Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4 - The Now Show - 27th March 2020 - ft Ellie Taylor, Kai Samra and Dominic Frisby

Episode Date: March 27, 2020

Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis get to grips with the continuing COVID-19 lock-down and disruption with sketches and guestsWith comedians Ellie Taylor, Kai Samra, and Dominic Frisby.Written by the cast, with additional material from Jenny Laville, Robin Morgan, Hannah Fairweather and Simon AlcockProducer Julia McKenzieA BBC Studios Production

This is the BBC. This podcast is supported by advertising outside the UK. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. From the one village behind the mountain. Imagine you're living a very different life on the other side of the world. You feel I cannot do anything. You live silently in the shadows. Just stay home, bring children, make food.

And then someone takes your child, disappears into the night with your little girl, and you can't stay silent any longer. And you'll do whatever it takes, travel thousands of miles across the globe to find your missing daughter. This is my child. I look after this

child like tiger. Just go everywhere. Join me, Sue Mitchell, for this gripping new BBC Radio 4 podcast series. Subscribe to Girl Taken on BBC Sounds. Thank you for downloading the Friday Night Comedy podcast from the BBC. This week, it's The Now Show. Hello, I'm Steve Punt. Um... I'm with the Sorelli-Taylor, Kai Samra, Gemma Rousmith and Dominic Frisby. And this is... Hugh has joined the programme.

The Now Show! Steve has joined the programme. I thought I was already in the... Hello, and welcome to The Now Show, which this week, like everyone else, we're doing via a conference call. Hugh has joined the programme. The Now Show! We've done that. We've done that bit.

No, I got cut off. Hello? Yes, I'm here. Oh, good. Right, so we're all doing the show from home this week. That's right, and I've set up my room specially. I don't think listeners will notice any difference, to be honest. Sounds pretty good to me.

Gemma has joined the programme. Hello, Gemma. Gemma, are you there? So, this week saw the government introduce... That's my line, Steve. That's my line. Sorry, sorry. I think that's your line, yes. So, this week... Gemma has joined the programme.

Gemma, how are you finding recording from home? Get him out! Get him out of the living room! I told you to get him out of the living room. Go on, shoot, shoot, shoot! Get out of here! She seems to be getting on fine. I think this is going to be seamless. Lauren Laverne has joined the programme. Wrong programme! Well, I think we got away with that, Steve.

I don't think anyone will notice a thing. We're all at home this week, where indeed the nation is supposed to be, although quite a large boardroom it isn't, of course, if the pictures of crowded trains and parks are anything to go by. And this is worrying, especially for the most vulnerable groups. A spokesman for the over-70s said... One would really prefer if people would listen to advice from their betters.

Now, some have asked how Prince Charles got tested when frontline NHS workers aren't being, and the answer is a little-known law that says a hospital has to test you if it was opened by or is named after you or any member of your family. Nicholas Whitchell reported that... Charles is in good spirits and is still working. Still working. Does the heir to the throne have a part-time job in Halfords

that we don't know about? But it just proves the virus can reach anyone, which is why there was concern that official advice clearly wasn't being taken seriously by some, including, possibly, the person giving out most of it. Get well soon, Prime Minister. Something had to be done after last weekend when the nation's parks filled with large groups of people.

Although, from the shot I saw on the news of people walking on Clapham Common, they were at least sticking firmly to the paths. So we now know that when it comes to official notices, the British public are more worried by the ones that say... Please keep off the grass. ..than the ones which say... Please keep apart to avoid spreading the fatal virus.

So at Cobra this week, two plans were apparently discussed to enforce social distancing. The first was to take advantage of all the football being cancelled and redeploying the referees to every park in the country with a can of spray foam. The second was to start being a bit more firm, because the advice we'd been getting was vague and entirely voluntary. The idea was to gently nudge us, but let's face it, that's not really how state crackdowns are supposed to work. Black vans don't drive around the streets with loudspeakers going, attention, attention, you are hereby advised very strongly that vans don't drive around the streets with loudspeakers going, Attention! Attention!

You are hereby advised very strongly that if you don't mind, it really would be awfully nice of you if you could, as it were, forbear for many leisurely perambulations of a non-urgent nature if it's not too much trouble. Frankly, the last few weeks have been a bit like having the supply teacher in charge. I repeat, you must, without exception, have a jolly good think before heading outside. We know it's a bit of a nuisance, but it really does help to avoid systemic collapse of the

health infrastructure. And the sanctions against offenders were similar. Anyone disobeying this order, well, more of a guideline, a strict guideline, sort of an edict. Anyone disobeying will face being moaned about by Piers Morgan. So on Monday, we decided we needed to catch up with the rest of Europe, where lockdowns are showing up fascinating cultural differences. In Italy, for example, you are allowed to go outside for a cigarette, presumably to help you relax from the stress of worrying about contracting a lung disease. In France, in order to leave the house, you have to fill in a form explaining why you need to go out, which seems very draconian,

but at the same time, very French. Name? Jacques Montel. Age? 38 years. Reason to be outside? It is spring, all of nature whispers of love. The air itself she stirs with the timeless passions of the heart.

You may go. Merci. I really can't see anyone on this side of the channel filling in forms to leave the house. It's just not us. And do you know what would happen? Name? Who wants to know?

Age? Nuff off, cheeky sod! We're not very good at following rules, and you suspect the government know that, which is why they tried to keep things as voluntary as possible. Trouble was, it didn't work, so they've had to crack down. And now you're not even supposed to visit family members who don't live with you.

This may have been added by the Prime Minister, as he does have more family he doesn't live with than most people. But all this comes less than three weeks since we were told that going to football matches was fine because the virus couldn't live long outdoors. We're all supposed to make only essential journeys, do essential jobs and buy essential foods. But then again, such fuzzy language. What does that mean? Well, it depends who you ask. The Waitrose Essentials range includes tinned artichoke hearts, limoncello desserts and chamomile soap. Which you should not spread on toast instead of butter,

no matter what Gwyneth Paltrow says. Jamie Oliver's store cupboard essentials include... Light coconut milk, good quality tinned anchovies and smoked paprika. While lovefood.com says we all need... Thai fish sauce, bulgur wheat and redcurrant jelly. One of the worst post-pub snacks I have ever concocted.

My own essential is some arctic roll. It's not edible, it's frozen andrex they sell at Iceland. I would say ketchup is essential, or passata for Waitrose customers. But essential is a very flexible term. Yeah, WH Smith's decided to stay open this week since news agents are on the list of essential shops.

This forced their staff to remain exposed and in desperation they're offering customers half-priced chocolate to stand two metres from the till. Leisureware jumble sale outlet Sports Direct also tried to claim they were an essential service. Which they could be, in theory, but only if they gave free Sports Direct mugs to all NHS workers so they could get through an 18-hour shift on a single cup of tea.

And when they've finished the tea, those mugs are also big enough to put right over their face to replace the masks they're not being supplied with. Anyway, Sports Direct boss Mike Ashley has now joined several other well-known bosses in the public's list of lockdown villains. Coronavirus is rapidly becoming the sorting hat for bastards. Tim Martin.

Hmm. Slytherin. Richard Branson. Hmm. Slytherin. Gary Neville. Hmm. Gryffindor.

Gryffindor. Most shops are now online only. Locksmiths Timpsons closed all their outlets on Monday, which was particularly significant, as it means that key workers don't count as key workers. For the next three weeks, we're only supposed to be shopping for food, and even then, buying as little of it as we need. Supermarkets are cracking down on ways to stop people buying more than that,

and the old way of doing things, where you're charged less the more you buy, might have to be completely reversed. At Test Freeze, we've got special offers to really surprise you. This farmhouse loaf is just £1.20. Buy two and the other one is £6.50. This delicious Italian pasta is just £1.49. Buy a multi-pack of six and you'll get dirty looks and abuse from fellow shoppers absolutely free. And these disposable nappies have been reduced to just

a distant memory. So stay away from Tess Breeze. Tess Breeze, thwarting selfish shoppers for you. If you try ordering online, you'll find supermarket deliveries are so oversubscribed you can't even register anymore. But other retailers are still delivering. So they really ought to include food in their service. DFS could deliver you a wardrobe full of potatoes, an actual spice cupboard or a sofa stuffed with prawns. Some places are doing their best to help out. High street banks have all offered various schemes. RBS have deferred loan repayments.

TSB have waived charges for closing accounts. Lloyds have arranged for a large horse to majestically roam the streets, symbolising power and strength, thereby subconsciously raising morale, plus we like the horse. But let's try and think positive. It was pointed out this week that there is a strong possibility that in 1606, Shakespeare used the months he spent in quarantine against plague to write King Lear.

Working in isolation at home was probably no easier then than it is now. I have left food at your door. For this much thanks, dear wife. Oh, for a loaf of bread that I may feed my muse. Bread canst thou not find, nor fruit, nor meats. And as for toilet parchment, not one hope dost thou have. Toilet parchment, that precious spool, that long enravelment of softest wood pulp, tightly wound on spindle of card, how do I miss thee? Without thee, I dare not eat any more of these figs.

The merchants say they may have some tomorrow. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, that's all I hear. Tomorrow and tomorrow, that's all I hear. Our guests this week have come all the way across their living rooms to be with us. With a report from the Lego-strewn trenches of the home front, we have Ellie Taylor. It's been a week now since schools and nurseries across the UK closed for an undefined length of time. When this episode airs, many parents like me will have just finished their fifth day of hunkering down with their offspring and their 37th bottle of wine. Thankfully, at this mad time that's thrust parents into a strange and extremely pressured situation, there's heaps of activities online. Loads of advice, especially if you've got school-age kids.

Advice is everywhere. you can't move for it gorgeous facebook posts from teachers offering guidance although one imagines what teachers really want to write is hi all i teach key stage three so just wanted to say to all my parent friends now see how you like it you bunch of punks And you've only got to deal with a couple of them. I do it every day with 30 of the little gits and with no Disney Plus. There is no doubt that this is going to be an education for both kids and parents. All over the country, mums and dads have suddenly become headteachers of brand new academies where the dress code is pyjamas, discipline is based around access to Minecraft and the school motto is Colloquium Vocatus Emata Clausa,

which loosely translates as, Mummy's on a conference call, shut up! All over the world, i.e. my Instagram feed, I'm watching parents unravel, and they are unravelling into two distinct camps. There's the group who are being positive polys, and keep underlining what an amazing opportunity it is to spend so much extra There's the group who are being positive pollies and keep underlining what an amazing opportunity it is to spend so much extra time with the kids and how it's only 10am

and they've already done nine craft products, written a TED talk on cephalopods and are now embarking on a family activity redesigning the Milton Keynes roundabout system. Then there's the other group who I'll call despairing from, who lasted half a time's table session before immediately leaving their children out for the foxes. I too am a parent working from home, but I'm in a slightly different situation. Firstly, because my kid's 16 months old, so her education is less maths and English and more, please stop licking the fence. And secondly, I'm a comedian. So after this show, I don't actually have any work in my

diary till 2023. And that's my mum's 70th. And even that's only a pencil because she's hoping Bradley Walsh might be free. I keep seeing everywhere these lovely, thoughtful, hopeful posts saying that as a society, we should be using this enforced period at home to create and write and read and reflect and plant and paint and potter. Potter! I would love to do these things, but it's very hard to paint and potter when you have a housemate who screams unless you chase them with a hoover that you also have to pretend is a dog called Kevin. I can't do anything with this time.

I would love to write a screenplay or marry condom a pyrex, but unfortunately my working situation does not allow this. My current colleagues are my toddler and husband. One will only eat bananas and poos in the bath and the other one is my toddler. It's the wild west of workplaces. There's no distinct chain of command, a very uncompetitive salary package, zero benefits, and no HR department to complain to when your co-worker wipes snot on your back midway through a two-hour session playing horsey-horsey. And sometimes my toddler is annoying too. Yes, it's safe to say, like any parent, I am highly unlikely to come out of this experience with a new language under my belt on my first novel sitting on my desktop.

But you know what? If we're lucky, our families will all come out of this well and happy, and our collective, imminent and intimate knowledge of the songs from Frozen 2 will lead to one hell of a street party at the end of all this. Plus, we must also think of the positives of having the kids at home, like no more scramble for the school or nursery run, no need to yell, put your shoes on,

because the outdoors is now an outdated concept, much like restaurant reservations or the phrase, give granny a kiss. Plus, if all this homeschooling means one child is saved the fate of accidentally calling their teacher mum in front of a whole class of their giggling peers, then I, for one, think it's worth it. So to everyone out there currently in charge of raising and educating the next generation, I say give yourself a damn break. And if you're a single parent or a grandparent raising your grandkids, good news, you get to take two to three damn breaks and will also

receive a limited edition fountain pen. Equations and Oxbow Lakes will always be there, happily hibernating in a textbook, waiting for our brains, child or adult, to be receptive to learning again. But for now, the key lessons on all of our timetables should really just focus on love and safety. Let's take the emphasis off what we can do in this strange hiatus and for a little while perhaps let's just be. And what I can be right now is an excellent horsey horsey. Ellie Taylor there. Now it's going to be a very long summer because nothing is going to be happening. Everything has been cancelled and this week, after long deliberations,

Tokyo 2020, the Olympics for people with perfect eyesight, has now been postponed for a year till 2021. Although, weirdly, it's still going to be called Tokyo 2020. Yes, handily avoiding having to pulp all the merchandise that's already been made. But it's not such a bad idea. We could petition Parliament to call next year 2020 and forget that this version of it ever happened. Yeah, that would be a relief to so many people, people who live on floodplains, Liverpool fans, Brexit negotiators.

Yeah, you do have to feel a bit sorry for those supporters in red who for months now have seemed numerically certain of victory, yet they haven't quite officially got it over the line quite yet as they wait and wait to find out if Keir Starmer will become the leader of the Labour Party. Yeah, the result of that particular election is due next week, but the contest has been going on for months, literally through fires, floods and pestilence.

It feels like it will never end. In the year 2020, the machines launched an all-out war on humanity. Every city stood in ruins while the Terminators roamed the radioactive wasteland that was our world. Meanwhile, in underground bunkers, the last survivors gathered and decided that the best person to lead the fight back was probably Keir Starmer, but with two other strong candidates. The future had not yet been written. John Connor didn't make the final ballot.

Although whoever wins, Jeremy Corbyn has said that he's not going anywhere. Mind you, neither is anyone else over 70 if they're following government advice properly. What must be most annoying for him is that he's stepping down just as all his dreams are coming true. The government is paying workers' wages. Private businesses are being ordered to close. Private hospitals handed over to state control. It's Corbyn-like Christmas. Ho, ho, ho!

In your stocking, you'll find 80% of your wages. And if you've been very, very good, some toilet roll. To be honest, it does feel a bit Christmassy at the moment. Everyone's at home with the kids off school, shops are closed, no-one knows what day it is, people are drinking by 10am. Or is that just me? Of course the kids aren't really off school, as Ellie was saying. The country has switched to schooling at home

and the teachers are still working online while pupils quickly adapt time-honoured rituals for the electronic age. One teacher posted on Twitter this week that her class were using the chat function to ask her questions and that on her screen were appearing things like... Miss, can I take my blazer off? Miss, am I allowed to go to the toilet? Miss, the dog ate my memory stick.

We made that last one up. It's not a huge deal, so it's a great deal of today's schoolwork is all online anyway. The danger is it all works too well and that somewhere in the treasury they're quietly realising how much money they could save by not having school buildings at all. Now the reason we're all isolating of course is to try and lower the burden on the NHS and manufacturers including Dyson and various car companies are switching production to build vital equipment. The Department of Health's procurement people, though, are not going to be used to this.

Just checking on the progress of our order. Right, well, we've looked carefully at your requirements and we've come up with this. The all-new Range Rover Ventilator X-Air with luxury heated face mask and seven-speed automatic hydraulic gullet pump. Listen to that motor. Feel the wind in your hair yes technically i really need to feel it in my nose and mouth and it doesn't really need alloy wheels these arrangements are necessary though because what we've learned is that all these years where

we've been assured that the country was well prepared for something like this it wasn't true nhs staff don't have enough equipment or protection, although the system is adapting fast. But there are positives in the situation. The air is cleaner, there are dolphins in Venice, and in my street, everything is very, very quiet. Except next door, where the teenagers are digging a tunnel.

Joining us now in Coventry is stand-up comedian Kai Samra. What have you been up to, Kai? I've mostly been spending my time eating takeaways, playing video games and binge-watching old episodes of Only Fools and Horses. So I'll be honest, this whole quarantine business has not been a drastic change of affairs. It's difficult to pretend that things are the same, though, isn't it? Like, I tried to get food in Asda this morning,

but because of panic buying, it felt less like I was shopping and more like I was in a live action role play of supermarket sweep. However, things were very different last week. I was actually in India last week. And I was born in the UK. My parents are Indian. I've always felt Indian, always felt a bit more Indian than British. But then what happened was I actually went to India and I realised I am not Indian. I look Indian, people assume I'm Indian, but I was actually made in the Midlands, which scientifically speaking means I've actually got all the ethnic authenticity of a chicken tikka pukka pie. Now, the reason I was in India was for a holiday, to get away from work, social media, improve my anxiety a bit, which meant that I'd actually switched off my phone

for an entire month, which meant that this whole coronavirus pandemic completely passed me by. So about a week ago, I turned on my phone for the first time and I was like, oh, I've got a Twitter notification. I wonder what this is. What is it? Oh, it's the end of the world. And during the outbreak, I really noticed the difference between the UK and India. In what way? Well, the UK were planning to close down restaurants, schools, university. In India? Well, in Kerala, they closed down the breakfast buffet. But to be fair, now their response has been far more effective than the UK's. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced an address to the nation that the entire country would be, in his words, lockdown, total lockdown, which sounds like the name of a new Vin Diesel film than it

is a health measure. People in India showed their full support for this measure. In what way? Well, they celebrated it by having a massive outdoor street party where thousands upon thousands of Indians all congregated together, completely negating the whole point of it in the first place. Now the police in India are taking it to a whole new level by introducing new ways to remind the Indian people of the importance of washing their hands. Instead of the UK government telling people to simply just sing happy birthday, police in Punjab have created a new Bhangra song along with a completely new Bhangra dance called Corona Corona, ironically creating a new viral sensation. Swapping the the famous bangra moves with just changing the light bulb and petting the dog they've gone for classic dance moves such as squeezing the sanitizer

putting on the invisible mask and sneezing into your elbow all done while dancing two meters apart from each other i'm going to be honest it's not gangnam style but it definitely is something to give an example of what it was like in kerala as soon as news broke out about the pandemic government officials came into our hotel and ordered us to go straight back to the UK, at which point me and my girlfriend had to run away from Kerala like the worst Bonnie and Clyde you've ever seen to get the train back to Mumbai. Now, I'm not sure if you've ever taken a train in India, but it is, to put it mildly, a hell of an experience. But this time it was far worse. There were delays, there were long queues,

trains were overcrowded. But bearing in mind I come from a country that created great western railway, the fact that it was still running was actually a welcome relief. We finally got to Mumbai airport and were greeted with the police who were notoriously strict. They tried to greet us with a coronavirus test. We tried to greet them with the coronavirus Bhangra dance, which I'll be honest did not go down well. And one thing we noticed at Mumbai airport was a huge amount of young British middle-class students who were all cutting their gap years short. I spoke to one whose name was Sebastian, obviously. I asked him why he was on a gap year to India in the first place. And he said, and this is true, to experience real poverty. And I remember thinking, Sebastian, you could have just stayed

in the UK for that, mate. We would never accept that the other way around, would we? Like, we wouldn't accept rich Indian kids from Mumbai turning up at Heathrow and being like, hey, we're just on a gap here. Yeah, we're just here to experience real poverty. Great. Where are you going? Middlesbrough. Sorry, what? So we quickly did Sebastian and thankfully we got the last plane back to the UK. Now, I'm not going to lie, being back in the UK was a relief. But being in India was an incredible experience. I met some wonderful people and it made me think about my own identity, my own image of what India was like. And I don't know how the current 21 day lockdown is going to work.

But one thing I do know is that from now on I'll almost certainly be washing my hands to this. Kai Samra there. So, we put online a question for listeners about their routine. What is your routine in lockdown? And we have had some replies on this. This one, I think, is my favourite. Breakfast, homeschool starts, watch Peppa Pig with subtitles, so it classes as a reading lesson.

Lunch, wife arrives, or surprise Ofsted inspection, homeschool shut down following classification of requires improvement. There's one from a Generation Xer here who says, I'm from the Trumpton era, so my routine, brew, brew, watching the news, crumpet, nibbles, grub. We also asked you to email us with amusing things you've seen or heard during the week, and this is my favourite. An innovative method to beat the pasta shortage has been discovered with a bit of lateral thinking. While the supermarket shelves are empty, Anne Somers still has bags of penis-shaped pasta in store and online. Luckily, when cooked, you can pass it off to the children as elephant's trunks.

That's a top tip, isn't it? Because Anne Summer's is not a place I would look for pasta. There's also been sent a warning to us which goes, I know this time of self-isolation is hard and scary for people, but however bad you're feeling, please, please don't consider starting your own podcast. We're all need to be vigilant of the dangers. We're outside the dangerous age. Yeah, we're out of the dangerous zone there. That's fine.

So it's been such a horrible week all round. We thought we would end with a song this week from Dominic Frisby. But first, we need the credits. Hugh. Yeah, you've been listening to The Now Show, starring Steve Punt, Hugh Dennis, Ellie Taylor, Kai Samra, Gemma Arrowsmith and Dominic Frisby. It was written by the cast with additional material

from Jenny Lavelle, Robin Morgan, Simon Alcock and Hannah Fairweather. The producer was Julia McKenzie and it was a BBC Studios production. A short, short time ago Life was flying by so fast No time for anything Then lockdown handed me my chance I was finally going to write a book

Learn how to mix cocktails and to cook. I was gonna lose weight and get so fit, spend some quality time with the wife and kids. I would do a course in computer code, Invoice all of the money that I'm owed Learn a language and the names of the stars And teach myself how to play guitar Do seminars and pen my memoirs Now I'm sat in my pants Slugging back wine In a kind of a trance Gone fully port-signed

Turns out that my kids just drive me mad And as for my wife, oh Christ she nags Close proximity should not be allowed. Do you actually have to blink so loud? You're blinking so loud, you blink so loud. Dreaming of all the things I'm going to do When this coronavirus is through I am finally going to write a book Learn how to mix cocktails and to cook

I am gonna lose weight and get so fit. Spend some quality time with the wife and kids. The wife and the kids, my lovely kids. Not much time to go. Till from quarantine we're free. That's when I will know that my problems really mean. Do you ever worry you're not cut out for adult life? Or that being a grown-up isn't all it's cracked up to be? Maybe you're feeling the pressure to get married, a fold-up bike, free kids and an ISA?

Or maybe you're just as skint, frustrated and confused as we are. Either way, we have the solution. The Grown-Up Land podcast. With me, Sophie Duker. Heidi Regan. And Ned Sedgwick. Every week we're joined by brilliant guests to talk about things like marriage, money, love and loneliness.

And we often end up sharing just a little bit too much about our personal lives. Yet can we do an episode about the anxiety that you have shared too much on a podcast? I can relate. That's Grown-Up Land, the podcast about the bewildering pursuit of adulthood. Make sure you subscribe on BBC Sounds.