will be standing outside the garden of Downing Street giving his special cry of... Ex-ministers, assemble! Michael Heseltine will hear it in his garden in Oxfordshire. Sorry, darling, I have to pop out for a bit. Ken Clarke will get the call in a jazz club somewhere. Nah, nah, gotta split, headcats. Catch you later. And Michael Portillo will hear it on a railway platform

somewhere in... somewhere in outer Mongolia. According to my trusty copy of Bradshaw's, the 415 from Ulan Bator leaves yesterday. Bollocks. Thank you. Well, it's also been a big week for rare sightings, and we've sighted someone who wants to talk about this.

In fact, she's walking towards the microphone right now. Don't spook her, it's Zoe Lyons. In fact, she's walking towards the microphone right now. Don't spook her, it's Zoe Lyons. So, guys, the news has been a little challenging of late, so I've been on the lookout for some positive stories. And I'll admit, sometimes that can be as tricky as finding a Love Island cast member in Mensa. But if my eyes haven't deceived me,

this has been an incredible few days for rare sightings. Let's start in Indonesia, where there's been some unusual activity. And I'm not talking about the surfers' bar in Bali, where on a recent trip I was seen performing a karaoke rendition of ACDC's Thunderstruck, wearing only flip-flops and tassels. No, this is the news that the Indonesian government intends to return half a million acres of unregistered palm oil plantation back into rainforest. This uncommon return to natural habitat will be bad news for margarine lovers, but a massive win for the orangutans, the environment and me, because butter is just so much better than margarine. Indonesia is one of the most biodiverse areas of our planet, and scientists on an expedition there last week were ecstatic to capture footage of a creature

not seen for years and thought to be extinct. Just as we in this country gasped at the sighting of a rarely observed Cameron, researchers from Oxford University were elated to photograph the elusive Attenborough's long-beat echidna in the Cyclops Mountains for the first time in 60 years. I know, Cyclops Mountains. Maybe if the hills had had two eyes, they'd have spotted it sooner. This

wonderfully bizarre animal is like something Mother Nature might have conjured up high as a kite after attending a Peruvian ayahuasca retreat. Hey, ma'am, it's made like a collage animal. Like, give it everything, everything. Big quills, yeah, quills. Warm-blooded, but lays eggs.

No teeth, sticky tongue, feet like a mole. What else? Ooh, pockets. Give it pockets. It'll never lose its house keys. Oh, and the boy ones, give them a four-pronged penis. I know, why not? Bit of a laugh. Like one of those fairground lucky dip grabbers. Basically, it's an animal that looks like it got dressed in the dark, putting on various body parts willy-nilly.

The Boris Johnson of the jungle, if you like. Physiologically all over the place, its survival is somewhat miraculous. And despite living in very hot climates, they can't sweat, because they don't have sweat glands. Now, no disrespect to Sir David Attenborough, but I'm beginning to think that the Prince Andrew's long-beat echidna might have been a better name for it. I mean, to be fair, he's rarely seen these days either. But, as we all now know, it's not the weirdest toxic thing to have been cited this week. Photographed as the landing in Oz, our very own Captain Brexit, gurning like a postcode lottery winner and sweating like a ham left out in the sun.

The Farage, or to give it its Latin name, Maximus Tweed debunked Arceus, is rather easy to spot because it never takes itself out of the sodding limelight. It seems like you can't visit a remote jungle these days without spying a politician eager to connect with real people. And I should know, having recently spent time in Vietnam with a certain Mr Hancock. OK, so SAS Who Dares Wins was perhaps an odd booking for me,

but I hadn't read the contract properly. I thought I was going on a place in the sun. Other celeb contestants this year include Jamie Lynn Spears, sister of Brittany. Jamie is keen to prove she's very different to her more famous sibling, which she has immediately demonstrated by being both available and affordable. Just as the jungle isn't a natural habitat

to have puffed up politicians, the streets of a small Italian town near Rome were not where you'd expect to spot a massive lion. However, residents of Ladispoli filmed such a beast walking through the empty streets, having escaped from a local circus. When asked, the circus owner said he wasn't sure how the animal had escaped.

I can't be the only one that hoped it had hot-wired one of the clown cars. But it got me thinking, why on earth in 2023 are these beautiful, majestic creatures still being used in circuses? Maybe we could put them to better use. Lions, Rome, the Colosseum, attention-seeking politicians in their pants, some sort of voting system where there was real jeopardy, guaranteed viewing figures, only a thought. Joey Lyons there. Now, you'd never know from all the fuss this week

that the Rwandan government's offer to the UK is to take up to 500 asylum seekers a year. Yes, and last year the number of asylum seekers waiting in hotels in the UK was 47,500. See, the Rwanda plan will only ever make a tiny marginal difference to the problem, but the way it's reported makes it sound like some sort of magical solution.

And this is something you see a lot at the moment, people holding very firm opinions based on things they don't actually know much about. And they're not all things like cryptocurrency or how to cancel a phone contract. A survey this week revealed that two-thirds of the population don't understand restaurant dessert menus. 80% don't know what posset is. A cold-set dessert containing cream and lemon. They don't understand mascarpone.

Which isn't surprising, he only speaks Italian. And understandably, they don't know things like coq en bouche. A cone-shaped pile of choux pastry puffs. Or ganache, an expression of anger used mainly by Dennis the Menace's dog. I mean, the thing is, it's not just desserts, it's the same with money. A recent survey showed that many common financial terms puzzle a lot of us, including base rate, equity release, PAYE, and, of course, ganache. But this lack of understanding is worrying.

In fact, so many everyday financial terms seem to be poorly understood that you wonder whether it might actually be intentional. Are you puzzled by equity release? Confused as to what it really means? You sound like our ideal customer. Call the number below and give us your house. We don't like admitting we don't know something, but companies know that we don't

and have recently taken to trying to protect us from our own ignorance by treating us like we're completely stupid. So if you try and take your own money out of your own bank account, you now get something like this. Please confirm that you did not receive instruction to make this payment from a carrier pigeon

who hooted the sort code through your bedroom window. If you have been asked to make this payment from a carrier pigeon who hooted the sort code through your bedroom window if you have been asked to transfer this money via an anonymous email from a lawyer in mississippi who says you have been included in the will of someone you've never heard of it could be a scam please prove you are not a robot by ticking all the boxes containing a picture of ganache sometimes it feels like we live in a world where no one really understands anything because modern life is just too complex to grasp. Yes, there have been several high-profile court cases recently where it's turned out that all those

super-sleek investment funds and venture capital companies who are always telling us how many Harvard graduates they employ and how sophisticated their algorithms are, have put billions of dollars into things they clearly didn't understand. So last week, Sam Bankman-Fried, owner of a cryptocurrency exchange called FTX,

was found guilty of fraud after scamming hundreds of sophisticated investors out of billions of dollars simply because none of them dared ask... How's this work, then? The FTX, though, is not an isolated case. Yeah, earlier this year in the States, Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes started her 11-year prison sentence.

If you don't know the story, she was a 19-year-old university student whose medical professor told her that her idea for a small skin patch that could diagnose 250 different conditions and dispense drugs to treat them was not possible so she dropped out and went ahead anyway eventually her company was worth nine billion dollars based on fictional technology that didn't work and never had yes it's a long story but in essence she was basically the bloke down the pub who at 25 past 10 lurches forward and says

Hey mate, wouldn't it be cool if you could just take like a tiny pinprick of blood and it could diagnose like a thousand diseases in one go? We should do that, we should do it! You and me would do it right now!

Give us a billion quid and hold your arm out. It's hard to know who was worse, the entrepreneur who forged results to sell a scientifically impossible idea or the investment fund millionaires who believed it. I mean, as Simon and Garfunkel once said, I hate you and I want to split up. No, I was thinking more of a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest. Because our culture is full of this. You can't look at social media without seeing fake something. There's also

a lot of fake audio floating around online although some of it's fairly easy to spot. If you're sent a clip of Joe Biden saying I want to confiscate all your guns and give them to illegal immigrants. That's fake, you see. If you find a clip of King Charles that goes... Oh, yes, it's a family photo, yes.

Yes, that one is a lizard. You see, that's fake. And if you see footage of Keir Starmer saying... I have a very clear and definite view on this. Done with AI. It has to be. The odd thing is that there's nothing wrong with not knowing something. The problem only comes when you're not honest about what you don't know. For many years, the polling company YouGov have run a series of surveys

to find out what Britain thinks. And for each question they ask, they list the percentage of don't knows. And the results are weird. For example, 2% of Britons surveyed don't know whether they've been to London before. Now, for some reason, 5% is a common figure in these surveys for people who answer don't know. For example...

And when asked... Have you ever been attacked by a seagull? 5% of Britons didn't know. All they know is that their bag of chips has disappeared. Only 2% of people don't know if they like riding on roller coasters. Which is strange, because 9% of people have never been on a roller coaster. And before you ask, all those survey questions are real. Because it is so hard to tell these days.

Thank you very much. Now here to deliver some bad news to opportunistic foxes, it's Pierre Novelli. Thank you. Good news at last, there's a new middle-class craze. If you go on holiday, a growing number of businesses are offering a variety of services for boarding your pet chickens. The animal daycare market is expected to grow by $6.9 billion between 2020 and 2024.

One pet chicken host who offers these services, a Mrs. Chauvelin, said that her first chicken guests left rejuvenated after their three-week stay. I know, three weeks. It seems overcomplicated to me. When I go on holiday, I keep my chicken in the freezer. Pet chickens are just the latest in a long line of things turned into hobbies by middle-class people that we used to associate with pre-war poverty. Chickens in the back garden, brown bread. How long before we get a Guardian long read

on the potential health benefits of chimney sweeping? It's all part of the legacy of lockdown. It turns out that if people can't go outside and freely mingle with others, they get very keen on the company of animals, like the bird man of Alcatraz, or the magic guy from The Green Mile, or Princess Anne.

Rest assured, these chickens live better than most students. During their stay, the chickens are pampered with soft bedding, played classical music, and fed a customizable menu. Can I recommend feeding your pet chicken breadcrumbs, sage, and onion? You could throw in a relaxing olive oil massage and maybe a sea salt scrub. If you're wondering which composer of classical music the chickens prefer, it's mainly Gluck, Bartok, and Buck.

prefer. It's mainly Gluck, Bartok, and Buck. But as anyone who owns chickens knows, during the winter they prefer Haydn indoors. Yes, I deserve that. The other new middle class craze is foraging. Normally the middle class only take an interest in foraging for mushrooms in the weeks leading up to Glastonbury. But they may have been inspired to start foraging by watching their pet chickens. Here in the UK, we are obsessed with pets, far more so than people. We're happy to leave people on the street, and we'll fight tooth and nail for the right to send them to Rwanda. But if anyone we deport has pets, rest assured they will receive luxury care. Some defenders of the Rwanda plan say it would free up resources to save people like the

over 1,000 Afghans who have to be saved after helping the British Army, who we also don't bother saving. Maybe we'd have rescued them if they'd also laid eggs. That's unfair, of course. We're nicer to pets than people, even if they give us nothing, like cats. People like to say cats are more intelligent than dogs because they are willful and independent, but what they mean is impossible to train and they can't remember instructions. By that logic, chickens are geniuses. Honestly, the cats being smarter than dogs thing is infuriating to me. If you had two flatmates, one of whom was a bit of a people pleaser, a bit goofy,

but nevertheless worked helping the blind after a long career in counter-terror and bomb disposal, and your other flatmate didn't seem to know his name, after a long career in counter-terror and bomb disposal. And your other flatmate didn't seem to know his name. Regularly went missing for days only to return missing an ear. And had to crap in the kitchen. You wouldn't think, gosh, I can't wait to read the novel he's working on. My biggest worry with these fancy chicken boarding schools is that they could create an elite, unaccountable group within chicken society. These chickens could end up running things,

despite having no other qualifications than having gone to one of these places and be completely immune to any consequences from their actions. I don't know if you know it, but it's happened before. If you remember that turkey who let us all vote for Christmas, he's just been made Foreign Secretary. Our national obsession with putting animals before people goes back a long way. The RSPCA was founded a full six decades

before anyone thought to found the NSPCC. Sixty years where if a child pulled the cat's tail, you could punch him in the face. Middle-class trends are always just poorer lifestyles, repackaged, bread full of seeds, desperately foraging for mushrooms in the woods, turning your garden into a farmyard. In 50 years, maybe everyone who shops at Waitrose now

will be heating up chicken dippers in their Le Creusets and making the lifestyle choice to live in a tent or moving to Rwanda to find themselves. So we do seem to live surrounded by fakes and frauds at the moment, but we've all believed stuff that turned out dodgy. So we've asked our audience here at the Marylebone Theatre, what was the silliest thing that they believed as a child? That God had the same name as my dad, Harold. Why else would he say

Harold be thy name? I was told by my mum that if I swallowed chewing gum, it would wrap around my heart and I'd die. She was the school nurse. My dad told me he didn't actually like beer, but it was the only thing he was allowed to drink in pubs. For years, I used to sneak him sips of my Coke when the bartender wasn't looking,

and he'd pretend to be grateful. That's really sweet. My dad told me that sheep on a hill had two legs shorter than the other two. So they could stand upright. I used to worry that they would fall over if they turned round. So, yes, there you are. Thank you very much indeed for those, and that is almost it for this week.

But finally, whatever we've heard, not all cats are stupid, it seems. Amidst the reshuffling, Larry the Cat remains firmly in place at 10 Downing Street. Here with more on that tale, please offer her a round of applause. It's Jess Robinson!

on that tale, please offer her a round of applause. It's Jess Robinson! Thank you, Sam. Flashlights I lick my bum on the pavement Point it right at the cameras

that are trained on the door They pretend that they came to film the ten o'clock news But it's Larry keeps them coming back for more

Politicians come and go Suits we won't remember Government's tough No suits we won't remember. Government's tough. A load of harsh reshuffles makes me its longest serving member. I gave Lord Dave some comfort through the coalition drama. In return, I got a photo op with President Obama. I couldn't help Theresa nail that pesky Brexit deal but the lady has some style. Exhibit A

a kitten heel. Pussycat, pussycat you're so sweet on my feet. I learned a lot from Boris. If you want something just grab it. Mind I got a nasty shock when I caught Carrie Johnson's rabbit.

I barely got to know Liz Truss before she had to go. But Larry, I'm your biggest fan. I rocked a pussy bow. Is that cool for cats? Not as cool as this idea. Every minister should be a cat. Forget your party stooges and your technocrats No matter what's occurring here in Downing Street

We've got a knack of landing on our own four feet Now a political human can't dispel the doom and gloom in of the day today Why not use a cat video to make your millions of voters look the other way?

Oh, that cat's tongue is really long. We can't pivot with the lightness of an acrobat. That's why every minister should be a cat. And here are my suggestions for immediate appointment to the cabinet. Sorry, the cat-bin-it. Minister for Crime. Top cat. Early years education.

The cat in the hat. And as Minister for Energy, oh lucky Great Britain, I nominate the members of Atomic Kitten. I'm sure we'll all agree that this will make a very pleasant change from Suella's dog whistle But why stop there? I think you'll find everything is better when it's more feline The revolution starts tonight on national radio

From now on I'm renaming this The Meow Show! You've been listening to The Meow Show, starring Steve Punk, Hugh Dennis, Zoe Lyons, Pierre Novelli, Jason Forbes and Roshino Marni. The song was performed by Jess Robinson and written by Alex Silverman. The show was written by the cast with additional material from Mike Shepard, Tasha Danraj, David Duncan and Cody Darla. The producer was Sasha Bobak and it was a BBC Studios production for Radio 4.

Hi, I'm Sean Keaveney and I'm back with a new series of Your Place or Mine from BBC Radio 4, the travel show that's going nowhere. I'm a proper hornbird, me, but each show sees another remarkable guest try to persuade me off my sofa and into the big wide world. And it is warm. It is warm, but you just don't wear a lot of clothes and you just find

a banana tree that's wafting. Happy days. But will I make it out of the front door? Lots of smiles from people. I don't know if you're against that. Find out by listening to Your Place or Mine with Sean Keaveney on BBC Sounds.