Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4 - The Now Show - 25th March

Episode Date: April 22, 2022

Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis present the week via topical stand-up and sketches.

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 Puntz. And I'm Hugh Dennis. With us, Angela Barnes, David Eagle, Katie Norris, Einar Tomlinson and Mattie Hudson. And this is...

The Now Show! Thank you. Thank you very much. So this week, the BBC website was leading with a big headline saying... People face biggest drop in living standards since 1956. Yes, although it's worth remembering that Harold Macmillan's famous comment... Most people in this country have never had it so good. ...was made in 1957. So maybe it's not as bad as it sounds.

Before the Chancellor's Spring Statement on Wednesday, the government promised to stand by people in the cost-of-living crisis, so maybe it's not as bad as it sounds. Before the Chancellor's spring statement on Wednesday, the government promised to stand by people in the cost-of-living crisis, but given the limited measures proposed, it now occurs to me that perhaps they meant that literally. If you are hungry and cold in this current crisis, fear not, a member of the government will stand by you and thus let you share his well-fed bodily warmth. Because given the government's massive debts,

Rishi Sunak didn't feel he could do that much about it and he restricted himself to two things. The Chancellor has reduced tax on fuel by 5p a litre, which will save the average motorist £3.30 every time they fill up, enough to buy a celebratory two-finger Kit Kat for every passenger. Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves accused the Chancellor of being... Ted Heath with an Instagram

account. Which is kind of baffling because Ted Heath was Prime Minister, not Chancellor. She must have realised that Anthony Barber with an Instagram account wouldn't be understood by anybody under 70. There are virtually no links between Heath and Sunak.

Heath took us into the European community. Sunak was part of the government that took us out. Frankly, during his speech, although Rishi was clearly concerned about the scale of the cost-of-living crisis, you sense that he really wanted to go... ..at a rate of 3.2% per fiscal year, assuming a revised growth rate as outlined by the OBR and... Ah!

My God, I paid everyone's wages for a year! Ah! Because giveaways and loans during the pandemic mean that we now have the highest level of debt in our history. He looked so stressed. I wouldn't be surprised if he fills in his police questionnaire just to give himself a way out. I knew about the parties and I was there.

Boy, was I there. Come and get me, copper. The bottom line, though, is that the government aren't going to or aren't going to be able to... Cheeries out on that. ..help much. The figures involved are so large that it's easy to lose all perspective. People go online saying...

Sunak's got loads of money. Why doesn't he just put his hand in his pocket? Well, Sunak has a net worth estimated at £200 million and Britain's national debt is £2.6 trillion. So even if Rishi chose to make the ultimate sacrifice for the nation, it would pay for approximately 12 hours of borrowing. See, the numbers involved are so staggering that politics as usual really doesn't work.

On TV on Wednesday, money-saving experts Martin Lewis basically gave up, saying that the current situation is beyond any kind of advice that he can give anymore. For economists, there are two basic options. You save or you spend your way out of a crisis, and that means any financial advice is sometimes hard to make sense of. Hi, I'm a money-saving guru. To get through these next few months,

you're going to need to swap out your pricey meat-based meals for simple fare, bulked out with lentils and old newspapers. And I'm an economist. Forget that nonsense. Now, more than ever, it's time to buy ready-made, high-end shepherd's pie and put gold leaf on it. Right, so which should we choose? You should be making lentil pie at home using home-grown potatoes, mud and small sticks. No, no, no. No. Order the shepherd's pie through an app specifying hand-peeled potatoes and get it delivered, thus employing cooks, dispatchers, potato peelers, app developers

and an unlicensed teenager on a moped. So, what have we learned? That this is a complex and difficult problem with no easy answer. You're fired! I tried. You just have to remember that everything has two sides. On the one hand, the cost of living crisis means maybe we won't be able to buy a vegetable grown in Peru whenever we want.

But also, we won't be able to afford the heat needed to cook it, so it doesn't matter. So, what can we do? Well, financial news people Bloomberg tweeted some helpful advice, which went... Take the bus, don't buy in bulk, try lentils instead of meat. Nobody said this would be fun. See, we weren't joking about the standard of advice. We felt we couldn't possibly do any worse than that,

so here is our cost-of-living crisis suggestion list. Suggestion. Buy two boxes of cheap batteries from Amazon. Here you go, your batteries. Oh, I don't care about the batteries. There's enough cardboard here to heat the house for a year. Suggestion. Ignore sell-by dates

on food and revert to the old technique of smelling it. And this may come with an added benefit. Mum, you said we would be fine. But now we've all got food poisoning. Ah, but your dad did the smelling, so we now know he's got Covid.

And we didn't have to pay for a lateral flow test. Suggestion. Improve public finances by more corporate sponsorship for everything. Hello, I'm Laura Koonsberg, speaking to you from the House of Commons,

brought to you by GoDaddy. And later on, I'll be heading to the House of Lords, or as it's now known, World of Leather. Today was a momentous day in Westminster, sponsored by Heineken. As Savile Row brand ambassadors, formerly known as MPs, denied that sponsorship was ruining British politics, I'm speaking to one of them now. Thanks, Laura. Yeah.

I have to say, I think these suggestions are ridiculous. And I'll tell you what else is ridiculous. The price is on offer this weekend at Food Warehouse! Two for one on burgers! Now that gets my vote. It's looking as if the combination of net zero, the pandemic, Russia and the half a trillion debt from the financial crisis and pandemic are not going away any time soon. In fact, it might even be time for the government to maybe consider the most extreme option. Members of the Cabinet, the financial situation is such

that it might be time for us to ponder a drastic step. Should we, after due consideration, let Labour in for five years so they can get the blame? Thank you very much. Next on The Now Show is a comedian who once performed in a nuclear bunker. The crowds are small, but you get their full attention. It's Angela Barnes!

Thank you. Now, fashions have always returned to haunt us when we least expect them. I mean, who could have predicted that last year the kids would be getting into sea shanties? Sea shanties? Music for the hipster who can't be arsed to learn the ukulele. Pick up your vegan trousers one minute

and songs about seal slaughter the next. But one of the things that we hoped we'd left in the 20th century, along with hair scrunchies and bum bags, is the crushing existential fear of the nuclear bomb. However, thanks to current events, it's just like it never went away. So as Radio 4 Comedy's prominent nuclear nerd, I've been asked to give some reassurance by looking back at how we dealt with these anxieties in the past.

People were always talking about it when I was young, and the ominous four-minute warning siren that we would receive of an impending attack. It was a hot dinner party topic. What would you do if the four-minute warning went? Usually people said sex. Do I find baffling? Who are these people? You can get in the mood in four minutes and under those circumstances I can't do it if I'm worried the dog might come in. Mind you, I am 45. These days I need about a week's notice to get in the mood and at least four episodes of Bridgerton. But four minutes. And some people are going to be mightily disappointed when they realise it takes 20 minutes for Viagra to kick in.

But you'll be pleased to know that during the Cold War, the government had several plans and strategies for dealing with the possibility of nuclear conflict and the public anxiety about it. For example, in the 70s and 80s, they tried making life so miserable in some parts of the country that total annihilation didn't seem so bad. Some of you will be old enough to remember... Sorry, who am I kidding? This is Radio 4. All of you will be old enough to remember... Sorry, who am I kidding? This is Radio 4. All of you will be old enough to remember

when we had Protect and Survive, the series of videos that would be played out on all four channels if war was imminent. And it also took the form of a handy booklet that told you how you could protect yourself and your family in the event of a nuclear attack. Now, Protect and Survive, it wasn't designed for people in the direct path of the blast, of course.

There's not much chance of survival there. You'd be better off going back to your four-minute warning sex plan. No, it was for people to protect themselves against fallout after a nuclear attack. And the Protect and Survive video clips were narrated by actor and voiceover legend Patrick Allen. You may remember a sample of it was used

on Frankie Goes to Hollywood's hit Two Tribes. Now, Patrick Allen's sadly no longer with us, so I do wonder who would be narrating these videos today. Only kidding, I'm not wondering. It's obviously our very own voiceover king, Hugh Dennis. Would you mind doing the honours? In your best voiceover voice, if you can do it. I mean, imagine it's PC World, but just more urgent.

Now, we haven't got time to go through the entire booklet, but I've picked out a few highlights for us, so take it away, Hugh. The first priority is to provide shelter within your home against radioactive fallout. Your best protection is to make a fallout room and build an inner refuge

within it. Of course, this was just before my parents' divorce, so at that time every room in our house was a fallout room. Now, we know not everyone lives in a big house. For instance, I live in a block of flats, so was there advice for us? If the block is five storeys high or more, do not shelter in the top two floors.

Make arrangements now with your landlord for alternative accommodation. Sorry, just talking there, Hugh, while everyone that's ever rented a flat stops laughing their head off. No landlord I've ever had would have found me alternative accommodation because of an impending nuclear attack. You usually have to threaten legal action

to get a new toilet seat. Now, once you've selected your fallout room, you can start to build your inner refuge. Build further protection by using bags of sand. Or, if like me, you live in Brighton, bags of pebbles. The booklet also tells us what supplies

we should stock in our fallout room, starting with the obvious. Drinking water, food, tin opener, cutlery, crockery, table and chairs. Sorry, what? Table and chairs? How British is that? We might be under nuclear attack, Diane, but we are not eating our pot noodles off our laps like savages.

Thank you, Hugh. Now, look, to be honest, I don't think anybody really felt that spending two weeks in essentially a beefed-up sofa fort would be very effective against nuclear weapons and fallout. But today, we're 40 years on from Protect and Survive, and I'm sure the government has civil defence plans in place that we just don't know about yet. You know, like all the streamlined plans they had in place for if there was ever, say, a global pandemic.

To be honest, I think you really have to consider whether nuclear war is something you actually want to come out the other side of. Even if Protect and Survive did work, I'm not sure I want to survive to have to look into my husband's eyes after he spent weeks in a tight space having to watch each other defecate into polythene bags. Instead, I take some comfort in knowing that nuclear war is harder to start than you might think. It's not just pressing a big red button. There's loads of admin that has to happen. In fact, the only thing that's more convoluted than starting a nuclear war is trying to apply for universal credit. Look, I know it's frightening stuff, but we've lived with this situation for nearly 80 years and we have to live our lives. And look, in terms of nuclear escalation of the current crisis, I think we're

probably safer than we feel we are at the moment. Because if you think about it, despite sanctions, there's probably still quite a lot of Russian money floating about in the UK. They're not going to nuke us. It'd be like Aldi nuking a council estate. Now, recent events have shown the importance of speaking truth to power and how difficult it can be. If you're at the top of an organisation, it can be very easy to become cut off from reality,

surround yourself with sycophants and completely lose contact with the public mood. Yes, if you're, say, the head of P&O Ferries, you might think it was perfectly OK to sack 800 workers over Zoom and, as the pièce de résistance, use a pre-recorded message to do it. The only thing that could have made it worse would have been if they had pre-recorded over an old tape from

one of the ferries. So it actually had gone... Good morning. You are all fired. Could you all... Please return to the car deck. We do not start your engine until inscribed. The company are now recruiting new, cheaper, non-contract staff in the

time-honoured fashion by trawling the pubs of Dover and dropping the king's shilling into the beer glass of any likely candidate with the words... Ha-har! Now he be bound to serve five years on the Onstead ferry for 2.90 an hour, plus the quad a grog. Ha! If any of P&O's lawyers are listening, I think you've got bigger things to worry about.

Labour's Angela Rayner described the whole incident as... Total senseless cruelty. ..a phrase she last used when she heard a reporter ask Keir Starmer for an interesting fact about himself. The P&O sackings fiasco, though, turned out to make perfect sense when it was revealed that Chris Grayling had signed off the relevant legislation. It had to be perfect sense when it was revealed that Chris Grayling had signed off the relevant legislation. It had to be, didn't it? Also being badly advised this week was the

Prime Minister, who for some reason thought it would be a good idea to compare Ukraine's war against Russian invasion to Brexit. Now, the big idea at the moment is to appear statesmanlike and bolster Britain's status abroad, so let's see how that went. The ex-Prime Minister of Finland said that the idea that Britain is taking the lead in standing up to Putin is... An illusion only possible in Brexit-la-la land. Yes, now, Brexit-la-la land is a very bad sequel. The only resemblance to the original is that the big opening number

takes place in a huge traffic jam on a motorway. Former European Council President Donald Tusk said... Boris, your words offend Ukrainians, the British and common sense. Former Conservative Chief of Staff Gavin Barwell said that voting in a referendum... Isn't in any way comparable with risking your life to defend your country against invasion. While Ukraine's former president Petro Poroshenko, said...

With this situation, please, no comparison. Hmm. Downing Street responded... Mr Johnson was not seeking to make a direct comparison. Really? In which case, surely someone in Downing Street could have advised a form of words that made that clear instead of having to scramble to explain afterwards, as usual. The fact is, Downing Street seems entirely lacking in people willing to speak truth to power.

I mean, think of the problems they could have avoided if someone had informed the Prime Minister when he was and wasn't at a party. Now, of course, they've got the Metropolitan Police sending out questionnaires and interviewing key witnesses, notably the DJ and the close-up magician. That's not true, by the way. No-one has a DJ and a close-up magician. That's not true, by the way.

No-one has a DJ and a close-up magician at a work event. Unless, of course, it's a work event at P&O Ferries. Now, pick a card, any card, thank you. Now, I'm going to predict what your card is. I think, yes, it's a P45. Oh! That's amazing! Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Doing a slightly better job of speaking truth to power has been President Biden,

who's been sharing America's intelligence predictions with the public and thus putting Putin in a quandary. Mind you, he was pre-empted on this by his predecessor, Donald Trump, who was so keen to share classified intelligence that he took 15 boxes of it home with him to Mar-a-Lago. No-one knows why, although a list of US nuclear launch sites is currently on eBay. And there's keen bidding between Mad Vlad 1917 and Rocket Man NK, whoever they are.

Back at home, Nazanin Zaghari-Radcliffe, fresh back from Iran, was speaking riddles to power, asking at a press conference... How many foreign secretaries does it take for someone to come home? The answer being five, and one of them, Jeremy Hunt, has admitted that she was in Iran too long and asked for an inquiry into why it took so long to get her back to the UK. This didn't save her from a torrent of abuse on social media, though, most of it unbroadcastable,

from people who thought she wasn't grateful enough for her release. And worse still, she didn't even thank the guards when she left. That's quite a lot milder than many of the comments posted by many angry racists on social media. It's a very odd attitude because she did thank many people for all the work they'd done. And because in the modern world, we're constantly being asked to rate things.

You can't visit a restaurant or have a car service or make a call to Vodafone without being asked to fill things. You can't visit a restaurant or have a car service or make a call to Vodafone without being asked to fill in a customer satisfaction survey. So, given that the government are supposed to be working for us, what's wrong with rating their performance when you've been locked up in Tehran for six years? In today's world, the Foreign Office ought to send released British subjects a survey, like Uber do.

On a score of one to five, how would you rate your negotiators? Your Foreign Secretary this time was Liz. Would you like to tip her? Five pounds? Three pounds? Or a nice new mink hat? How did you rate Boris as Foreign Secretary? 2,500 word limit.

Thank you very much. 2,500 word limit. Thank you very much. Now making his Now Show debut, a comedian who's also an award-winning folk musician. It's David Eagle. A report came out this week saying that people from as far as South America went over to Ukraine to help fight and I've been thinking what I would do in such situations and would I be prepared to fight for

my country would I be courageous enough to fight in a war now this is completely hypothetical for me because I'm blind I'm aware that the last thing anyone wants is me wading into the fray one hand on the Kalashnikov the other hand on the guide dog come on Rover it's a strange name for a Kalashnikov come on Rover we shall join the special disabled regiment I've heard about, the paratroopers I don't know whether I would have

the courage to fight in a war to be honest during lockdown I was terrified at the prospect of Zoom gigs now in fairness some of these zoom gigs were quite scary i once did a zoom gig where you couldn't hear or see the audience now obviously being a blind comedian i'm used to doing comedy and not being able to see the audience but performing comedy to complete silence this is perfectly exemplified i have done that

but the organizer of the gig, he obviously realised that it was going to be weird for the comedians not to be able to hear or see the audience. So he encouraged people to leave positive messages in the chat window, which didn't at all help. It just meant he'd be halfway through doing a joke and someone would write, ha, ha, ha. Just came across as sarcastic.

Especially for me who can't see the screen. It's all relayed to me by a screen reader, which is a monotonal voice on my computer I don't have any on Butler maybe now I'm doing Radio 4, who knows so there I would be you know, doing some jokes halfway through doing a joke

I'd be interrupted with ha ha ha ha sounding like Stephen Hawking singing the Bee Gees I don't know if you've heard that album. Jive Hawking. So I convinced myself, oh, no, I can't do online gigs. It's too terrifying an environment.

Meanwhile, we've got Ukrainian President Zelensky who's able to write and deliver the most amazing, passionate, powerful speeches in a war-torn, life-threatening situation. I'm constantly making excuses. Oh, I couldn't possibly write in this environment, not while the neighbour is mowing the lawn so loudly. There's a dog barking outside. I can hear some children crying. I tell you what, I shall have a bath first. I shall be much more creative when clean. That's an absolute lie.

I have been known to be very creative and dirty. Another way that I often procrastinate is to Google myself. Googling myself actually has taught me a valuable lesson when it comes to comedy. I now know that I need to mention that I'm blind during a gig. Now, I normally mention it at the start of a gig anyway, because if I don't mention that I'm blind, I can hear the people in the audience whispering to each other, trying to work out whether I am blind or not. Google has taught me that if I don't talk about the blindness at all during a gig,

people will take it upon themselves to Google to find out. And I know this because I know the most popular searches that bring people to my website, the most popular Google searches for my name, are David Eagle blind, David Eagle disability, and my personal favourite, what's wrong with David Eagle? Which, in fairness, might have nothing to do with the blindness. It could be my therapist just resorting to Google

in sheer exhausted desperation. The reason I've mentioned that last bit about Googling myself is because I get to mention my own name three times on primetime BBC Radio 4. I might not be the funniest comedian, but I am a marketing genius, said David Eagle. I'm pleased that I've remembered what I wanted to talk to you about tonight because unlike everybody else here, I can't read notes.

A lot of people will cheat as well. They'll write their little jokes on their hands. I read Braille. That's really not going to help me. I've got no joke that's funny enough to have it perforated into me. You know, I'm a, what's the next joke? Oh, yeah, the one I severed an artery for. That's right.

It never really gets much of a laugh either. Literally, all in vain. When I was asked to do this, my brain was just constantly telling me, well, it's never going to happen, David. BBC Radio 4 is far too good for you. And, you know, I know it's sort of my internal monologue. At one point said, you know what's going to happen, David?

It'll just be sods law. On Friday at 6.30, just as the show's about to go out, you know that's the moment that Putin is going to declare nuclear war. That would just be sods law. On Friday at 6.30, just as the show's about to go out, you know that's the moment that Putin is going to declare nuclear war. That would just be my look, wouldn't it? Now, incidentally, if nuclear war is declared on Friday at 6.30, we

do have a special emergency version of this programme, the Apocalypse Now show. Which, of course, is accessed via the red show. Which, of course, is accessed via the red button. So I know that I need to ration myself when it comes to listening to the news. So sometimes I just need to turn the news off

and do something altogether much more healthy and mentally nourishing. That's right, Googling myself. David Eagle, that is. Yes, I got my name in one more time. Thank you very much. Results. Now, you may have seen this week that in Venice, seagulls have been doing such a menace,

a constant swooping down to steal food off people's plates, in al fresco restaurants, that diners are now being issued with water pistols on their tables to ward them off. So we have asked our audience online and here in the studio, what has been your most frightening encounter with nature? What's been your most frightening encounter with nature? Being chased by Shetland ponies in Brecon. They could smell the apple in my rucksack.

I once got buzzed by a low-flying buffoon on a zip wire waving some flags. Luckily there was an unused water cannon nearby. On a visit to collect an aquarium, a turtle slipped from a rock and my boyfriend jumped through the roof thinking the turtle

was on the attack. So, there we go. Thank you very much for those. And I think the water pistols on the table sounds like a good idea full stop. So, that is almost it for this week's show. Yeah, this week, money-saving expert Martin Lewis said that he's out of tools to help people save money, which isn't the most promising statement from an expert. To play us out with a song about where Martin could go next.

It's Matty Hudson. APPLAUSE My name is Martin Lewis And for years I gave advice On how to manage your expenses And search for a better price But the rising cost of living Means I'm all out of ideas. I need something

new to shoot for to distract me from my fears. So I'm thinking about becoming a human cannonball. Flying through the air, I'll get shot out from a cannon, the wind rushing through my hair I'm a human cannonball now My money days are through, unless you want the cost of gunpowder I'm not the man for you Without financial advising, I'm bereft, I feel alone I know people have it worse than me, so I don't mean to moan. But the idea of having free time gives me heart palpitations. So I need to find a way to use my knowledge of inflation.

So maybe I could pilot hot air balloons now. Flying through the air. But unlike Richard Bransonanson I am not a billionaire I pilot hot air balloons now and that's the life for me I'm so off my tits on helium that I could barely

see I sure miss my financial days wish I did that instead because now I've got no reason to get myself out of bed I'm in need of a new pastime, anything at all I need someone to hold me and to catch me when I fall So I guess I could maybe try and become a trapeze artist Flying through the air

Join the circus with the tightrope walkers and the dancing bears I'm a trapeze artist now No longer concerned with debt But due to circus cutbacks they no longer have a net. You've been listening to The Now Show, starring Steve Puntz, Hugh Dennis, Angela Barnes, David Eagle, Katie Norris and Einel Tomlinson. The show was written by the cast with additional material

from Liam Byrne, Rhiannon Shaw, Becca Bain, Cameron Loxtale and Jade Gebbie. The song was written and performed by Mattie Hudson. The producers were Pete Strauss and Rajiv Kharia and it was a BBC Studios production.