That Gaby Roslin Podcast: Reasons To Be Joyful - Show n Tell with Joe Pasquale

Episode Date: May 30, 2024

Comedian and actor Joe Pasquale reveals the object that brings him joy... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Joe Pasquale is here for our extra nugget of joy for our show and tell. Joe Pasquale spreads the joy. You are a reason to be joyful. I cannot imagine what you're going to bring, what you've brought along that brings you joy. In my head, I'm slightly scared. No, you don't want to be scared. Actually, it has a little bit of relevance to you as well, right?

Oh. And I'm going to get it out and show you, and I take it with me every show I do. Put it on dressing table, on dressing table in front of me. He's got relevance to me. Me? Yeah, well, sort of. You'll understand the link in one way and tell you what it is, right?

And particularly, I don't always take it on one night because I don't want to lose it. But if I'm in a run and a show on a musical or a play or something like that, it's always there. Always take it in Panto, it's always there on a little piece of soft felt. And seeing there's some soft felt on the table, I will get it out and show you and tell you the story behind it. Please do. You want to see it now? Yes, please. Okay.

what it is. They're smiling. That's not that. It's a bottle of Lynx. That's some deodorant. Oh, yeah, sorry. I'd rather have a deodorant's out there, but that one's Lynx. It's all right. It's not the BBC. You can... Oh, I saw it then. What flavour is that one? Oh, it's just called Black, Frozen Pear and Cedarwood's Cent. It's just minging. Okay. Ready?

Okay, I'm ready. This is it. There's not... You know, you look at it, but there is a huge story behind this. Okay. Yeah. It's crystal. Yeah, it's a cool. It's crystal. Beautiful. Beautiful. I love crystals. So do I.

Yeah. And everything, because I did, one of the things I did during lockdown was I did a degree with the Open University on geoscience, on geology. Unless you wished you'd had that in the jungle. Oh, yeah, do I? Yeah. So that's my thing that brings me joy, right? Shall I tell you a story behind it? Yes, please.

Came for Bob Munkhouse. That came from Bob? Yeah, Bob bought it for me, right? Am I allowed to talk about it? Absolutely, yes, yes, not at all, because a lot of people don't like other people touching crystals because they do resonate at different free. Everything resonates in different frequencies. That's one of the best pieces of course I've ever seen that. It's incredible. So tell me the story about it with Bob.

So what happened was Bob, I met Bob in the mid to late 80s. I was doing Bucklings and he was doing buttons as well. I was doing the club room downstairs. He was doing the theatre which the theatres aren't there anymore. Anyway, he sent a note down saying, I'd like to meet you, please come and say hello. So I thought I was a fake letter, you know. And then when the Red Coat said, no, it's true, it's from Bob. I'd go up there

and Jackie, his wife was there and I didn't have a rider I didn't know what a rider was you know he had a ride of all the sandwiches and the drinks and his bottle of whiskey and everything was in there and he said oh

I saw you on new faces and you should be doing Motelie and he was very encouraging and then about a week later my agent phone said we've got you the series of Celebrity Squares Bob Monkhas

once you on Celebrity Square and that was that and that was when our relationship started and we stayed in touch all the time and he was just a genius as you know he was a perfectionist

he left nothing to chance and yet he was also a great ad libber everything everything was meticulous he knew everything he was also OCD to the point of ludicracy his OCD was madness anyway towards the end of and I saw him a lot

and spoke to him a lot and he was also so encouraging I remember when I got the first Royal Variety show which is in 93 and I told him I got it and he said look the finish of Royal Variety show he said they're never good even when they're even when they're great they're still not good he said they're hard to do

so he said what I want you to do next week. Bring in your act, bring all your props in next week and let me see your whole acts. I did the whole act for him and he said, I'll put together the best ten minutes of your, that will work on that show. And that's what we did. And then, as I said earlier, you know, I was so lucky

to be brought up with these genius and giants of that that took the time to encourage me. So anyway, towards the end of Bob's life, as you know, he had prostate cancer. So what, he's quite a poignant story of this, but I don't mind telling you is because it's important, you know, to me, it's an important part

my life. So towards the end, he got prostate cancer. And then it wasn't well known. It wasn't put out in the public. And then he had to go into Edwardswell Hospital in a hospice near Milton Keynes. And so I phoned Colin Edmonds,

who's writer, and said to Colin, I can't get older Bob, he's not answering his phone, says, no, he's in hospital. I said, yeah, I saw that in the paper. They said, he'd broken his collarbone. He said, no, that's not true. He said, leave it with me for a minute, I'll get back to you. So then he phoned me back five minutes later. I spent it to Bob

and he's told me I can tell you the truth and he wants you to go and see him and what's the truth said the cancer spread everywhere basically and he wants you to go and visit him if you get a chance

I'll at least phone him so I said okay where is he? He said Milton Keynes so I've got to go and turn the Christmas lights on tomorrow in Northampton so I've got a part of Milton Keynes to get there

so it'll be a call in so yeah he said I won't tell him you're going so great so I'm allowed to take him a bottle of whiskey he went no but take it anyway because he's not allowed it but take it because he'll love it

so I'll go down this and I can hear his voice going down the corridor he's in a wheelchair and he's got, he's so bloated because he's on so many medications and so many steroids and God knows what else and chemo. And, uh, but his hair had gone white as well, but he couldn't mistake it was his voice.

And I run around and I went, it was that you, Bob, and he went, oh my God, what are you doing here? I went, oh my God, what are you doing here? I went into his room and he had a whisk. I said, I'm not allowed to give you this, says yes, you are and we had that. And so, and, I was starting Panto then, and then I brought him a crystal because I took a crystal in for him, right? Because I believe that there's a lot of, um, power in crystals. And he kept it by his bed all the time.

And then every night during rehearsals, I would go and visit him, after I finished rehearsed, go and visit him, sit there, and we'd watch Larry Sanders. Do you remember Larry Sanders? Yeah, we'd watch DVDs of Larry Sanders. And then one night, and then I would be, what was the show? I think it was Jack and the Beanstalk. I think Jack and the Beanstalk.

And I'd be entering in the Panto at Northampton in a giant basket, like from an air balloon basket, and he'd be dropping down. And I would phone him from the basket, while the audience had let me the audience, all that sort of stuff. Oh, how amazing. And then one day he left a voice message for me, and it said, I was on stage at the time, and I was going to go and visit him after the show.

And he said, hi, Jojo, the dog-faced boy. This is Bob the ass-faced man. Don't come visit him, I'm not feeling too good. So that was it. And then he started slips. I didn't go and see him anymore. And I didn't understand the reference of Jojo, the dog-faced boy, any of this sort of stuff, it went by the bye.

And then about two weeks later, I kept getting messages saying, don't come because he's not good. And then Jackie, then they let him out for Christmas. And Jackie, his wife phoned me up and said, look, if you want to come and say goodbye to him and he's on the way out, he's not to be lasted long there. So I went to see him at his house and I held his hand for a little while and said goodbye to him. And I went. He was in like a comatose state. It was on so much, what's the morphine? Morphine, that's the one, yep.

So I just went and said goodbye to him. That was it. And then about a week later, I'll get a phone call from Jackie about a past four in the morning saying, look, I'm really sorry to do this to you. I know you've had two shows. I know you've got two shows today. But Bob came to him the night and he said, and basically he had a, a tumour on his spine, or it was a bone of column,

and it paralysed him, he couldn't move at all. And he woke up, and he just said, you need to get Joe Pascuali here because he's got the antidote. I know why I can't move. I've been, aliens have been down, they've injected me stuff, but Joe's got the antidote. Can you get him here, right? So, can you come?

So, well, yeah, and then about five minutes later, Abigail, his daughter phoned me again, and said, listen, Dad's woke up, said, I know Jack has already been on the phone, I'm on the way. Oh, thank God for that. So, no, go down there. And Bob's gone, she's look, Bob's out of it again.

And he's just, you know, something, okay, but if you want to go and see him, go and see him. So I don't know if you've got an antidote. He said, so I said, I've got something, what I've got? And I put my hand in my pocket. And all I had was a pick and mix receipt from Woolworths from the sweets, right? I went, Bob, I'm here, I've got the antidote. And I just put the pick and mix receipt in his hand. I said, you can go there, Bob.

And that was, I was literally there for 15 minutes, and he didn't say anything. And he went, and he went that night. And then about this, oh, this was about, only about a year ago, I was in my conservatory and Tony Blackburn was on doing Pick of the Pops. You know, Tony's still doing Pick of the Pops after all these years, right? And it must have been a Saturday afternoon then.

And I go in and the radio was already on the conservatory and then I hear just the end of it of Tony Blackburn going, and that was Jojo, the Dog Face Boy. And there was a song, and it brought back from like 20 years ago that Bob had said to me, I'd forgotten all about it. And there was a song by whoever it was called Jojo, and that was what he'd say. said to me, hello Jojo the dog face boy,

he's Bob the ass-faced man. Oh my god. I thought it was just him on medication and it wasn't. It was a song called Jojo the dog. So, and then this, right, a week before he died, this came through the post from Bob with a little letter just saying, with friendship.

And so I take it with me everywhere. That's such a special story, Joe. Thank you for sharing that with us. I'm overwhelmed. And thank you for bringing it in. What energy it must carry. Oh, it does, yeah. It carries love.

Carries bobbing there. Carries love and friendship. And those things are very, very valuable. Yep, they are. Joe Pasquale, thank you. Thank you.