The Unbelievable Truth - 27x03 Jackie Chan, Blood, Marsupials, Beds

Episode Date: February 20, 2022

27x03 24 January 2022 Alan Davies, Lucy Porter, Lou Sanders, Justin Edwards Jackie Chan, Blood, Marsupials, Beds

We present The Unbelievable Truth, the panel game built on truth and lies. In the chair, please welcome David Mitchell. Please welcome David Mitchell Hello and welcome to the unbelievable truth the panel show about incredible truths and barely credible lies I'm David Mitchell the Buddha stated there are three things that cannot be hidden the truth the moon and the Sun Clearly he'd never been to Scotland Please welcome Alan Davis, Lucy Porter, Justin Edwards and Lou Sanders. The rules are as follows.

Each panellist will present a short lecture that should be entirely false, save for five hidden truths which their opponent should try to identify. Points are scored by truths that go unnoticed, while other panellists can win points if they spot a truth or lose points if they mistake a lie for a truth. First up is Justin Edwards. Justin, your subject is Jackie Chan, the internationally renowned Hong Kong film star and martial artist

known for his acrobatic fighting style and innovative stunts. Off you go, Justin. Fingers on buzzers, the rest of you. Born in 1956, Jackie Chan was nicknamed Tantiao Luti by his parents, meaning bouncing staircase, for his habit of rolling headfirst down the stairs of their family home without apparent injury.

Lou. Was he born in 1956? Tell me straight. No, he was born in 1954. That is very trickster behaviour. Yeah. Lucy? I mean, since we're here, did he have a nickname because he kept falling down the stairs and bouncing?

No, he didn't. No. I mean, you've barely a sentence in just in its carnage for the panel. No, he wasn't called Bouncy Staircase. His nickname was Pow Pow, meaning cannonball, because the energetic child was always rolling around. This string of childhood stunts shaped Jackie's future, as he swore never to fall over again

and followed his father into the safety of the bakery business. But stunt fights and violence were never far from his mind, and by 2004, the Chan Bakery of Tokyo was famed for its trademark Taekwon sourdough, Ninjam doughnuts and Thai cheesecake. Then one day, as Jackie was delivering a tray of French fancies to the Tokyo headquarters of Warner Brothers, he slipped on a lychee, cartwheeled off a balcony and fell three floors, bouncing off a passing rickshaw to land in a garbage truck.

The Warners executive who witnessed this immediately decided to get their cakes and pastries elsewhere. But Jackie had been bitten by the movie bug and a new career began to blossom. So far he has appeared in over 300 films but despite their violent content does not wish to promote bad behavior. Alan. I believe he's appeared in that many films. He hasn't. According to IMDB he's appeared in that many films. He hasn't. According to IMDB, he's appeared in 141 films. He apparently claims to have appeared in 250, but not more than 300.

He's had so many bangs on the head, you really can't remember. Yeah. It's just, it feels like loads to him. He asked for all swearing to be removed from Rush Hour. I am a role model for many young children, he said, before throwing himself through a plate glass window onto a speeding motorbike and breaking a triad's legs. Lou.

I do think he maybe asked for the swearing to be removed. That's absolutely right. He did. Jackie has recently admitted that he does use stuntmen, but only for driving sensibly and observing the speed limit or Walking normally down a road without jumping on or off things Does he use stuntmen Well, yeah We can't have a gray area here. I know but yet you seem to have found one

I'm gonna give you the point because yes, he does use stuntmen I'm going to give you the point because yes, he does use stuntmen He revealed that though he never uses stunt doubles for fight scenes He does use them for non-action scenes such as when his character is just walking down the street or driving a car normally Basically, he's the stuntman. That's what that means. He is a stuntman. He just gets regular actors. Yeah, he gets someone like, you know Ralph Fiennes Yeah, exactly. Get someone like, you know, Ralph Fiennes.....to sort of do the other bits, you know. And Ralph Fiennes walking is excellent. Yeah, exactly. It's so moving.

Jackie has some unusual superstitions. He wears a life jacket at all times on aeroplanes, he won't call a telephone number that ends in a nine and he won't buy a Chinese television in case it explodes. Lou. One of them, yeah. I think it's the Chinese television. OK. Is it?

Going for that? Yeah. You're absolutely right. Yay! In 2009, Chan faced a backlash in China following a remark he made to Chinese business leaders about the perceived quality of Chinese-made goods. He said, If I need to buy a television, I would definitely buy a Japanese television.

A Chinese television might explode. He was applauded by many in the audience. Jackie has always wanted a pet dog, but suffers from a terrible allergy that leaves him breathless and covered in a rash when even in the same room as one. Undeterred, he has instead a large collection of koi carp. He has built coral baskets for them to sleep in and takes them for underwater walkies in his swimming pool

using a waterproof lead, and he's taught them to roll over on command and die for the emperor. Lucy. I mean, allergic to dogs, keeps koi carp. I mean, he's taught his koi carp to roll over. You're absolutely right. Yay! Yes, Jackie Chan is able to make a koi carp roll over on command

and allow him to rub its belly. You can watch him doing this in a YouTube video entitled Jackie Chan Trains a Fish. So after this, it's either that or The Archers. See, that's why he thinks he's made 250 films. Because he includes ones like that that nobody wants to watch. Yes, I'm not sure if that's in the IMDb. Are you including Jackie Chan Trains a Fish?

Some of my finest work. Particularly the bit where I just walk along to the fish, which is actually played by Ralph Fiennes. Jackie has used his fame to branch out into many other areas. He has built a Jackie Chan-themed campsite, written eight autobiographies and opened a string of Jackie Chan bowling alleys with his face painted onto the balls

along with the slogan, put your fingers in my nose and roll me to victory. Yeah, all of them. Is that you're going for all true? Yeah. No, the campsite. Oh, there's this campsite... I do honestly think bowling. Bowling, bowling, bowling.

Not true, sorry. What's the campsite bit? Do you want to buzz? No. We're not chatting here, are we? Oh, I've got nothing to lose. I'm going to lose anyway, so, yeah, campsite. Not true. Do the eight autobiographies. Do that as well.

Yeah, autobiography. Not true. He's published only two autobiographies. I Am Jackie Chan and Never Grow Up. He's also planning a musical of his life, I Am Jackie Chan. The imaginatively entitled show, will see reworkings of classic hits to reflect his stunt work. Songs include Purple Sprain, Ouch, I Did It Again,

Never Gonna Get Back Up, Blue Suede Bruise, Footloose and Another Brick In The Balls. Lou. The musical, he's planning a musical of his life. Yes, he is, come on. He's planning a musical of his life. Yes, he is. Come on. He is planning a musical of his life! APPLAUSE And that's the end of Justin's lecture.

APPLAUSE And at the end of that round, Justin, you've smuggled no truths past the rest of the panel, which means you've scored no points. APPLAUSE We turn now to Lou Sanders. Lou, your subject is blood, the red liquid that circulates in humans and other vertebrate animals. Off you go, Lou. Blood. My blood type is O. Well, the full name is, oh, my goodness, what a cutie. Some rouge make-up has got real pig's blood in it,

so telling someone you look like a pig today is actually a compliment, thank you, Alan. Alan. Is that true about the make-up with the blood in? Pig's blood in it. No. Oh. No. Got you. In the early 20th century, beetroot juice was applied Yr ysgafn gyda'r blod? Ysgafn pig. Nid. Nid. Mae gennych chi. Yn ystod y 20eg, roedd ychydig o fwrdd o bwys yn cael ei ddefnyddio i'w gwneud rwge

i roi llwyth i'r llyfrau. Yn ôl hynny, roedd ymddygiad golwg rhedeg yn ymddangos yn Sinabar yn rwge. Ond, Sinabar yw oesolwyr o mercuri, sy'n hynod tocsig, ac mae ei ddefnyddio wedi achosi nifer o ddiadau cyntaf. O. O. Ddiadau cynnar. O, ie. Wou!

Ddoddiadau cynnar. Wou! Ddoddiad gan roi llwytho mewn y wyf. Ie. Ydych chi'n chwarae'r ddoddiadau cynnar ym maes ysgrifennu? Mae gennym sgwrs bob tro mae rhywun yn sôn am ddoddiadau cynnar. Os ydych chi'n colli blod yn gyflym ac eich bod am ei stopio, dechrau canu i'ch blod. Mae'r sŵn o'r cerdd yn ei llythu ac yn lleihau'r fflw.

Lucy. Dwi'n meddwl, oherwydd bydd canu'n llythu eich rhaglen, bod rhywun wedi gwneud brofiad i ddangos bod yn llythu'r fflw. Na. Na, nid yw nhw wedi'i wneud. Nid yw'n effeithio ar y fflw. Yn y ffaith, os yw rhywun yn llythu'n fawr, peidiwch â chael amser i gynnal. Mae angen gwneud rhywbeth llawer mwy ymwneud â hynny. blood flow. In fact, if someone's bleeding heavily, don't waste time singing. You need to do something a lot more active.

Well, no, showcase your talents. Shut through the heart. Anne Diamond's nickname is Blood Diamond because she got in a scrap with Keith Duffy where she drew blood. And if you don't believe that, well, let me tell you that Madonna once commissioned a portrait of her and Guy Ritchie

in her own blood. Justin. I think that Madonna might have commissioned a portrait of herself in her own blood. She does seem weird. She does. It's the kind of thing she'd do. But she didn't do that.

She hasn't done that. Oh, I'm checking you left, right and center here. Plausible Madonna weirdness. I love Madonna. Okay, she got the idea from Saddam Hussein, who had a copy of the Koran written in his own blood. Lucy. I mean, whatever we can believe of Madonna,

I think Saddam Hussein we can believe double. Yeah, he's another eccentric. Didn't look as good in a basque, but, yeah, maybe he had a copy of the Quran in his own blood, maybe? You're absolutely right. Yeah. For a period of two years in the late 1990s, Saddam Hussein sat with a nurse and anin a chyllidogydd Islam,

gan gael 27 litr o'i blod ei hun wedi'i ddod o'i llwyr ac wedi'i defnyddio i gyflawni'r Corân. Mae'r text yn cael ei chynnal ar ôl tri drwyloedd o dan mosg yng Nghaerfod. Nid yw'r arweinwyr Moslem yn siŵr beth i'w wneud â'r clywed. Mae ysgrifennu'r Corân yn blod yn ddim, ond mae'n amlwg yn ddigon llaw iawn i ddysgrifio'r Hynigrwydd. Mae'n ymwneud's in a weird sort of limbo.

You get a lot of biscuits for 27 litres of blood. There's a wine at Bella Pasta which is said to taste of blood and costs nearly £200 a bottle. Actually, house red is an expression used in hospitals for blood. The expression for urine is house white and I'm not even going to mention penis colada. Justin. I would like it if house red was the medical term for blood in hospital.

It is! Oh, yes! if house red was the medical term for blood in hospitals. It is! Oh! Yes, blood is frequently referred to in hospitals as house red, particularly in reference to the bags of blood supplied for transfusions. In ancient Egypt, blood was an aphrodisiac, and butchers at the time wore high heels to keep blood off their feet. Well, nobody wants randy feet. Scientists... Alan.

I believe that they would wear some sort of high shoes. No, this is going really badly! As you may infer from Lou's remark, that is true. Yes. Butchers in ancient Egypt wore high heels to enable them to walk safely over the blood of dead animals without slipping. High heels in ancient Egypt were otherwise only worn yn Eglu'r Eglwys roedd yn gwneud eu bod yn gallu eu gwneud yn dda drwy'r blwyd o dynion heb eu llythio. Roedd ymdrechau yn Eglu'r Eglwys yn un arall yn cael eu gwneud gan y clases uchel ac ar gyfer cyfrifoniaeth.

Mae hynny ar gyfer ymdrech. Dyna'r unig tro rwy'n eu gwneud. Mae gwyddonwyr wedi dod o hyd i fod mwyaf o ffis tropeg yn gallu byw mewn tanc yn llawn blwyd. Fe ddechreuwyd fel pranc, ac fe wnaeth yn I think having a younger sibling can raise your blood pressure. You're absolutely right. APPLAUSE According to a study involving 200 families, those with younger brothers had higher total cholesterol levels

and blood pressure up to 6% higher than others in the study. Thank you, Lou. APPLAUSE And at the end of that round, Lou, you've managed to smuggle one truth past the rest of the panel, which is that most tropical fish could survive in a tank filled with human blood. I should have...

Tropical fish require less oxygen than cold-water fish, just 2.66 millilitres of oxygen per litre. Fully oxygenated human blood contains 200 millilitres of oxygen per litre, whichully oxygenated human blood contains 200 milliliters of oxygen per litre, which is enough oxygen for the fish to survive. So they could swim around inside you theoretically. I suppose

but they'd have to be quite small. Yeah. They could happily swim around, I imagine, in the blood system of a blue whale. Couldn't it? Yeah. Huge, great corridors their arteries and veins will be, where the very happy time for the tropical fish... That's probably where the expression, a whale of a time...

LAUGHTER And that means, Lou, that you've scored one point. APPLAUSE There are 60,000 miles of blood vessels in the human body, and if all your blood vessels were laid out in a line, you'd be dead. The Bloody Mary has been scientifically proven to be the best alcoholic drink to enjoy on an aeroplane. On British Airways, it's very much the drink of choice for the pilots.

Next up is Lucy Porter. Lucy is married to fellow panellist Justin Edwards and says she can tell if he's lying just by looking into his eyes, though she does need to fetch a footstool first. Lucy, your subject is marsupials, mammals common to Australia whose young are typically carried in a pouch on their mother's stomach. Off you go, Lucy.

Marsupials have long been associated with power and diplomacy. Napoleon bought his wife Josephine a wombat to make up for not wanting to have it off with her. Peter the Great of Russia took a possum as a mistress and US President Barack Obama was once presented with a six foot buck kangaroo by Australian Prime Minister John Howard

who told Obama, if you can get my wallet back out of that bastard's pouch, you can keep the money yourself, mate. Justin. Did Napoleon give a wombat to... To Josephine. To Josephine, that's the one. Yes, he did. Ah.

Yeah. So nice to hear of a husband giving his wife a thoughtful gift, isn't it? But wasn't it because he wouldn't sleep with her? Well, yeah. And then he later divorced her and married a Habsburg. Is this what you want? I just want a wombat. Kangaroos do not technically jump.

They actually remain perfectly still and push the earth further away from them... ..with their feet. Kangaroos can be easily identified by their brightly coloured antlers, the fact they have two heads, four lungs, three stomachs and are left-handed, which is why you never see them using a pair of scissors. Lou.

Ah. Now. Mm-hm. Don't rush. OK, three stomachs and left-handed. I don't care.dwl y byddwch yn gwneud hynny. Dwi'n meddwl y byddwch yn gwneud hynny. Dwi'n meddwl y byddwch yn gwneud hynny. Dwi'n meddwl y byddwch yn gwneud hynny. Dwi'n meddwl y byddwch yn gwneud hynny. Dwi'n meddwl y byddwch yn gwneud hynny.

Dwi'n meddwl y byddwch yn gwneud hynny. Dwi'n meddwl y byddwch yn gwneud hynny. Dwi'n meddwl y byddwch yn gwneud hynny. Dwi'n meddwl y byddwch yn gwneud hynny. Dwi'n meddwl y byddwch yn gwneud hynny. Dwi'n meddwl y byddwch yn gwneud hynny. Dwi'n meddwl y byddwch yn gwneud hynny. Right, OK, fine. So all of this was totally futile. A study by St Petersburg State University found that 95% of kangaroos are left-handed. Kangaroos are only the second species after humans to be observed

to have a hand preference. Opossums are the Irish cousins of the possum. Opossums are identical to possums in every way, save for their bright red hair and ability to win Eurovision. Kangaroos prefer to think of themselves as lovers rather than fighters and can often be found kissing. Official advice from the Australian government states that if you are attacked by a kangaroo, just relax into it,

close your eyes and, if possible, slip in a bit of tongue. Koalas, on the other hand, are mean, heartless animals. There is no collective noun for a group of koalas, for if more than two are ever gathered together, there can only be carnage. Lou. I think there's no collective noun for them. You're absolutely right. Thank you. Yeah.

Though the collective noun for a group of kangaroos is a mob, there's no collective noun for koalas, as they're mostly solitary creatures, rarely interacting in large numbers. Like you, isn't it? Not until my clones get out. Koalas have got chlamydia as well. Found that out the hard way.

I didn't know that. I found that out a good way, from a Radio 4 recording, rather than, as you implied, sex with a koala. No, it's just a bit of fun. Koalas are one of the ten most deadly things in Australia, coming seventh in the charts between wolf spider bites and overdosing on Tim Tams. Lou.

Mate, are they the seventh most dangerous creature in Australia? Probably not. No. Fine. No, think about it. No, yeah. That's more your style. No, they're not, though.

No, cool, yeah. Lucy. In 1924, Police Sergeant Hector Proctor was the first man to have kangaroo skin successfully grafted onto his testicles. In 1907, dancer Victor Gourlay had one of his Achilles tendons replaced with the wallabies, and in 2018, Piers Morgan had his mouth replaced

with a wombat's anus. Justin. I think the first one's true, the man with the kangaroo... Kangaroo testicles. Kangaroo testicles. Sergeant Hector Proctor. Yes, that sounds very, very likely to me. I love how easily I can deceive you.

Yes, I'm afraid it's not true. And that's the end of Lucy's lecture. And at the end of that round, Lucy, you've managed to smuggle two truths past the rest of the panel, which are that kangaroos can often be found kissing. They often kiss and hug one another, behaviour that has also been recorded amongst polar bears. Oh. That's nice.

Polar bears kissing kangaroos? They love each other. That's a long journey. It's behaviour, they always say. And the second truth is that in 1907, dancer Victor Gourlay had one of his Achilles tendons replaced with a wallaby's. And that means, Lucy, you've scored two points.

APPLAUSE Female kangaroos practise diapause, the ability to pause their pregnancies. They do this in times of drought or famine APPLAUSE Female kangaroos practise diapause, the ability to pause their pregnancies. They do this in times of drought or famine or just to hold out until they move into a better school catchment area. Kangaroos can reach speeds of up to 40 miles an hour, depending on the size of the truck that hits them. It's now the turn of Alan Davis. Alan provides the voiceover for Channel 5's The Dog

Rescuers. He's also recently released an autobiography. The book has been described as impossible to put down, less so the rescued dogs. Your subject, Alan, is beds. Items of furniture principally used for sleeping on, which commonly consist of a rectangular frame and mattress. Off you go, Alan. For nearly 100 years, the UK capital of bed-making was Bedford. In the late... In the late 19th century, the town was making as many as 50,000 beds a day.

However, the 1970s saw the invention of the duvet and today virtually no-one in Bedford bothers to make their beds at all. Hans Christian Andersen was terrified of being buried alive, so he always left a note on his bedside table saying, I only seem to be dead. Justin. I think Hans Christian Andersen was terrified of being buried alive.

He was. And indeed. Anyone is, really. It doesn't have to be Hans Christian Hansen. I don't know anyone that would welcome it. Yes, but he obviously thought it was likely to happen because he also left a note on his bedside saying, I only seem to be dead. What happened when he died?

Presumably. We've given it ten years now and he's... Graham Butterfield, the official bed tester for the manufacturer's Silent Night, has a bottom so sensitive that his buttocks are insured for £1 million. A Chinese inventor developed an earthquake-proof bed designed to protect the sleeper by automatically dropping them into a sealed metal box

when the mechanism detected earth tremors. When it failed to catch on with the public, it was remarketed as the instant coffin. Justin. I believe the first part of that could be true, that you could have had an earthquake-proof bed. Yeah, now Justin said it, I do as well. You're absolutely right, Justin, yes.

You wouldn't have sold one of those to Hans Christian Andersen, would you? The inventor Laszlo Biro had a cousin called Joseph Lilo who invented the inflatable mattress. In 2008, IKEA produced a children's bed they called the Grim Hell after the second in command of the Valkyries. Woolworths tried to follow suit and marketed a children's bed they called the Lolita, but had to remove it from sale after an outcry from parents.

Lou. I think the IKEA bed. The Grim Hell. Yeah, because it's often in foreign names, isn't it? Yeah, they often use foreign names. Dwi'n meddwl y bydd y cerdd Ikea. Y cerdd Grim. Ie, oherwydd mae'n aml yn ymwneud â enwau gwahanol, ond... Ie, maen nhw'n aml yn defnyddio enwau gwahanol. Nid y cerdd Grim, wrth gwrs. Fodd bynnag, mae'r cerdd Ikea wedi gwerthu llawr desg, ei enw yw Milf.

Swyth marmelo, ei enw yw Goedys Scum. Bench gwaith plant, ei enw yw Fartful. A cherdd ysgol, and a shower curtain called Feminvage. But not a grim hell. Well, I don't feel silly now, at least. Lucy. What about Lolita? Let's try that one. Yeah, you're right with Lolita.

Yes. In 2008, Woolworths, which I think went out of business later that year, if I remember rightly, were forced to remove their children's bed, the Lolita Midsleeper Combi, from shelves after an outcry from parents appalled at the connection to Vladimir Nabokov's 1955 novel about a stepfather's sexual obsession with a 12-year-old girl. A spokesman for Woolworth said, What seems to have happened is the staff who run the website had never heard of Lolita and to be honest no one else here had either.

We had to look it up on Wikipedia. As I say they went out of business later that year. LAUGHTER As I say, they went out of business later that year. A few years prior to that, BHS were forced to withdraw their Little Miss Naughty range of padded bras and knickers for pre-teens. And in 2002, Abercrombie & Fitch withdrew a line of children's thongs featuring slogans such as Wink Wink and Eye Candy.

LAUGHTER Lovely, yeah. During the freezing winter of 2010, a holiday inn in Manchester tried using human bed warmers to heat guests' beds instead of traditional hot water bottles. The problem is they do sometimes leak, said a hotel spokesman, so we've decided to use hot water bottles after all. The adventurer Bear Grylls always travels with what he calls his pocket mattress.

It's a thin sheet of waterproof fabric woven by women of the Navajo Nation. And when he's broadcasting from the wilds, no matter how remote or rugged the location may be, he lays it out every night on his hotel bed. Thank you, Alan. And at the end of that round, Alan, you've managed to smuggle two truths past the rest of the panel,

which are that Graham Butterfield, the official bed tester for the manufacturer Silent Night, has a bottom so sensitive that his buttocks are insured for £1 million. And the second truth is that during the winter of 2010 a holiday inn in Manchester tried using human bed warmers to heat guests beds an employee would put on a special toasting suit designed to maximize their heating efficiency and then hop into a guest bed for five minutes before the guests the

complimentary service was trialed in manchester Kensington and kingston branches and was available between 9 p.m. And 11 p.m What a weird idea And that means alan that you've scored two points Which brings us to the final scores. In fourth place, with minus five points, we have Lou Sanders. CHEERING

In third place, with one point, it's Alan Davis. APPLAUSE And in joint first place, with an unassailable four points each, it's this week's winners, Lucy Porter and Justin Edwards. APPLAUSE That's about it for this week. Goodbye. The Unbelievable Truth was devised by John Naismith and Graham Garden and featured David Mitchell in the chair,

with panellists Lucy Porter, Alan Davis, Lou Sanders and Justin Edwards. The chairman's script was written by Dan Gaster and Colin Swash and the producer was John Nason. It was a random production of BBC Radio 4.