Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4 - The Now Show - 26th March ft Janine Harouni, Dane Baptiste and Rachel Parris

Episode Date: March 26, 2021

Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis 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 Dane Baptiste and Janine Harouni with music supplied by Rachel Parris .Voice Actors: Chiara Goldsmith and Luke KempnerProducer: Pete Strauss Production Co-Ordinator: Sarah Sharpe Editor/Engineer: David ThomasBBC Studios Production

This is the BBC. This podcast is supported by advertising outside the UK. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Thank you for listening to the Friday Night Comedy Podcast. It's The Now Show. Hello, I'm Steve Punt. And I'm Hugh Dennis. With us are Dane Baptiste, Janine Hiruni, Rachel Parris,

Cara Goldsmith and Luke Kempner. And this is... The Knowles Show! CHEERING AND APPLAUSE Oh, thank you. Thank you very much. Oh, thank you. Thank you very much. And this week marks a full year since the first Covid lockdown.

A whole year. It's like they say, time really does fly when you're disinfecting doorknobs. The past year has seen many changes in the way we live. We've got used to lots of small impositions on our lives which are fine for everybody else, but we personally feel we should be exempt from. I can't wear a mask. I can't breathe. Really? No, honestly, I really can't breathe.

OK, Doctor, somebody else had better do this heart transplant then. And we've got used to restrictions on travel. We now face fines of up to £5,000 for foreign trips without good reason. Now, you have to assume that that doesn't apply to professional sport. Next. OK, where are you lot off to? Where football is. Oh, yes. Which ones? We're England. And where are you

going? Good reason to travel, have you? We're playing San Marino. Right. That's five grand from each of you. I'm choked about that, if I'm honest. Listen, you lot are lucky. If the rugby or the cricket team try and come through you. I'm choked about that, if I'm honest. Listen, you lot are lucky. If the rugby or the cricket team try and come through here, I'm charging them ten. The restrictions were tightened this week because otherwise, as the Prime Minister warned us...

The third wave of the virus will wash up on our shores. Ah, yes. Now, the extended wave metaphor there is handily obscuring the fact that the comparison is entirely inaccurate because viruses do not wash up on our shores. If they did, we wouldn't have a problem because Priti Patel would arrest them. If viruses washed up on our shores, we'd know about it

because we know about everything that washes up nowadays. Certain people would make sure to tell us. These are the shores of our small island, littered with the washed-up remains of our modern lifestyle. A dolphin with a party popper stuck in his blowhole. A crab using a mullet fruit corner pot for his shell. This huge, spectacular jellyfish,

which is in fact a very small plain jellyfish but with over a hundred old carrier bags stuck to its underneath. I'm sorry to be so depressing. If you want something more cheerful, try any Stender's Christmas special. The fact is, viruses come through airports and on ferries and if they're coming from Europe, it will be indeed hard to stop them. The original variant, don't forget, took about a week to get here from central China.

The Brazilian variant was first detected in the city of Manaus, which is so deep into the Amazon that you may remember England was sent there to play their opening game in the 2014 World Cup. Next. OK, where are you lot off to? We're all footballers. Oh, yeah? We're England, and I'm the manager. Yeah, yeah.

I'd like five grand, please. Now, wait a minute. This is 2014. There's no travel restrictions yet. Five grand on Italy to win. The point is, variants have managed to get here from a lockdown city in the middle of China and the middle of the Amazon,

and the Kent variant even made it out of Kent through the M20 roadworks at Maidstone, which proves it can get past anything, with the possible exception of the Suez Canal. Yes, not only did it make it out, the Kent variant has now gone on to become the dominant strain in Europe and to think that Remainers were worried that British exports to Europe would decline after Brexit.

The news about the new restrictions on overseas holidays provided more proof of the time-honoured way in which the press never remember anything they've said, even a few days before. Last week, they were all... Wahey! Sun-drazed Brits all clear for the costas! But this week it's all Five grand fine for watching a TUI advert!

Millions of people have apparently already booked holidays from July but the thing is we don't yet know which countries will be safe to visit so any holiday booking is going to be like buying a lottery ticket. This week's countries that are open for tourism are... Number 34. That's Greenland. Number 5. Somalia.

And the bonus number is... Number 41. That's France. Which currently says it's open to all British tourists except those over 65 and those under 64. The only way to avoid restrictions, of course, is travel for business and work-related reasons. All these measures, of course, are based on a further wave

arising from the continent, where vaccination seems to be slower and more reluctant than here. You'd have to say, looking at the last few months, that this does seem to have come from the top. Citizens of the Republic, the vaccine AstraZeneca is safe, which is why it must be withdrawn. For as I have always said, this vaccine, which does not work, must be available really to not use on the slightest excuse, because it is my aim that every French citizen is so confused by constant reversals in policy that nobody wants it, and thus we always have ample stocks ready to use

when I stop scaring you into not using it, while we wait another eight months for the French vaccine, which we have not been able to produce in time, which is, of course, unrelated to why I am so pissed off. Merci. Everyone else seems to agree that Britain's vaccine programme has been a bit of a triumph. All that remained was for politicians to claim credit for it.

As the Prime Minister said this week... Why is the vaccination programme so successful? Capitalism! Greed, my friends! Greed! This isn't on Zoom or anything, is it? Now, AstraZeneca received £65 million in state funding and are working on a non-profit basis until Covid ceases to be classified as a pandemic. And some people who heard that comment claimed that it was entirely ironic.

Perhaps realising even at the time that the media don't do irony, Johnson went on... Forget I said that. And asked the MPs watching to wipe what he had said from their collective memory, a practice known in the trade as doing a sturgeon. And they may manage it.

Things already wiped from MPs' collective memory include Jeremy Corbyn's policies, Theresa May's dancing and the Liberal Democrats. So, all in all, one year on, hopefully things are looking brighter, and soon we can look forward to a future with no coronavirus briefings. Although some media experts suspect that we may miss them when they're gone, and might even have nostalgia value,

ITV are apparently thinking of keeping them going in a new Saturday night version, if they can find the right presenters. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Britain's God Balance! Thank you. So next on The Now Show is a comedian who's appearing in the upcoming ITV2 sitcom Buffering, but we've managed to stream her in full bandwidth. It's Janine Harooney.

Weddings are officially back. As of March 29th, couples in England can once again get married in small ceremonies of no more than six guests. For a lot of couples, this means cancelling their plans to have a big wedding in front of all their than six guests. For a lot of couples, this means canceling their plans to have a big wedding in front of all their friends and family. I personally have had to cancel my own wedding twice, and let me tell you, it feels amazing. You know the feeling when you have plans with a friend who cancels last minute,

so you just put on pajamas and watch TV in bed? Canceling your wedding because of COVID feels a lot like that, except instead of watching TV, you save 15,000 pounds. Listen, nobody wants to go to a wedding. And to be honest, I don't want anyone to come either. If you told me that one night I would pay for 200 people's dinner and that I'd only get to sleep with one of those people forever, I'd question that investment. COVID-secure weddings are great.

You only invite your favorite people, four of mine, two of his. Everyone left out literally can't complain. The whole thing is done in 15 minutes, and it costs 12 quid. And if we divorce, i still get half his money which really is the point of this whole racket i mean what are you missing out on with your covid wedding bridesmaids yeah because we all know how much women love being put in the exact same dress as to more easily compare bodies look i love and, but planning our wedding was a nightmare. I'm originally from New York, he's from Dublin, and we live in London. Do you know how hard it is to organize a wedding

between three countries? There's a reason that travel agents don't exist anymore. They didn't go out of business, they just lost the will to live. I learned that most of my family don't even have passports, and the ones who thought they did, it turns out what they actually have is Costco cards. We decided that we'd have to have the wedding in New York because, well, back in 2019, there was this thing called international air travel.

But asking our British and Irish friends to come over for our wedding Was essentially asking if they wanted to spend hundreds of pounds To attend a party where grown men loop neckties around their head Like the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air My male friends, they were like Are any single ladies going to be there? And I had to say, well, my grandma's newly single

And she's recently come into quite a bit of money. My wedding wasn't exactly going to be the Jay-Z and Beyonce gold party of the year. Plus, our big wedding was going to cost so much that we had to ask our parents for help. And let me tell you, if you take money from your parents for your wedding, that is blood money. Because now they have a say in your wedding. They agreed to give us some money, but only if we agreed to be married in a Catholic ceremony. That's right. It turns out thou shall not bribe thy children isn't one of the commandments.

Me and Andrew aren't religious, but we reluctantly agreed, which meant that we were going to have to do a pre-marriage course with a priest. Now, I'm not sure I want a virgin to give me relationship advice. And that's the best case scenario that he's a virgin. The worst case scenario, I'm not allowed to mention on radio. But that was only the beginning, because once our parents gave us the money, suddenly they wanted to invite all their friends. These are people that we've never met, and we had to agree. But now, because of COVID,

you have a bulletproof reason your parents can't invite their Trump-supporting coworkers. It is so much easier to say, I'm sorry, Bob can't come. We have to save lives, than it is to say, Bob can't come. We're trying to keep sexual harassment at the wedding to an absolute minimum.

So in the end, despite the best efforts from the evil NHS to screw me over with their unprecedented vaccine rollout, we will not be having a big wedding because my in-laws are from Ireland, which in spite of what my mother believes is not part of the UK, and they've been very slow to vaccinate. I guess it's just the luck of the Irish. We will most definitely be having a small wedding. And I think I'll feel right at home. I mean, giving a speech to a room of six people that I've paid to be there. That's just basically the first two years of my comedy career. I am grateful for my COVID secure wedding, because for a while there, I thought that planning my big, stressful,

international, parent-force wedding meant the vein in my forehead would count as my something blue. But now we'll be cashing in our refunded deposit checks for an upgraded honeymoon, which, fingers crossed, we'll be attending sometime in 2037. Thank you, guys. I've been Janine Haroney. Thank you so much. Now, Prince Harry announced two new jobs this week. First, he's joining a Silicon Valley start-up

as a chief impact officer. Asked if he hadn't been given a bit of a made-up, meaningless title, the Duke of Sussex said yes, but now he was going to be a chief impact officer. He is, though, clearly learning the pitfalls of normal life, as to get the job he had to fill in a multiple-choice questionnaire, which he said didn't really fit his background. I reckon filling in any questionnaire might prove tricky.

Oh, right, here we go. Surname? Easy, Windsor. I'm in Sussex. That is Mountbatten. Oh, God, here we go. Surname. Easy. Windsor. I mean Sussex. That is Mountbatten. Oh, God, there's only one box. Um, okay. Winsexbatten. That'll do. Right.

Title. Title, title, title, title. Well, Prince. Oh, no, Duke. Oh, Captain. Pretty sure I'm an Earl of somewhere. I think... Oh, God, what have I put? Oh, got it! Title. Not as many as I used to have. LAUGHTER And finally, relevant experience.

Simple. I am an expert in conflict resolution, using my skills initially with the British Army and currently with my family. Not to be outdone, a source this week has claimed that his brother, Prince William, plans to robustly challenge advice from his prime ministers when he becomes king. Yes, although that won't be for a while, of course, as he'll be following King Charles III. And if he then starts challenging elected prime ministers, probably following King Charles I as well.

Both announcements, though, show that things are really changing fast at the moment. So fast it's sometimes hard to keep up. Only a week after getting much backbench support for announcing that I would use the military to defend the Falkland Islands. Boris had to admit that he didn't have enough military to defend the Falkland Islands. And after a manifesto promise that there would be no cuts in troop numbers, troop numbers are now being cut to our smallest army since the War of the Spanish Succession in 1714. Although, to be fair, they will be armed with the very latest muskets and cannons.

It's hard to compare, of course, because it was a very different world then. The royal family was split because the Queen refused to let any of the House of Hanover move to England while she was still on the throne. There were riots across the country and the Scots were restless and would soon launch a rebellion. Different times. The government argued that the actual strength of the military though is not being reduced because troop numbers will be replaced with technology, robots and drones. And if you're worried about Britain building an army of killer robots, remember these are government-funded killer robots, so they may be lethal,

but the app that controls them may not work very well. To keep the Union Jack flying proudly in ministers' living rooms up and down the country, the long-discussed festival of Brexit has reared its head again this week. You'll be pleased to know that now it's had a rebrand. The current working title for the event is Festival UK 2022. Yep, it's now called FUK 2022. How very, very edgy.

Yes, it's described as... Ten large-scale public engagement projects that will showcase the UK's creativity and innovation. No idea what that means. But don't forget, everyone thought the 2012 Olympic opening ceremony would be terrible right up until we realised it was great. So either way, Brexiteers will be happy at the until we realised it was great. So either way, Brexiteers will be happy at the message that's being sent out.

We don't need Europe wasting our money anymore. We are quite capable of wasting it ourselves. Things are also changing across the Atlantic, where Twitter founder Jack Dorsey's first ever tweet, just five words long, sold for $2.9 million this week, after he turned down a bid to swap it for three branches of John Lewis. He sold the tweet in the form of a digital cryptographic non-fungible token. Nope, no. fungible token. Nope, no. The most excited person on hearing this news was Donald Trump, who suddenly seen the path to financial

stability. Look at this tweet. It says, just setting up my Twitter. It's not even spelt right. For 2.9 million dollars, I want vowels. I have thousands of tweets. Much better than that and spell proof are lurry. I have billions of dollars worth of tweets. They're all for sale. It's

your chance to own a piece of genuine cafefe. While not yet planning to launch Trump non-fungible tokens, a spokesperson for the ex-president did claim that Trump is planning to launch his own social networks to compete with Twitter and TikTok, because if there's one thing teenagers in China think is cool, it's to join the personal grudge outlet of a septuagenarian American businessman. Better than Twitter, better than Facebook,

a little tiny bit better than Pornhub. It'll be the world's greatest website. Even be better than the website I love that just shows my lovely face whenever I look at it. I think that's a mirror, sir. What a great website. Finally, getting off free in Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon has been cleared of breaching the ministerial code. An independent inquiry suggested her... ..incomplete narrative... ..was not intentional and rather a...

..genuine failure of recollection. Which is a phrase worth remembering, isn't it? Makes you sound so much more genuine somehow. For example... I just genuinely failed to recollect that I promised £350 million a week to the NHS. For example... In an interesting example of old and new agendas clashing, the First Minister admitted that sometimes, during important meetings, she didn't take notes for fear of breaching someone's privacy. You'd think there'd be a law against that,

but we will never know, because no-one wrote that law down. Thank you. Well, now it's time to welcome back to The Now Show a comedian whose podcast is called Dane Baptiste Questions Everything. It's not surprising, really. He's Dane Baptiste. This week, we see that Buckingham Palace

are on the cusp of hiring a diversity czar to investigate the claims made by Harry and Meghan in the recent Oprah interview. I, for one, was shocked that people were shocked. Like most black people, I'm appalled at this news that we're going to have to find another thing to pay for. I didn't get invited to Kate and William's wedding. I didn't get invited to Harry and Meghan's wedding.

And now I've got to fork out again for someone to explain why people like me aren't even going to be there. Also, the term Tsar, obviously, is Russian for Supreme Commander, which sounds like a great idea. Essentially, we are going to hire someone from Russia to investigate racial division in our country. What could go wrong? I don't see why there's this whole furore about racism and discrimination,

especially within British elite circles, because discrimination in elite circles is a part of British culture. Don't believe me? I'm going to use a wonderful allegory to demonstrate. Let's take the story of another Harry, Harry Potter, and his black friend, Hermione. Some of you are thinking, Hermione? Black? Let's break that in the name Hermione. Her-my-one. Her-me-one.

That is basically a Jamaican man describing his own daughter. Her my one. Right there. So that's a Jamaican name. Some of you are laughing but some of you are scoffing in a sceptical fashion. Therefore I will further prove this allegory. You'll notice that Hermione do after that? She ends up going out with a ginger outcast who is known as being wayward by the rest of his monstrous relatives.

And that leads to an all-out war with a mysterious mystic community that we don't know much about megan markle much at this particular rate the way the country has treated her we should call her megan mudblood again some of you don't understand how well i can use harry potter as an allegory to reflect racial division in the uk let's try with the Goblet of Fire. Remember that one? You know, the one where they have these games at their secret school in the mountains and they invite French and Russian nobility to attend as well. Sounds a lot like SARS again, doesn't it? What is it with our country and hiring SARS? Our prime minister does it all the time. Hiring SARS for diversity. I mean, why can we just get people with new names like managers or consultants? Why do conservatives have to do everything in a medieval style?

Like, for example, Boris Johnson hired catch-up stars for education. Just pay teachers more money! Or there was a time that Boris Johnson hired Lord Frost, which doesn't sound like a villain at all, to be the Brexit cabinet minister. So he had someone arranging for the... Just get out. Just get an evil wizard, Boris Johnson Assad. Let's get out. Let's get an evil wizard Boris Johnson. You want to get an evil wizard use an evil wizard. He can still be called Lord Frost

because we now are on the cusp of the winter of discontent anyway. So you don't think he's hiring supervillains? Think about this. You know if you are a comic book geek you will know that most villains and superheroes have alliteration in their names like Peter Parker or Reed Richards. Now, there's

also another supervillain called Preeti Patel who has been head as the star of the Home Office. And some of you might be like, oh Dane, that's just basic left-wing virtue signalling. You know what kind of person says, I want all the foreigners

to leave this country, even my own dad which would make it impossible because they wouldn't even have the job. A supervillain. It makes no sense. The only way she could do that was with time travel. You know who time travels to remove people from history? Villains. Speaking of villainy, we were talking about Goblet of Fire. And if you recall,

when this happens, he who must not be named returns. And then in Order of the phoenix harry potter does the responsible thing of training a group of paramilitary child soldiers to fight against the dark arts very responsible harry now while he's doing that he strikes up a lovely little relationship with an amazing asian student called cho chang and you would think that people would be fine with harry potter finding some love because he is an orphan, but no. People are like, no, this girl doesn't deserve Harry Potter. Blah, blah,

blah, blah, blah. If you read a book which features Dementors and Dwarves and Goblins and Giants and Slave Dwarves and your problem is with Chinese people being in a book, you're a racist! And if you're on my edge in your region, Harry Potter, grow up! In the meantime,

as a proud black British man that encourages diversity amongst his monarchy and society, I would suggest that one way of encouraging more diversity would be not to scrutinise marriages to African-American women and maybe consider marrying

some black British men like me. Lady Marina Charlotte Windsor, I'm looking at you. I've been Dame Baptiste. Thank you very much for listening, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you. Now, you may have seen this week that Goldman Sachs employees have been complaining that they've been asked to work 98 hours a week. So we asked on Twitter,

what's the most unreasonable thing that they have been asked to do at work? Yeah, I've got, um, what's the most unreasonable thing you've ever been asked to do at work? Try to explain to a five-year-old why eating a Pritt stick isn't a great choice. I was told to sell a load of Union Jack flags left over from VE Day celebrations. Some guy with scruffy blonde hair from London bought the lot. What's the most unreasonable thing you've ever been asked to do at work?

To parallel park a container ship in the Suez Canal. So, thank you very much for those, and we'll be putting another audience question on Twitter next week. But now, please welcome back to The Now Show, a musical comedian who has a degree in music from Oxford University. So nice to have a professional in for once. To play us out this week, please welcome Rachel Parris. Thank you for listening and goodbye.

Goodbye. Goodbye. Hey, mister, come over here. Yes, you with your sleeve rolled up. Come on over. Then stop. A two metres away. OK.

I want to talk to you. I've got something to ask. I like the bits of your face I can see around your mask. I like the sweat on your brow I can see around your mask. I like the sweat on your brow. Your face seems flushed. I want to get closer to you, but we can't rush. We've probably got to wait until mid-July. But your upper arm is throbbing, and I think I know why.

I think I know why. You've been vaccinated. It's making your heart, I'm intoxicated I like it a lot, hey inoculated dating's waiting on the road map, baby I can see it

you've had the jab I see you getting chills And I'm intrigued Let me help you out With your muscle fatigue I like your little blue card You're wearing your sticker Now you've got a special passport

Into my knickers You'll be vaccinated With Astro-Z With its proven safety, that don't worry me. I was keen on Astro-Z when it was banned in Slovenia. What's more, I'm strangely fond of being frowned upon by Macron. I want to join the collective of the selected, injected. I respect the new protected state to solve the affected.

Rested folks say you can stick your vaccine up your infective. And I say, don't do that. It's not as effective. Vaccinated. It's making you hot. I'm intoxicated. And I like it a lot. Inoculated dating's waiting on the roadmap

Baby, I can see it You've had the jab You've been listening to The Now Show starring Steve Punct, Hugh Dennis, Dane Baptiste, Janine Haroney, Kiara Goldsmith and Luke Kempner. The song was written and performed by Rachel Parris. The show was written by the cast with additional material from Laura Claxton, Laura Major, Rebecca Bain and Rajiv Kharia. The producer was Pete Strauss,

and it was a BBC Studios production. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. I'm Laura Koonsberg, the BBC's political editor. I'm here to tell you about Covid Confidential, a brand new podcast. She's put together an astonishing first draft of history with regards to why things went so wrong. It's a year since the UK went into lockdown. Stay at home, protect our NHS and save lives. And on this special podcast, I've been speaking to people who were in the corridors of power. We had those reasonable worst case scenarios and the problem with them was that they were coming true.

Taking you into the rooms where life and death decisions were made. And I was told I was going to be producing on behalf of all the broadcasters the first national address Boris Johnson was going to give. And uncovering the biggest challenges our leaders faced. These are people who spoke to Laura Koonsberg off the record. Listen to Covid Confidential on BBC Sounds.