Beef And Dairy Network - Episode 103 - The Beef Brigade

Episode Date: November 19, 2023

John-Luke Roberts, Mike Shephard, Mike Wozniak, Henry Paker, Louise Robb and Linnea Sage join us this month to find out about live light entertainment stalwarts, the Beef Brigade. Stock media provided by Setuniman/Pond5.com and Soundrangers/Pond5.com Music credit courtesy of epidemicsound.com:Lindy Hop / VendlaBaroque Hornpipe / TraditionalCatch Up / Falcon DivesGentle Dreams / Sight Of WondersA Way Of Life / Christoffer Moe Ditlevsen  

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brought to you by Glando. Now, surely most of you will have heard of and probably seen the Beef Brigade, an entertainment troupe that is as much woven into the texture of British life as queuing, drinking a hot cup of tea, and not thinking too hard about our past. One of my first memories is going to see the Beef Brigade, or as they're more properly called, the Beef Brigade of Merry Butcher Boys, a variety show traditionally featuring songs, satirical dances, comedians, poets, dramatic monologues, gardening tips, beef puppetry, clowning, interpretive gymnastics, and tributes to the royal family. Universally loved by people up and down this great nation, you would think that the Beef Brigade are about as uncontroversial a thing as you could imagine. But we've received many letters from listeners over recent months

that have shed light on new changes to the Beef Brigade Act. So to find out more about life in the Beef Brigade and the changes that are being made, I spoke to Mario Gregg, one of the current cast members. Mario Gregg, thank you so much for joining me today. I know you've got a busy touring schedule there with the Beef Brigade. Yeah, yeah, we're always very busy, always on the move. Now, of course, I went to see Beef Brigade shows as a kid. I think most of our listeners will probably have been to a Beef Brigade show.

But just to explain to anyone who hasn't heard of you guys or hasn't seen you guys, how would you describe it? It's traditionally been a sort of variety show, really. Yeah, variety, vaudeville. Definitely, that's the tradition that's coming from the musicals, entertaining the troops, that sort of thing. And of course, not just entertaining members of the armed forces, but of course, members of the royal family as well, of course. Yeah, yeah. No, of course, I play to royals well of course yeah yeah no of course i played to royals i played to royals we all played to royals i mean uh largely minor

royals but i did actually once play in front of of who is now king charles that was very exciting that was back in my um my puppetry days when i was doing the the beef puppetry of course those the puppets were satirical puppets were satirical made of beef but sort of satirical but i had to tone that in satirical of the royal family then well we had there on occasion yet we'd veered into that area but of course what everyone knows about the royal family is they've got such a great sense of humor and they love to laugh at themselves don don't they? Absolutely. Really can laugh at themselves. Although they did tell us not to have those puppets in there. I'm sure Charles would have been fine with it, but we did have some people from the palace come to us beforehand and saying, you know, you can't do this. When

Charles gets angry at this sort of thing, he can get violent. But that was all just part of the fun of it, I think, because obviously they've got a great sense of humor the royal family this might be off topic but was there any sense when you when when you were performing for him i guess at that stage he was still the prince of wales not yet the king that he was into lamb sorry you know there's the hashtag NotMyLambKing thing. There's that kind of movement of people who believe that you can smell the mint sauce coming out of the chimneys at Buckingham Palace. I must say, look, I didn't pick up on any of that. And if I had picked up on any of that, I certainly wouldn't be talking about it publicly.

You know, I wouldn't want anything to... I wouldn't... Yeah, I'm sorry. I wouldn't want anything to, to, I wouldn't. Yeah, I'm sorry. I can't really speak to that anymore. Sorry. I was also interested in finding out about the history of the Beef Brigade. And so I spoke to friend of the show, Professor James Harkam. Hello, I'm Professor James Harkam, recently dismissed from the Wyoming Cattle College of the Internet. Professor James, always a pleasure to talk to you.

Thank you so much for taking the time. It sounds as if you might have a bit more time than you did before. Absolutely. I always have a lot of time on my hands. So you've been let go by the Internet cattle college uh yes again what uh inevitably one tends to clash with the pointy heads in sharp suits eventually if you do tend to present uh some more controversial views of uh beef history or beefstery as uh as i tend to think of it i thought i had found a home there uh they were they were good good cattlemen but poor poor historians it seems and sometimes if you want to if you want to research the true effects uh of the uh the

welsh bowman at the battle of agincourt you do have to rain down 50 000 uh arrows onto a herd of cattle and see what happens. Oh, interesting, because I always assumed that the Wyoming Cattle College of the Internet didn't have a campus where you could do that. I didn't realise it was a physical place. I thought it all took place in the cloud, so to speak. But it is a real place. That's right, yes. It is itself a real ranch.

Although your qualifications as a rancher or cattleman or taking the postgraduate diploma of beef history, brackets beefstery, those are downloadable as GIFs. And what life-changing GIFs they are. James may have moved on, but the Wyoming Cattle College of the Internet is still offering that postgraduate diploma in beef history brackets beefstery, and Beef and Dairy Network members can get a 10% tuition discount when they apply using the code GIVEMETHOSEGIFTS.

That's GIVEMETHOSEGIFTS. I'd always had an interest in learning beef history, and I always wanted to go to university. But because I'm a working mum, I didn't feel I could drop it all and move to do a degree. GIFs. That's why I was so pleased when I found the Wyoming Cattle College of the Internet. I also got 10% off tuition fees as a Beef and Dairy Network member. It was still expensive, but I thought it would be worth it. So I signed up and paid £27,000.

And then they just sent me six gifts. I'd sent them all my family's life savings and and in return I'd just got these GIFs. It's just GIFs. GIFs. Despite being without tenure, James was able to tell me about how the Beef Brigade was first commissioned by Queen Elizabeth I. A difficult time in British history.

The country was under threat. You know, the threat of Philip of Spain was something that was very real to a lot of people. Morale was low. England's navy was not yet fully developed. So yes, under the advisement of Sir Francis Walsingham, her chief publicity officer, and her minister for culture, media

and sport, William Shakespeare. Elizabeth I launched the beef brigade of merry butcher boys who were there to entertain the troops, bring a smile to the faces of those who might be facing certain death, and not only death, but death at the hands of a Spaniard. And of course, that is the least dignified, at the time, at least thought of as being the least dignified way to die. Absolutely. The Spaniards themselves were regarded almost as superhuman by the English.

The size of their moustaches, the depth of their paella, the kind of rich scent of their frying chorizo was something that really struck fear into the heart of normal English men who were used only to really the most plain meals of beef and maybe some kind of root vegetable. So am I hearing you correctly, James? Are you suggesting then that at that time, that the rich smell of a frying chorizo would in some way be preferable

to what you describe as a plain beef meal? No, no, no, not at all. I think it was more the, I think the frying of the chorizo was something that struck genuine fear into the heart of an english beef eating man because of its um it's it's perhaps it's it's a feat nature it's it's overtly spiced the paprika the garlic it's it's all too much where when a man wants meat he wants the the scent of real

flesh and sinew frying in the pan if anything if there should be anything else in there other than just pure beef itself maybe some tallow grease half an onion at most okay yeah i understand the the thought of these gaily feathered spaniards uh coming across the water armed with their curly curvy sausages threatening english manhood as it would have been understood, was something that really needed, Elizabeth I needed her troops to go that extra mile. And the only way she could guarantee that was with what we've come to know now as the quintessential English humour. You know, a laugh and a joke, a man in a beef waistcoat telling a few off-colour jokes, an extended dance routine involving a bull's bladder on a string.

And of course, the bull's bladder on a string, many of your older listeners will still be familiar with, as it remained part of the Brigade's act into the 1960s. And obviously, I remember going to see the Brig brigade as a very young child in the 80s, and a lot of that show still being really there to mock the Spanish. And a lot of it went over my head. I specifically remember a long song and dance number, wonderfully performed by Sarah Brightman. That's right, yeah. That was mocking someone called Miguel de Aquendo, who had commanded one of the squadrons of galleons

as part of the Spanish Armada. I mean, this man had been dead for 400 years when I was watching that song. I guess that just shows how strong that tradition is. And I guess what my question is, did that mean that the beef brigade was really important then in galvanizing not just sailors but but the population at large of england against the spanish absolutely we're in the early modern period and

it's very important to that we take for granted now that we all have a profound sense of national identity um based largely around the consumption and raising of beef cattle. But that wasn't so cut and dried at this point. In the late 16th century, things could have gone either way. I see. So are you saying that then people in England, there was a possibility that they might actually side with the Spanish? That the Spanish, they had a certain flair, a certain mystique. Flamenco dancing, of course, was invented to mimic the sensual movement of a cow's hooves on a dance floor. Mario, tell me about how you decided to join the Beef Brigade.

You know, obviously when we were kids you know is what you'd say to your parents wouldn't you'd say oh mum and dad i've had enough of you i'm gonna go and join the beef brigade and you know you never meant it um but but you did mean it because you actually went through with it yeah i did yeah i was five i was five when i joined the beef brigade um 1991 um i said hey mum dad i'm off to join the Beef Brigade. And they said, that's a really good idea, actually. I think they'd been reading about Macaulay Culkin. And it turned out I was too young to be paid for being in the Beef Brigade, but they would get the income.

So my parents set it up so that if I joined the Beef brigade actually this was one less mouth to feed but actually quite a good yearly yearly amount of money coming in so it was really they couldn't see a downside to it the room has always been there it's always been a bit of a shady thing as to how much people exactly are paid to be in the beef brigade and the rumor was always of course that you were paid in cask strength sherry um well that that had had sort of um by the time i had joined i think 20 of the wage was still cask strength sherry yeah um now of course it's a ceremonial amount of sherry. It may these days be a ceremonial amount of sherry, but as James told me, back in the Elizabethan period, it was anything but. Generally, rations were of a pint and a half of undiluted sherry

to be drunk before each performance, and then another two pints of undiluted sherry if the performance went well. If it went badly, they were compelled to drink another four pints of sherry to teach them a lesson. And that's all the more shocking, isn't it, when you consider, and I think I'm right, that the average age of a Beef Brigade performer in those early days was eight and a half. Yes, absolutely. was eight and a half. Yes, absolutely. But these days, we're a little squeamish, I think, on the subject of drinking alcohol and giving alcohol to children. Most of us wouldn't give a glass of wine to anyone under the age of four except at Christmas. But in the 16th century,

it was a question of safety, you you know because you couldn't do a tough job sober you know life was pretty pretty damn grim because if you woke up on any given day in 1588 um you know you lived in a house built of wood and shit uh you did a shit out of the window brother you do not want to be waking up sober in that world you better be half cut when you open your eyes and dear god you want to be blind drunk when you close them and where did these uh young children come from what kind of person ended up in the beef brigade often these were these were street orphans from uh from the east end in in some cases but but also the major port cities so think about portsmortsmouth, Plymouth, Bristol,

Hartlepool. These were street kids, sure, and young, yes, seven, eight years old. But by that stage, they would have learned to make their living from the streets. They would already have basic skills. They'd be able to fire a cannon climb the rigging dance a hornpipe play the harmonica create a rudimentary marionette of philip ii out of raw beef these are just some of the skills that these little scallywags really would have would have known in order to to entertain around the around the taverns of of somewhere like uh liverpool or chepstow just toepstow, just to keep their body and soul together. I said at the beginning of this programme that changes have been afoot at the Beef Brigade, and this was brought to our attention by a steady stream of letters that began arriving here at Beef and Dairy HQ,

starting a few months ago. I will now read one out which very much typifies the sort of letters that we have been receiving. This is from Quentin Barkley from Coventry. He writes, it was my daughter's 40th birthday last week and as a treat I thought I would recreate the happy memories I had of taking her to see the Beef Brigade as a child by treating her and her twins, my two eight-year-old granddaughters. We were all looking forward to some cheeky humour, gentle satire, a song about Prince Edward and hopefully a dance routine involving a bull's

bladder on a string. I can't bring myself to describe exactly what we saw, but I was disgusted and frankly I believe it should be illegal. My daughter's husband has told me never to go to their house again, or he will, and I quote, fuck me up with a shovel. On top of this, my granddaughters have stopped calling me grandad, and now call me Dirty Simon, or Uncle Dirty. Tell me about... I don't know how the best way to approach this really because it's so personally distressing to me

what's happened to the Beef Brigade. And for a lot of our listeners actually who... And this is the reason why we're doing this episode. We've had a number of letters from people who went to a Beef Brigade show, took their kids, took their family, thought they knew what they were going to get,

and what they got was something very, very different. It was very different, but look, in our defect, they should have read up before they came. You know, they should have checked before you bring your kids along to an adult-themed beef...

I'll say what it is, you know a strip show a strip show a beefy hunky hunks stripping with beef but understandably that isn't what they thought the show was that's what the show is they should have known that's what the show had become and if they wanted it to stay sorry if they'd wanted it to stay as the variety pageant, they should have blinking well come. They didn't come. They didn't buy tickets. So we had to change. We had to change.

And it's going very well. It's going very well. Sorry, are you really trying to say that the Beef Brigade, as I know it, wasn't attracting an audience? We've had to keep up with the times. We're not, you know know fighting against an armada of spanish boats anymore we're living in the modern day people want a different sort of entertainment they're not looking even for satirical puppets however funny those puppets are and however well

carved and i was very good at carving them but there was a point when you know you're not the one who i was in church halls with my you know my beef poutine and my beef Gorbachev. I shouldn't have been using the Gorbachev at that point, but you know, it was good. It was well carved. And there were two people in there, two people and a dog. There was tumbleweed in there, not literally, but it was like there was tumbleweed in there. It was like there was, there was the there it was like there was there was the wind whistling uh opening and closing the windows and one of the one of the people there coughed

the dog coughed have you ever heard a dog cough the dog coughed and that's when i mean i that's when i i thought i i'm gonna vote yes for the changes i'm gonna vote yes for the changes you mentioned the changes there it was put to vote yes for the changes. You mentioned the changes there. It was put to a vote amongst the cast of the Beef Brigade whether you should stick with what you were doing or go ahead with the stripping, stripping one. I've not personally seen the show as it is now. For those who aren't aware of what it is that the Beef Brigade now do,

can you talk me through a kind of average Beef Brigade show? All right. Well, I mean, it's the boys, and it's all boys. We come out draped in beef, and then we take that beef off. We sear some of the beef. There's some beef cookery. But basically, while modern pop music pumps through the speakers, we take off the beef in various different ways.

We take off the beef. And we have audience members who love this, that crowds of women, they're absolutely like, they love what we're doing. But it's a strip show. Yeah, we get the party started. We get the place pumping. We get the place pumping. We take off the beef. More after this. If you are an employer, the average cost of a new hire

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Over on the Beef and Dairy Network website, we asked for network members who had seen the new Beef Brigade show to call the Beef and Dairy Network action line and leave voicemails describing what they saw. Herbert Birtwhistle here. I took my wife Edna to see the Beef Brigade as a special treat for our 35th wedding anniversary. Expecting a nice, wholesome variety show. And what are we greeted with but a bawdy, lascivious, horrific, offensive display of sleek, willowy limbs and oiled triceps. sleek willowy limbs and oiled

triceps, pert buttocks, V-shaped backs, strong and supple, smooth glistening skin, perfect jawlines, thick tousled hair shaking as the performers gyrated and

thrust into the air. Anyway, I was disgusted. And I wish for a full refund. Or perhaps a voucher for some more tickets. Or just some more tickets. Four more tickets. Front row, ideally.

I don't mind if a wet towel hits my face. I'm not squeamish Mario to be transparent for the audience we're talking over a video conferencing software I can see you you have become hot during the interview

and you have taken off your top I can see those muscles that developed musculature you have. Those glistening, what are they, abs? Yeah, thank you. Those incredible abs. From what I can see here, I would say that they are flecked with condensation like a cold glass of Coca-Cola on a hot day.

Well, yeah, that's a reasonable way of describing it. But here's something that actually may... Yeah, this may warm you to the beef brigade. This isn't baby oil. This is beef dripping. I'm covered in beef dripping. That's how we get the glisten. So, you know, we are traditional in what we're doing.

We are sticking with the beef brigade's, you know, origins. I respect that. I respect that. Just because there's stripping doesn't mean there's not beef dripping. So you are still trying to hold on to some of the traditions of the brigade. This is a direct continuation. It is an evolution. It's like going from a fish to a dog to a man. That's evolution for you.

It's like going from an amoeba to a duck to a crab you know this is how we have evolved we're part of the same continuum god bless them i love every single every single variety and version of the beef brigade and i'm proud to be in the hunky hunky beef brigade we currently have. Hello, I'm Roy Possilthwaite, and I took my aunt to see the beef brigade last weekend. She's a very, very precious and dear person to me. And we were expecting a wholesome family show.

And what we got was... I mean, all I can, I just remember it as just a sea of flesh, just, just a roiling sea of pert, shiny, bristling flesh, muscle, sinew, lean, lean flesh, sinew, lean, lean flesh, sweat, sweat in waves is how I remember it, is gushing over me and my aunt, both of us drenched, drenched in hot, hot, salty sweat, like a flesh sea, a roiling, gyrating, pulsating sea of prime, prime human meat. I looked over to my aunt, and I saw her doing something I've never seen anyone do before, which is kiss two men at the same time. Everyone was on top of each other. The audience then became a part of the pulsating mass of flesh on the stage.

It was indistinguishable. I didn't know where I ended, and the performers began. I was then kissing a gentleman who I think worked in insurance. His wife was making sweet, sweet love to the ice cream lady. I looked around. It was basically like a kind of, you can imagine hot melted pork a huge room-sized vat of hot melted pork with human heads in it bobbing around and just a uniform corporate groan i'd like a refund

I'd like a refund. Do you think that when Queen Elizabeth I, back in the 1580s, commissioned the Beef Brigade of Mary Butcher Boys, she thought that in a mere 400 and something years later, it would have degenerated into hunky men pulling strips of thinly cut beef off their rippling and glistening wet muscles well i'll put it to you do you think when queen elizabeth the first told shakespeare that she wanted to see falstaff fall in love in a show called the merry wives of windsor that she expected not 400 years down the line for the rsc to be doing a version based in fascist Italy where everyone's dancing to disco music.

I don't think she did. And I don't think that's a problem. Times change. Things move. What Queen Elizabeth wanted then, God bless her, was what she wanted then. We cannot speak to what she would want now. If she were to come along, I think she'd like it. I think she'd go, because you know what?

Partly, she's a ghost she'd be going like well i love corporeal forms and gosh are these forms corporeal you know i miss my corporeal form i'm glad these guys these beefy hunky guys have such corporeal forms you know and that's what you think that the attitude of the virgin queen would be i mean you've actually nailed on the head one of the reasons i think she'd like it so much you know she didn't get much action god bless her so now she's got to be interested at the very least scientifically to go what what have i missed out on and she definitely you see it from all angles here see it from all angles Professor Harkam

obviously you are a scholar of the history of the Beef Brigade as it has developed through the centuries have you seen the new version? I have seen the new show and again I'm a fan I'm a patriot and I hate to use a word like disgust, but I was sickened.

I mean, I would never be someone to vomit on a royal showground, but I was keeping it down. I mean, I was nearly compelled to tear my eyes away. I didn't, out of of respect because it was a royal command performance but there were there was a i am a no student of the uh male form but there were perhaps richer deeper more pointed nipples than i have ever seen. And that is something that I think I looked at out of pure, I will say, anatomical interest. Do I think it was entertaining? No. Did I keep watching? Yes, because I thought maybe something more wholesome would happen in a minute. Did I hold the bottle of baby oil when it was given to me? Yes.

Did I allow it to be splashed all over my eager, sweaty hands? Of course, it would have been rude not to participate fully in what is essentially a state-sponsored duty. So I think we have to look at ourselves and say, is this the country we have become? And, you know, as my face was motorboating between those pectorals, that was something that I was thinking about, among other things. It sounds as if maybe you did enjoy it. Of course, there is a certain moment, isn't there, where you're caught up in the revelry, in the heat of the moment, sure.

But as you're walking away, as the auditorium empties and the people are picking up the sausage packets and discarded paraphernalia, and you're picking some beef g-string from between your teeth, you start to think to yourself, no, I'm actually better than this and I won't stand for it. So I went straight to request to speak to the manager. I went to the front desk.

I rebooked a ticket for the following day so that I could register my disgust. And it turns out there is a deal if you get a season ticket now, which is, it actually works out. I won't go into the details, but I had a code from online anyway, so it worked out better if I booked for the next four consecutive days. But as I say, it's a research expense. I'm a historian, so I had to make sure that my disgust was warranted. And by God, if you think the first night was bad, then by night five, I mean, actually, you get a very different view once you're on the stage yourself. It's actually quite a thrill seeing all those people out there. And yes, I don't know if you've ever autographed a buttock before,

but it's something of a thrill. And I think that's why I will be campaigning to have it return very much to its roots. So maybe you played devil's advocate and to give the Beef Brigade the benefit of the doubt. When you were watching the show, was there any sense that what they were doing was something more than just a tall Drew Strip show? Do you think there was a satirical edge to what they were doing?

Do you think there was something more valuable in there? Because it's so sad for me that the Beef Brigade has become what it's become. I'm just grasping at straws, I think. Yes, I think writ large, in bloodied beef and smeared body parts, what the Beef Brigade are now asking us are, is this your country? They're reflecting our

nation back at ourselves and saying, is this who you are? And we're saying, don't rub our faces in it, or perhaps, please, rub our faces in it. Well, Professor Harkam, it's been a great pleasure to talk with you. As always, it's great to get that historical angle on modern events. Obviously, you told us earlier that you're no longer attached

to an educational institution. What's next for you? Yes, I'm very much a free agent uh if anybody would like to get in touch any universities um and then when i say any universities i really do mean any universities if you've got uh you know it it doesn't matter whether you're a cambridge dining hall with a suite of rooms ready for me to move in? Sure. Or if there's just a corner of your bedsit that you think,

let's call this a university, I can be there. James Harcombe, thank you. Always a pleasure. Herbert Bergwessel again. I've been thinking about it and read the tickets. I think it wouldn't be too much to ask for a backstage pass of sorts, perhaps a triple A. I think it would be useful for me to meet the performers one-on-one so they can really appreciate actually how disgusted myself and my wife were.

Well, one-on-one, all at the same time. I mean, I don't mind both. Ideally, one-on-one, two-on-one, move to lurch up to probably four to five-on-one, and then en masse, I would say, in sequence, so I can really get to grips with how I feel about it and I'll get to grips with them alright, no matter how

slippery and slick and perfectly oiled and frictionless their shoulders may be Thank you Well Mario, as I've said I don't approve of what you're doing with the beef brigade but in return for appearing on this program um i agreed to read out your upcoming tour dates so i'll do that now your tour dates this month you're going to hail zoe and you're going to

litchfield you're going to exeter you're going to let me have a look lancaster um the falkland islands jersey cape town you you've really the way you've organized this tour doesn't make an awful lot of sense yeah it's not we're losing quite a lot of money because of those actually yeah beijing and then back yeah yeah yeah to the falkland islands yeah yeah it's not yeah i don't i don't want to think about it too much because it is um it's both stressful and it's eating into the business model yeah well mario greg shame on you and thank you thank you thank you very much roy postlethwaite here again um i've been thinking about it and um i i obviously i want to refund

minimum but actually more than that. I feel like this has stayed with me as an experience, and I haven't got closure on this. I want to meet the cast, specifically the gentleman with the long, auburn hair and the incredibly powerful breast muscles. And I actually want to wrestle it out with this guy. Because what happened on that stage was not right. And I want me and him in a, well, a jacuzzi or any small enclosed space

that hot water can be injected into. So it's a jacuzzi or hot tub. You pick the venue, frankly, yeah? As long as it's a jacuzzi or a hot tub. And we're going to, yeah? As long as there's a jacuzzi or hot tub. And we're going to wrestle this out. I'm going to bring oil. I'm going to bring cream cheese. And let's do this.

Because, frankly, I'm not okay with what went down that night, okay? And until I've got you or you've got me in a headlock, I will not have closure on this, yeah? I want to get up close and personal with this, yeah? I want your perineum deep in my face. There's going to be no escape, yeah? Because I am not happy with this, yeah? I want your perineum deep in my face. There's going to be no escape, yeah? Because I am not happy about this, yeah? And when we're done, I'll see you on a balcony overlooking the Seine, yeah? And we will get to grips with any outstanding issues over a bloody nice meal, okay? Because I'm not happy.

So, that's all we've got time for this month. But if you're after more beef and dairy news, get over to our website now, where you'll find all the usual stuff, as well as our off-topic section, where this month we visit the cheapest hotel in Scotland and try to get to grips with the things that the walls remember. So until next time, beef out. Thanks to John Luke Roberts, Mike Shepard, Mike Wozniak, Henry Packer, Louise Robb, and Linnea Sage.

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