Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4 - The Now Show - 20th November 2020

Episode Date: November 20, 2020

Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis get to grips (from a safe distance) with all things 2020 in the form of sketches and guest contributions.Felicity Ward takes a trip to a land down under, Lost Voice Guy warms up for Christmas party season and Flo and Joan hear from Dolly Parton on how to get things done...Additional voices from Karen Bartke and George FouracresWritten by the cast, with additional material from Jenny Laville, Toussaint Douglass, Mary O'Connell and Charlie DinkinProduction Co-Ordinator: Caroline Barlow Engineer and Editor: David ThomasProducer: Adnan AhmedA BBC Studios Production

This is the BBC. This podcast is supported by advertising outside the UK. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. True crime on BBC Sounds. When he was 23, he met Carla at a pet convention. All accounts of the story, it was love at first sight. The problem is that things got out of hand they were just not what you expect serial killers to look like why do people do bad things this is a podcast where

we explore people we consider to be the worst around looking at their crimes and the psychology behind them what is the line between thought and action? Bad people. Listen now on BBC Sounds. Hello, I'm Steve Punt. And I'm Hugh Dennis. With us are Felicity Ward, Lost Voice Guy, Flo and Joan, George Fouracres and Karen Bartkey. And this is...

The Now Show! So we come to the end of the first week in which the government have had to cope without Dominic Cummings. Yes, he was controversial, but Cummings did achieve some remarkable things. For a start, no-one has ever become that unpopular, that quickly with the British public without marrying into the royal family first. Will Cummings be missed in Downing Street?

Well, that depends what left with him. Has anyone seen the list of uplifting and enthusiastic things I planned to say about devolution to show how much I value Scotland? Yes, Prime Minister. I think I saw Dominic put it in that large cardboard box he was carrying. My fully worked out plan for a final Brexit deal? Yes, Prime Minister, I think I saw Dominic put it in that large cardboard box he was carrying. My fully worked out plan for a final Brexit deal? Pretty sure that also went in the cardboard box, yeah.

There are, of course, rumours that Cummings will be hell-bent on seeking revenge, which does seem likely. The truth is that his box was actually filled with Number 10's entire stock of toilet roll and a voodoo doll of Boris so he can still operate him from outside the building. No sooner had he lost his evil Svengala, a trusted advisor, than the Prime Minister had to go back into self-isolation. He spent about 35 minutes with MP Lee Anderson, who then lost all sense of taste the next day. Carrie Simmons said a similar thing happened to her,

and now she's stuck with him. By coincidence, Dido Harding is also self-isolating after receiving a notification from her Test and Trace app. It read, this app is rubbish, don't bother coming in. For all his own troubles, Boris must be delighted that the Labour Party is still arguing about Jeremy, with the NEC and Keir Starmer seemingly opposed to each other over his status. Bit boring for the rest of us, though. Is Corbyn in or out was what everyone was asking all the way through Brexit. You'd think a Brexit deal might be Downing Street's priority at the moment,

but actually the Prime Minister has spent all week doing what politicians love doing best, making vague promises for a decade's time. First came the Green Industrial Revolution, which includes a plan to quadruple our offshore wind capability. To be fair, it isn't a vague promise. Two of the Prime Minister's old college friends have already won a multi-million pound contract to supply the turbine blades via a company they set up yesterday. The plans also include planting 30,000 new trees a year and an ambition to have a town completely powered by hydrogen.

And possibly a big sign on the way in reading Twinned with the Hindenburg. Seems a bit dangerous in a windy country. This is an extraordinary sight. Basingstoke, the country's first town powered entirely by hydrogen, has floated away and is heading for France, along with most of Britain's new inflatable customs facilities. High winds have been blamed, although there are unconfirmed reports

of a bald, cross-looking man with a cardboard box leaving the scene. This isn't the first pilot of its kind, of course. The government once tried heating a town entirely by helium, but angry residents seemed protested. The mayor told the Today programme... We're just being used as guinea pigs. No-one takes this town seriously any more. Labour have responded, as you'd expect,

to the Green Revolution plans. This doesn't go far enough. The plans should be much more... By arguing with each other about their previous leader. They did manage to offer a proposal of their own. A zero-carbon army of young people. Which is a development on the current government policy

of a zero-hours army of young people. I'm not sure a zero-carbon army is a great idea, though. Hydrogen-powered missiles and recyclable bullets are one thing, but the electric tanks are vulnerable to air attack while they're charging for eight hours. Electric cars, though, are to get more government backing,

which is lucky, as one of the Prime Minister's old-school friends set up an electric car company yesterday. The plan is to ban new petrol and diesel cars in ten years' time. It may make us safer, but it will mean that future series of police camera action are much less exciting. In Brentford, Essex, the helicopter unit is a truck in a stolen car. He's heading east, east, east on the A12. Car's in pursuit. Over. The thief is driving at the speed restriction limit of 70 miles per hour.

The squad car is following him at a distance maintained by the road positioning sensors. He is turning off, turning off towards Doddinghurst, now doing statutory 50 miles per hour. Over. Suddenly, the chase is over. The police move in with their own piece of handheld electronic technology. Ah! Thanks to the on-board Wi-Fi, everyone back at the station can watch the tasering on their phones. Just another day's work for Britain's increasingly bored traffic cops. As well as a green revolution, plans were also announced for a large increase in defence spending. Clearly the result of Dominic Cummings' defence review,

since it includes plans for a new high-tech weapon to wipe out thousands of civil servants while leaving their buildings intact to be sold to property developers. It also includes a new ground-to-air missile system. Target is at 20,000 feet, heading south-southeast. It has been identified as the town of Basingstoke. Lock on and fire. In other news, a number of wind turbines, part of Downing Street's commitment to quadrupling the offshore wind capability, have collapsed after an explosion in the North Sea. The cause is unknown, but there are unconfirmed reports of a bald, cross-looking man with a cardboard box watching the scene from the deck of a mini-submarine.

The BBC did also receive an anonymous phone message this afternoon, which said... We also received an anonymous phone message this afternoon, which said... LAUGHTER What was in my box? LAUGHTER Now, is a Tim Tam really just a penguin? Here to give us her take on how Brits and Aussies are handling coronavirus the same but differently, it's Felicity Ward. I've been living in the UK for

seven years, so I've kept a keen eye on how my sunburnt brethren back home have been dealing with COVID-19. I'm surprised to say, as you will be to hear, that Australia has been, how do I say this, relatively successful. It's rare that I hear the question, you know who's handled this crisis really well and sensibly, that the answer is then Australia. Australia has been known to lash out in the midst of a much milder crisis. For example, we had the great banana shortage after the floods in 2014. They were 18 Australian dollars a kilo and we were turning on family members. It was nearly a civil war over potassium. By the way, I was going to convert the joke for you, but bananas were £9.86 per 2.204 pounds. Just didn't have the same ring to it. Now, Australia have not dealt with the pandemic

perfectly. We're no New Zealand. They seem to be the gold standard of how to do most things as a country. In her first term, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has had a baby, then calmly and confidently led her country through a terrorist attack, a volcano and a pandemic. I mean, if there is such a thing as the new world order, would it be so bad if she was the president? At the very worst, it would be hilarious hearing a world leader say the words, thus as a dictator shop. So how are the UK faring? Well, I've lived here long enough to learn not to be direct in the way I confront a problem, so I should say the UK are in a bit of a pickle. And I know that's hard to hear,

especially from an Australian. It's just like when I suggest your avocados in the UK are crunchy. You just don't like to hear that from a visitor, or as you call them, foreigners. Let me put it this way. If the pandemic were the ashes, the UK would very much be in the midst of the Ricky Ponting captaincy years. And maybe it's our longstanding rivalry. But if Britain finds out Australia is dealing with something better than them, they immediately try to find a reason, or as we call them, an excuse. Obviously, no one has pointed this out to me in person. That would be the height of un-Britishness and breaking current lockdown guidance. However, the wonderful thing about Twitter is you never have to say anything to anyone's face.

And in lockdown, the Brits have really been interacting with me on Twitter. They have thrown off those heavy cultural shackles of gallantry and restraint. They've discovered the phrase, I think you'll find. And they have really let rip. When presenting evidence on Twitter as to why Australia has done so well, I was firmly reassured that there's no point comparing the UK to Australia, because many scientists, like at Jacob9960284379, let me know that I was, as I've mentioned, incorrect, or as we call it, Australian. Let me tell you all the reasons why Australia has had success at dealing with the coronavirus that weren't actually about

the measures we took or the strategies that were implemented. Reason number one, well, it's because of Australia's landmass. It's true, Australia is a continent, but it's mostly uninhabitable. Like a pre-election promise, it's massive, but empty. Reason number two, it's because your population is so small. This is not the first time a man on the internet has tried to convince me why smaller is better. Nevertheless, if you work it out proportionately, Australia is still miles ahead in terms of managing numbers. Reason number three, oh yeah, but it's the temperature. Let's clear this up once and for all.

It is not always hot and sunny across the country all the time in Australia. And while I'm here, I don't know Kylie Minogue and I've never owned a kangaroo. Am I related to someone from the Neighbours cast? Yes, but that's not the point. People were telling me that Australia had not been successful, but lucky, Which is unfair. We put so many measures in place. Most importantly, closing the borders. Which is confusing, because I thought that sort of thing was right up your alley.

Choosing parties who literally spent years talking about nothing else. A vote to say, well, yes, we'd like that very much. Changing the colour of your passport to say, we are Britain, no one else allowed. And then this beautiful open goal presents itself in which no one would judge you as a nation. In fact, people would praise you and you didn't take it. I'm not saying all this because I think Australia is better. I'm saying this because I choose to live in Britain. I love Britain. My neighbours are British. My colleagues are British. Hell, even my husband is British. We shouldn't compete. We should learn from each other. After seven years of living here, I've learnt that it's important, nay, a national right that you should be able to buy a sandwich from a petrol station, a chemist or a WH Smith. It's

a lesson that I've learnt well and repeatedly. And I'm seeing that you are learning from Australia that your coffee doesn't have to taste like a hot puddle in a car park. You've opened your hearts to us. So let's work together to keep our nation safe so you can still do tours of Ramsey Street and we can still move to Clapham and steal your girlfriends and your jobs. Finishti Ward there. Now, what do Moderna, Pfizer and AstraZeneca

all have in common? They're all best-selling mid-range family cars. Wrong. They're all pharmaceutical companies who have recently announced Covid vaccine test results. Results so promising that Gavin Williamson wants them downgraded.

Sadly, the British government hadn't pre-ordered any Moderna vaccine, the most successful one so far. No, but fortunately, one of the countries that had pre-ordered had also put it straight onto eBay, along with a new PS5. So we got lucky. We got lucky because a kind of national bidding war seems to have broken out about how effective each vaccine is.

The Pfizer vaccine? 90% Russia's Sputnik vaccine? 92%. America's Moderna vaccine? 95%. All we're waiting for now is for Donald Trump to claim he's personally invented a vaccine which is 100% effective and also makes you immune to losing an election. In their eagerness to roll out the vaccine, the government are roping in people to administer the injections. Not just doctors, but also dentists, physiotherapists, well, pretty much anyone who can wheel the sharp object with any kind of accuracy could be called in. 180! I'm not another person now, am you? The government are even recruiting vets for anyone who wants to be injected by the

same person who put their guinea pig to sleep. And also army medical staff who have the advantage of being able to perform inoculations at night using infrared glasses. Although not everyone will want to be given an injection by an army doctor, their technique usually involves tearing your clothing open

and jabbing you with a needle while shouting Hang in there son. The chopper's coming. You're going to make it. Vaccinations will also be given by medical students, the same students who've been locked in their rooms all term. Members of the government will have to be very careful where they get their injections done. So you would blame the second wave on us? Besides the four we know about, there are dozens of other vaccines in development across the world. Eventually there will be so many it will be hard to choose between them. They may have to advertise themselves, building their image with those cool adverts where they always whisper at the end. Whisper at the end by Calvin Klein. Oh, I do find that so irritating. It's such a cliche. Cliche. Parfum de Paris. Stop whispering. I'm so bored with it. The new Astra

Seneca. Drive immune. That's enough. Honestly, I will buy any car or fragrance that doesn't hiss its name at me. The hiss. Ba-ba-ga-ra-ba. However many there are, what we'll be paying for vaccines is nowhere near as much as the reported cost of the government's Operation Moonshot testing programme. It's an odd name, of course, because the UK has never actually been to the moon. The government ought to name it after somewhere British people actually go, like Operation Tenerife or Operation Wetherspoons.

Operation Moonshot has been estimated at £100 billion. NASA's actual moonshot, planned for 2024, $30 billion. So we could go to the actual moon and back four times for the same price as Operation Moonshot. Or we could buy one first-class return on Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic. All this vaccine news, though, has come at a handy time because a report this week gave details of the hasty shenanigans that went on earlier in the year in awarding PPE contracts.

One £350 million contract, for example, was given to a small pest control company. Oh, hello. Is this Pest Fix? Yes, how can we help? I have a pest issue. I need to get rid of one from my house. Is it a rodent or an insect? It's Dominic Cummings. I'm not sure which category he falls into. Another PPE contract worth £250 million was handed to a Florida-based jewellery designer. Now, you can see the government's thinking there they might have refused to give NHS workers a pay rise,

but at least they can look fabulous. Patient is stable at 135 over 80, so I need 0.25 unfractionated heparin, this small scalpel. One of those gowns! Where did you get that? Oh, it's just a little thing I found in the PPE store. Oh, it is to die for. Not you, sir. Sorry. The feel-good factor was also behind government plans this week

to have a five-day period over Christmas where families are allowed to mix indoors so Christmas dinners can happen as normal. This would be a relief to turkey farmers, less so for turkeys who are unlikely to support this measure as they would literally be turkeys voting for Christmas. Where does that come from though, the idea of turkeys voting for Christmas? What kind of vote is that? Well I don't know but recently I've got more of an idea. I think the actual situation was probably a bit more complicated. And with 80% of results declared, we are projecting that turkeys have, as expected, voted against Christmas. Brad.

Thanks, Gina. And yes, it seems the polls were correct and Christmas has proved an unpopular choice with the crucial large edible bird demographic. The turkeys have said no from both left and right wings. However, news is coming in that the chief turkey is refusing to concede. He claims the ballot boxes were stuffed. Turkeys of this country voted for Christmas in historic numbers, huge numbers. I call upon all turkeys to rise up. That controversial claim that turkeys did in fact vote for Christmas will be sorted out in the courts. Today, a judge in Pennsylvania heard a plea consisting of a series of meaningless gobbling noises. And when Rudy Giuliani had finished, the judge also listened to the turkey. Who doesn't love an office Christmas party? Lukewarm Pinot Grigio, embarrassing yourself

in front of the boss, and this year you can do it all from the comfort of your own home. With a guide to getting digitally festive, here's going to work. Office Christmas parties are supposed to be a chance to relax and unwind. You don't want to be worrying about if your broadband is going to go down, or if your child is going to run naked through the living room, while you're trying to butter up the chief executive, for that pay rise, you've been waiting on for five years. And what about the Christmas office party romance? That is the highlight of any work's Christmas do. How on earth is Colin from HR meant to snog Sally from accounts, virtually?

I mean he could send a dick pic through Microsoft Teams, but I wouldn't recommend it. It's a disaster waiting to happen. Hi, Jack. You having a good night? I think he's on mute, Becky. Jack, you have to take yourself off mute. Why are you shouting when he's on mute? Oh, yeah.

Hang on. Is that the office photocopier in Jack's living room? It looks like. Why's he pulling his trousers down? He knows his camera's still on, mate. Jack! Jack, stop it! Oh God, he's photocopying his arse. How did he even get that home? Seeing as I rely on technology a lot already to speak,

you probably think I've embraced all the changes in the past year. But you'd be wrong. As a comedian, my whole job relies on interaction with the audience. And I certainly haven't had much of that, in 2020. For a comic, there's nothing worse than doing an online comedy gig. Standing there in your kitchen, telling jokes to no one, and getting no reaction whatsoever. It reminds me a lot of the first time I performed at the Edinburgh Fringe. On the upside, the journey home after the gig takes no time at all, and half the time, I'm only dressed from the waist up. I've hardly done any washing in the last six months. Even the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, is getting in on the act, as he took part in this week's

Prime Minister's Questions via Zoom. Unfortunately for him, it looked more like the world's worst hostage video, rather than a leader, addressing Parliament. Still, at least his kids didn't walk in by accident. That would have taken hours. I'm just disappointed that the first question wasn't, would the Prime Minister please stand up, as we have an office sweepstake, that you are conducting this hour, in your Margaret Thatcher underpants. The question is, now that all this technology has come into our lives, will we ever go back, to what it was like before? Or will pub quizzes

be replaced by Zoom quizzes? And will I forever be telling jokes half naked in my kitchen? I don't know where all this will end either. And at what point will the technology gain control and overthrow civilization? I mean am I even speaking to you now, or has my iPad already taken over? speaking to you now, or has my iPad already taken over? I guess you'll never know until it's too late. Lost voice guy there. So this week has seen more internal strife within the Labour Party, as Jeremy Corbyn was reinstated to the party, quickly followed by Keir Starmer refusing to let him sit as

a Labour MP, saying his remarks had undermined trust. Joining us now to give us an insight into exactly what is going on is Times journalist and co-author of the best-selling book Left Out, the inside story of Labour under Corbyn, Patrick Maguire. Hi Patrick, thank you so much for coming on. This is another twist, isn't it, in the Corbyn story. So is this what you were expecting to happen? No, because when Jeremy Corbyn's case was considered by the Labour National Executive Committee the other day, it happened after 19 days. And people usually wait months, if not years, to have their cases considered by that committee. So that implied that somewhere along the line, someone had taken the decision to get Jeremy Corbyn to the front of the queue and wait for all this to blow over. But it was only after he was

readmitted as a party member and people started kicking off, Jewish community bodies, Labour MPs threatening to resign, that then at that point, Keir Starmer felt impelled to do something and complicate this story even further. Tell us something about the NEC. It has representation from right across the party, doesn't it? It does. So it's a body that reflects the status of the Labour Party as a number of competing, almost feudal construction of competing tribes. So you have lots of trade unions with representation. You have people who are appointed by Keir Starmer. You have people who are appointed by Labour MPs. You also have people who are elected directly by the grassroots, and they all sit together.

So it's a very unwieldy construction full of competing interests. And Keir Starmer has a majority on that body. We're really into wheels within wheels stuff now. That is almost as complicated as the United States electoral system, isn't it? Am I right in thinking that the Conservative Party doesn't have any equivalent of the NEC? The 1922 committee is just MPs, right? Yeah, it is.

So a Labour leader has a considerably higher mountain to climb when they're taking on all levels of the party at once. Well, the great unspoken thing is the Conservative Party doesn't really do internal democracy. The interesting question for Keir Starmer, and the tricky thing for Keirir Starmer is that MPs are not supreme in the Labour Party. There are so many different sources of legitimacy. It's always been a tripartite structure between the unions, MPs and the party membership. And often those three groups have different priorities. And certainly now they are really acutely split between wanting a resolution to this that sees Jeremy Corbyn back in the party, not wanting Jeremy Corbyn in the party at all. And then you have this middle position, which Keir Starmer probably represents, which is he would rather this problem went away, but he can't be seen to let the Jewish community down in the 97th system, which was one of his first promises as Labour leader. And in your book, presumably the publishing of your book meant that you thought we'd reached the end point, did it, of the Corbyn story. So this is a new chapter?

Well, chapter or two, probably. It's very tricky to see where this one goes, because partly because it's quite unusual for a Labour leader or a previous party leader criticising their successor. You know, when Ted Heath did it, you know, constantly moaning about Thatcher, it was considered very bad form indeed. So that's part of the reason why this is such a tricky situation to navigate, because everybody is ripping at Preston. Well, thank you for leading us out of the labyrinth that underlies the Labour Party. Patrick Maguire.

Yeah, thank you, Patrick. Now, we're still keen to try and solve the mystery of what was in Dominic Cummings' cardboard box, so we have asked listeners for their theories. His glasses in a map? There was nothing in the box. Someone had said, on your way out, could you pop this in the recycling? His actual achievements. It was quite a small box, wasn't it?

Several people suggested an increasingly small series of cardboard boxes. A tiny cardboard House of Commons diorama he made at school when he was 11, where all the cardboard politicians in the chamber have his face. The box contained several thousand Republican votes from the US election. Well, thank you for those.

There'll be another audience question next week, which you can find on Twitter at BBC Now Show. To play us out this week, it's Flo and Joan. They may have been working nine to five on this song, but unlike Dolly Parton, they haven't also part-funded a vaccine. The Queen Supreme of the country Seeing is branching out on new vaccines I got a body for sin but a brain for answering prayers

It is no coincidence that the Japs said 9 to 5 percent. I'm just like Stephen Hawking but with better hair. And how are your heels? Hell hallelujah. I'll bring the good cure to you.

They always say that blondes have more fun. Don't underrate this Tennessee and I'm saving the world. Where you been? Yeah, Dolly gets it done.

There's lots of boobs in power making whoopsies by the hour. We watch them screw it up again and again. But really, it's quite easy to get money where it's needed. Not all blondes are bimbos, just the one in number 10. And now that we've done COVID, I've got other things to fix. I'm coming for you, cancer and ricketts, you're on my list. Herpes, acne, and people with bad dress sense, we're going to help you, baby. And I've got a gun with an A's on it for people who make thin gravy That's a personal one Hail Miley Cyrus

Get that cure inside us And by the way My vaccine makes you gay Who said that? My eyes are up here and I'm a double D That's Dr. Dolly now if you please Oh, Dolly gets it done And when you get your vaccine

And your GP Remember that you'll always love me Yeah, Dolly gets it done You've been listening to The Now Show starring Steve Punz, Hugh Dennis, Felicity Ward, Lost Voice Guy, George Fouracres and Karen Barkey. It was written by the cast with additional material from Jenny Lavelle, Toussaint Douglas,

Mary O'Connell and Charlie Dinkin. The music was composed and performed by Flo and Joan. The producer was Adnan Ahmed and it was a BBC Studios production. From BBC Radio 4, a new series from Intrigue, Mayday. On November 11th, 2019, James LeMessurier was found dead in Istanbul. He was the ex-British army officer who helped set up the White Helmets in Syria. Ordinary people trained to save civilians in the aftermath of bomb attacks.

The biggest heroes in an ugly war. civilians in the aftermath of bomb attacks, the biggest heroes in an ugly war. But lots of people here in the UK say all the White Helmets videos are staged, part of the greatest hoax in history. I'm Chloe Hedgermetho and I've spent the last year investigating the White Helmets and James LeMessurier, who they are, who he was and why he died. Subscribe to Intrigue now on BBC Sounds.