Comedy of the Week - One Person Found This Helpful

Episode Date: March 4, 2024

Frank & guests Simon Evans, Jessica Fostekew, Amy Gledhill and Ahir Shah find out what you think about mead, Poirot and a stinky brontosaurus.This is the panel game based on what we all sit down and do at least once a day – shop online and leave a review, as an all-star panel celebrate the good, the bad & the baffling.Everyone has an online life, and when the great British public put pen to keyboard to leave a review, they almost always write something hilarious. And our all-star panel have to work out just what they were reviewing – and maybe contribute a few reviews of their own... and more... So if you’re the person who went on Trip Advisor to review Ben Nevis as “Very steep and too high”, this show salutes you!Written by Frank Skinner, Catherine Brinkworth, Sarah Dempster, Jason Hazeley, Rajiv Karia, Karl Minns, Katie Sayer & Peter TelloucheDevised by Jason Hazeley and Simon Evans with the producer David TylerA Pozzitive production for BBC Radio 4

This is the BBC. This podcast is supported by advertising outside the UK. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. This is One Person Found This Helpful, with your host, Frank Skinner. Hello, yes, I'm Frank Skinner, and welcome to One Person Found This Helpful, the show where we look at online reviews, and just to get us started is a nice positive review

we found from one satisfied customer who said, I was pepper sprayed in the face, point blank, by the Cambridge, Massachusetts City Police at a weapons manufacturer protest. And my MAC liquid-last 24-hour waterproof eyeliner stayed on. So, please welcome our four-star panel. On my left is Jessica Fosterkew and Simon Evans. And on my right are here Sean and Amy Gledhill.

So this being a show all about reviews, I want to ask the panellists what's the worst or best? I'm happy with best review you've ever had, starting with Jessica. OK, well, my favourite was a short review. Obviously didn't like the show. And my favourite line in this very damning review said, but at least she managed to keep talking for the full 60 minutes. As if at least I managed not just to turn to silence and dust.

Yeah, that's like a stand-up show, more like a filly bust. That's cruel. What's your worst review, Simon? I've had quite a few. 27 years in the business now. I remember Simon Evans strikes me as clabbable in both senses of the word. So, R here, tell us about your terrible reviews.

Well, I think that, as you'll all know, working in the arts in any regard, there's lots of it not being taken particularly seriously as a profession, lots of, oh, and you make a living for that, do you? And lots of disbelief generally. My favourite moment came when a few years ago I was going on Newsnight. I was very excited to be going on Newsnight, so I put on my suit. I felt really good.

I looked in the mirror and thought, I look pretty sharp in my suit. And my then-girlfriend walked into the room and said, wow, and I was like, yeah, yeah, exactly right. And she said, you really look like you have a job. That gives us a little insight into the phrase then-girlfriend. What about you, Amy? I put a clip up when I was really new on YouTube. And now I know you turn the notifications off, right?

But I didn't know that at the time, so I put a clip up, and in the stand-up I was talking about being single, and it went ping, and it had a notification. Someone had commented, and it was this guy, and he said, no wonder she's single, she weighs 100 pound, right? But that's seven stone. That's just seven stone, right? And for the listeners at home,

I'm what your mum would describe as bubbly and your dad would describe as curvy. And then it pinged again, right? And it was the same guy and he went, no, double that. And I was like, well, right, and it was the same guy, and he went, no, double that. And I was like, well, right, 14 stone, I'll take that. Absolutely. Then it pinged again, and then he went, no, I meant more than that. And then this other person who I don't know commented and just went,

mate, what are you doing? And he deleted the whole thing, and I thought that was brilliant. He was sort of playing abuse poker. And ends up just accidentally maths-shaming himself. Yeah. Of course, reviews don't always come from reviewers. In my very early days, I was on the Des O'Connor chat show and it was quite a thrill to be on a big mainstream show.

I said to my sister-in-law, did you see me on the Des O'Connor show? She It was quite a thrill to be on a big mainstream show. I said to my sister-in-law, did you see me on the Des O'Connor show? She said, I saw the first part. No, I can forgive the last part, but not the first. Yeah, so anyway, well done. And it's great that you can all laugh about it now. Okay, this first round is called What Did I Buy? Online shopping is a brilliant thing.

How else could you buy an exercise bike that after two months magically turns into a clothes horse? I'm going to give each team two reviews of something you can buy online and ask them to work out what that thing is. If they can't get it after that, I'll give them a third review, but then they only get one point, not two. So we'll start with Jessica and Simon. Here's your first review.

Colourful, but could do with being a bit longer. Well, presumably it's some sort of sex aid, isn't it? We might as well just go right on the nose there. I'm not familiar with all of the brands. There's one that's... Don't you read which sex aid? We might as well just go right on the nose there. I'm not familiar with all of the brands. There's one that's... LAUGHTER Don't you read which sex, eh? There is actually...

I don't know what it is, what sort of online activity precipitated this, but I do often now get interrupted with a series of little box things, one of which I think is one of these rabbits, which I believe is... They're popular. I mean, they're not very long, though. They're kind of surface manipulation rather than... Wow. Yeah.

My goodness. This is, I think, potentially the most erotic radio show. Simon, this is a side of you I haven't seen. I've overcompensated. This is what always happens. See, my first thought, Colourful but could do with being a bit longer, I thought it might be one of those rainbows that don't quite reach the ground.

You went sex aid. To be fair to Simon, colourful but could do with having been a bit longer is what my wife said the first time she saw me naked. Well, let me give you a second clue. I make homemade sweets and ideally wanted one colour for each flavour. Only works on tiny batches. We'll be looking for larger ones. Hot sugar is not funny.

Well, I've accidentally laughed. Whereas cold sugar, I don't know about you, but cracks me up. Hot sugar is definitely one of the brands I'm familiar with. I feel like some kind of confectionery is being extruded, but I don't know, like a seaside rock-making machine or something? Here's your third review. I can now stir, mix and clean bowls with a previously unrealised rapidity. These are a true marvel. I mean,

how often do you really need to clean a bowl very quickly? The last time I cleaned a bowl really quickly, I was staying at a girlfriend's parents' house. It's some kind of high-end, like probably Italian-designed spatula. It's a spatula. It's a heat-resistant silicone rubber spatula, no less, in a pack of five, which I would say is more spatulas than I will ever use in my life.

Then again, I'm 67. These shoes will probably never need replacing. Okay, it's time for R here and A. May remember you hear two reviews and then you can have a go. Need the third one and you only get one point. So what merited this review? Easy to inflate, takes a while to heat up

if you don't leave it on all the time. Haven't seen an electricity bill yet, but loving it so far. OK, inflatable and heated. Ooh, I like the sound of both of them things. Yeah, yeah. Is it like a warm airbed? Oh! Which would actually be quite nice.

Do they exist? Right, if that doesn't exist yet, none of you are allowed to invent that, cos I just invented it. Well, what do you inflate? Balloons? Yeah. Economies.

Economies. Waistlines. Bouncy castle. Bouncy castle. Oh, but you wouldn't want that heated, wouldn't you? No. You wouldn't want little hot kids. Economies. Economies. Waistlines. Bouncy castle. Bouncy castle. Oh, but you wouldn't want Matt hated, wouldn't you? No. You wouldn't want little hot kids. Maybe we need a second clue.

OK. The air jets are nice, but there's only one setting, 11, and you can't adjust it, so unless you want to continually sit in a maelstrom, it's of limited use. I'd love to be able to turn it down to sneaky fart, use I'd love to be able to turn it down to sneaky fart but but brontosaurus after a feed of beans is all that's available I have to say full marks there not just for using the word maelstrom but for knowing that a brontosaurus is a herbivore so uh what are you thinking i don't mean generally i mean that's not my business well i

mean i i was thinking when it started talking about jets and everything and like oh i've not seen an electricity bill yet but that's like i know lots of people bought hot tubs over covid and those were very expensive uh to run and so i was thinking that maybe it might be a hot tub you're absolutely right. It's an inflatable hot tub. Yes, inflatable hot tub. Great way to tell your neighbours you've got too much money, but also somehow not enough.

So at the end of that round, Jessica and Simon are on one point and are here, and Amy are on two. At the end of that round, Jessica and Simon are on one point and are here, and Amy are on two. OK, this round's called The Reviewee Bites Back. Now, there's nothing people enjoy more than going online and giving a product or service a right pasting, but it can be scary if the business responds. Of course, you can always then reply,

I notice you're responding to my critical Google review of your coffee shop, so it looks like you do have Wi-Fi. So in this round, panellists get to play a small business and I'm going to give them a real review and they get to answer back and then we'll find out what the actual owners really said. Simon, you're on your company website scrolling through reviews

and you suddenly see this. Tight on toppings on pizzas and service very slow. So how do you respond? Like this. I would say congratulations, sir. You have apparently been included in our new preventative health automated

portion control protocols. Customers are monitored on entry of the premises by a system of discrete cameras to assess silhouettes, cheek colour and under-cushion body weight determination scales, analyse 23 different health indexes and adjust portion sizes accordingly. In the event of extreme cases, service is also gently slowed in order to allow insulin resistance to normalise before eating. That is fabulous, I must say.

Would you like to know what the real owner responded? And this, again, I say is absolutely genuine. I think it would have been hard to predict this. Hello, Jean. We are an animal rehoming centre and do not serve pizzas. Again, I say it's absolutely genuine. I think it would have been hard to predict this. Hello, Jean. We are an animal rehoming centre and do not serve pizzas. Oh, my God, what did they eat? OK, next, Amy.

You run a lovely little travel business that offers something for travellers wanting to experience the best of the Scottish Highlands. So you're upset to see this review on TripAdvisor. Good driver but bad guide who refused to speak English. So you would type in response... I'd say, dear sergeant, I'm assuming you're part of the accent police. I think I can see what's happened here. One of our Scottish guides has used their Scottish accent

on a tour of Scotland. Instead of the standard Kent dialect, we teach them in training. This is totally unacceptable, and as well as an apology, I'd like to pay for the dry cleaning of the North Face G-lay you are no doubt sick down. May I suggest for your next visit, you stick to the beautiful Scottish isles of Ealing, Woking or Kettering, you ignorant jobby.

Well, the real response was this. Hi, I am confused by your review. All of our guides speak English and our tours are conducted in English as that is the native language of Scotland. Are you referring to his Scottish accent? Unfortunately, there's nothing I can do about that. That is a totally real review. Ahia, this is a sad story about a military historian who signed up for a so-called Full Monty tank-driving experience

offered by a company called Tanks A Lot. I know. I'd have gone for many tanks, I think. But this was the review. The FV432 and FV433 Abbott armoured fighting vehicles were repeatedly and consistently described as tanks which although torreted is not an accurate representation of how these vehicles are used in modern militaries being far lighter and easier to operate than mbts or main battle tanks how would you reply to that uh i think i would say dear colin you haven't mentioned that your

name is colin but you're definitely called Colin. I think it is worth noting from the tone that you have taken throughout your comment that we are not actually at war. You are fine. You are going on this as a jolly. It's all fine. If you want to drive an actual tank, I can put you in touch with a very nice man called Zelensky, who would love a hand.

The actual man who runs what's it called? Tanks for the Memories? No. Tanks a lot. As for an abbot not being a tank, I think the comedian Ross Noble summed it up beautifully on Top Gear. Clarkson

asked him about his new toy not actually being a tank. His reply was, trust jeremy when you look in your rearview mirror and see me behind you it's a tank i really resent that the biggest laugh of the night's gone to a comic who isn't here so jessica you're busy running a chinese restaurant and you receive this zinger from some... Actually, that's a KFC thing. Trust me. You receive this

zinger from somebody called Megan. Salt and pepper chicken was just shop-bought breaded chicken and was very expensive. I could have made that myself for a quarter of the price. How do you bite back? Like this. Dear Megan, sorry you bite back? Like this.

Dear Megan, sorry you had such a terrible time. Please come again so we can make amends. This time we'll hunt down and catch the chicken in front of you, Megan. You can watch as we freshly strangle and bludgeon it to death for you, Megan, and rip its feathers out live while you enjoy some free prawn cackers. Then, as the chicken lies bleeding on the counter, you can witness us punching and ripping the bread down to crumbs for you as well

for the three to seven hours that that will take. See you soon. We hope it's the least we can do for you, Megan. How do you type in that voice, though? I'm sorry for scaring the audience. The actual reply was this. Hello, Megan. The next time you make salt and pepper chicken, please drop some in for us to try.

If you can make it for a quarter of our price, we'll buy it from you. No point to us making it. OK, this next round's called What Am I Reading? I've picked a book for each team and they're going to hear two real reviews of it and they have to work out what the book is. If you can't get it after that, you can have a third review,

but only for a paltry point. The book can be anything that's printed. A golfer's autobiography, the Ottolenghi cookbook, a Booker Prize-winning novel, or something you might actually read. So we'll start with Jessica and Simon and here's the first genuine review. 3.5 stars. You really can't go wrong with monster slaying badasses,

ill disguised fame whoredom, me drenched partying and heaps of money and sparkly treasures. Baz Luhrmann should totally turn this into an extravagant musical. I'd watch the shit out of it. Is this Berlusconi's autobiography? It's almost embarrassing. There's only one thing this can be. I'm going to have to pretend we don't know what the only book that has mead in it. Yeah, me too.

Actually, there's only one. Should I do the second one quickly and then you can relax? If you want. OK. If I wrote a list of things I don't give a toss about, I'm pretty sure some big monster whose name sounds like a word for the area between my balls and my ass,

told entirely in some ancient form of English that I don't understand would be near the top god do i hate this book so it's beowulf it is the uh the perineum uh in question is grendel which i'm not sure that does work for the i think grendel would have been a great name for an anglo-saxon dating app. Yeah. But you're absolutely right, it is Beowulf. It's the mead soaked, yeah, that's it. There's no other mead, apart from an actual, like, how to grow your own mead or something.

Can you grow mead? No. One more Beowulf review. Dude kills monster, then kills monster's mum. That should be the blurb. That should come with a spoiler warning. There's a great summary in the song That's Entertainment of Hamlet, which is just, we're a ghost and a prince meet

and everyone ends as mincemeat. OK, now, I'll hear, and Amy and Amy have to hear some reviews and guess their book, so here's your first one. I had to buy this after seeing The Debark, the movie that Kenneth Branagh made. The book is so much better. Hmm. What's Kenneth Branagh?

By the way, one reviewer in the same section called him Kevin Branagh. It really doesn't work, does it? Yeah, what's Kev made these days? Old K-Bran? Yeah. I don't know what K-Bran's been up to recently. I saw that film, he made a film called Belfast, but that wasn't a book

beforehand. Has he done all the Poirot, the Nile one? Yeah, Death on the Nile. Did he do an Orient Express? I think so. I'll give you another review. I think this will clear things up. Disappointing.

I quite like the diagram, but the story is too much dependent on coincidence and the guesswork of Poirot that I find illogical. And the story contains some French language. I once saw in a video hire shop in Birmingham they had the film Betty Blue I don't know if you're aware of some fabulous French arthouse movie and somebody had tucked inside the plastic cover a handwritten in biro piece of paper that said subtitles but still a good film. Let me give you the third. Here it comes. What I like about this

review, it's got what I would call a vault fass. In the middle of it, it suddenly turns. Wow. Didn't expect a bunch of murderers in the climax. Average. So,

you've established that it's a Poirot. Yes. There is a Poirot which I would say towers above all others. But the only one that I know that has more than one killer is the Orient Express. Have we mentioned the Orient Express? Yeah, have we? No, Death on the Nile, you kept saying.

We said Death on the Nile and Branagh's done an Orient Express. Well, guess what? The answer is Murder on the Mount and Branagh's done Orient Express. Well, guess what? The answer is Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie. Hey! Yes, a book set in a golden age of travel when trains had unimaginable luxuries, like somewhere to sit. At the end of that round, the scores are Jessica and Simon. Six points are here and Amy, five.

OK, this next round's called Where on Earth Are We? It's about holidays and adventure. Now, Jessica and Simon, you're going to hear a couple of reviews of a tourist attraction. Could be a famous landmark, could be a wonderful experience, and you have to work out what it is. So here's the first one. My eyes got a bit sandy and had a camel spit and poo on me.

Also had a condom wrapper fly into me due to the immense amount of litter everywhere. Sounds like Margate. It's not, um, tanks a lot. What possible use would anyone there have for a condom? I think it sounds like it's trying to invoke some kind of Arabian, but it's probably not been successful. I'll give you the second one.

The saddest sight is the blank. The viewing platform is about eight or nine feet wide. The crowd is dense and you can hardly find a moment to take a picture of the poor beast without someone jumping in front of you in some idiotic pose like kissing or hugging him. The only part of him you can observe unobstructed is his ass and even there, there's

a metal ladder sticking out of it. Sounds like a statue of something then, is it? A sphinx? A sphinx with a ladder sticking out of his ass? Yay! Don't kink shame! I think

between you, you've done pretty well here. What we've got is the pyramids and the sphinx. The pyramids and the sphinx. The pyramids and the Sphinx. Well done. Wow. When the guide is describing the Sphinx, has anyone ever shouted, how does it smell? Because it does have no nose.

Ah, very good, yeah. Very nice. Too clever. It's very controversial, that, though, you know, because there are people who believe that's evidence of water damage which could only have occurred if the Sphinx was at least 12,000 years old. And then you go into Graham Hancock's theory that we have lost an entire civilisation,

of which that's one of the chief artefacts. That and a map which demonstrates the actual coastline of the Antarctic continent, which has been covered by ice sheets for most of what we regard as human history. So that's probably why they don't, because it's very touchy. Don't applaud. I didn't understand a single word.

Well, try this. What about Eric von Daniken's theory that the whole thing was built by aliens? I find those ones really, really funny because it's basically just someone being like, well obviously no one who isn't white could have done this, so aliens probably. Anyway, it was the pyramids that

Geese had together with the Sphinx and there's lots of mixed feelings about it amongst the reviews. The best one, the one I liked best, was the pyramids were nice, but just in the wrong country and place. What they need to phone is Lord Elgin. He's a... I think he's got a removals company that'll sort that out.

OK, let's see if I and Amy can beat that. Where in the world received this review? And I'll give you a clue. You might not have known the place existed before, but you'll soon work it out. We reach a part of Sleeping Beauty. She pretends to sleep. Kids screaming to wake her up. I lift my daughter to touch her to wake her up and Sleeping Beauty starts screaming, don't touch me, don't touch me. Come on, if you don't like kids to touch you, don't work with kids. I don't know if that's a slogan I'm prepared to adopt.

You don't like kids to touch you, just dress as broccoli. Any ideas where they might be? I mean, instinctively, I just thought, like, maybe they're at Disneyland, because you get people who are dressed up as the characters at Disneyland, but then you said that it would be a place

that we didn't know existed. Well, you might not know. It's certainly not as high profile as Disneyland. Right, OK. Oh, it could be somewhere like Butlins. How dare you suggest that that is not as high profile as Disneyland. OK, would you like a second review?

Yeah. The end, where kids were taking the sword out of the stone, kids were being called king and queen, etc. My four-year-old waited patiently for his turn and was so excited to stand on the step and do the same, but the person who was handling there switched it off from the back and my four-year-old couldn't lift the sword. He was so disappointed.

I did request the man to let him but he told my four-year-old that royalty isn't for everyone. And that child was Prince Harry. So, such cruelty. So there's also a sword in the stone thing. Is there a place called Camelot? I don't know. Have you made that up? Is there an experience?

There's a ping-pong ball juggling machine company called Camelot. Yeah. That run the lottery. It isn't that. The third one is replying to a review where someone had been complaining about the ticket price and how expensive the whole thing was and they said that we need the

money because it helps us keep Donkey stocked up on waffles as he loves waffles. Oh, that's cleared everything up. Thank you. I think I Yeah I do know this

Oh good for you We're looking to Steve Oh go on Jess Wait Wait Wait No I thought something would come

I think it's Shrek I'll give you that It's Shrek's Adventure There's a Shrek's World Adventure. It's actually an interactive fairy tale experience in London. I believe it's on the South Bank. And absolutely worth checking out the reviews on TripAdvisor because the company reply to every good one

with the words Shrek-tacular. Only occasionally do they say Shrexcellent, just to vary the thing. I noticed when the person complained about the price, they didn't use the phrase Shrexpensive. But somebody says, as a review of Shrek's Adventure, one line, the 4D experience was just a shaking van.

The 4D experience was just a shaking van. I have to say I've spent some of my happiest days out in a shaking van. I don't mean that I do underworld killings. That's what you're thinking. So the final scores are, Ahir and Amy have six, but Jessica and Simon have hit double figures with a massive ten. Wow. we have six, but Jessica and Simon have hit double figures with a massive ten.

Wow. I'll leave you with a real five-star Google Maps review of Bradwell Nuclear Power Station, which said, something about this place makes me all warm and fuzzy inside. Goodbye! One person found this helpful, was hosted by Frank Skinner and starred Jessica Fosterkew, Simon Evans, Ahir Shah and Amy Bledhill. Goodbye! Thanks for listening to the Comedy of the Week podcast David Tyler and it was a positive production for BBC Radio 4.

Thanks for listening to the Comedy of the Week podcast from BBC Radio 4. If you want more check out the Friday Night Comedy podcast featuring The News Quiz, The Now Show and Dead Ringers. People of the world and surrounding areas, I have some terrible tidings. None

of you, not a single one, has yet been able to listen to my new audio show from BBC Radio 4. But you can thank your lucky uncle that that is all about to change. Please welcome to the stage Jazz E.U.!

Am I really so self-involved? Do I not pay attention to other people? Not really, Jazz. If only Bonson were here, he'd tell me straight. I am here. Oh, my God. Don't scare me like that, Bonson. Listen to Jazz Emu, The Sound of Us,

on BBC Sounds.