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We've been all around the world.
Whole world tour.
Australia, New Zealand, Central Europe, Eastern Europe.
All through America, all of UK and Ireland.
And now we're filming it in the Top Secret Comedy Club.
Right by Covent Garden where I was a street performer for four years, so...
it comes all the way around.
I went down to Covent Garden. It was nice, it was all ready for Christmas.
That was my old life, back between '85 and '89,
and now we're here, 30 years later.
I just wanted to see that before I came and did this show.
How does that make you feel?
Good, I like the circles. Well, you know my whole theory, the universe is about circles.
And anything that circles round tends to be good.
The circle of life, the circle of the universe, the circle of the globe,
the circle of orbits.
What goes around comes around.
If you do good things, you can get benefits back to you.
We start off as little small children
and we don't have much capability in our bodies
and we end up shrinking down to little old men and old women,
who don't have much capability and control of their bodies.
And then it ends. Everything seems to go around in circles.
Ah, that's, uh, that's just a lot of bottles
going into a bottle bank, I assume.
Because we're here in this,
as you can hear from the whir, you can hear this in the background.
This is a car park. That is the fan for an underground car park here at Central London.
And everything's just jammed together.
So, back in the clubs, like in the early days.
I'll keep eating nuts because apparently they're good for you.
This one, I don't like so much.
Do I like this one? I like this one.
Now I'm gonna put this away and I'm gonna get ready.
Goodbye to everyone, for the moment. Cheers.
Now stop filming.
Okay, you can cut there.
And the bigger gigs at the London Palladium on this tour,
you throw out the lines and the laughs come back,
then you throw out the next line.
That's more like an ocean liner.
A speedboat adapts and moves quickly.
That's what this one was like, they react faster.
Very much like playing in the Comedy Store, playing in the early clubs in London.
Keeps you on your toes.
This audience isn't necessarily fans of mine.
They are people from the mailing list of the Top Secret Comedy Club.
They're not going to go with everything. You've got to win them over.
Please welcome Eddie Izzard.
Good evening!
Hello.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to my Wunderbar show.
Yes, thank you.
Tonight, I'm gonna talk about everything.
I'll talk about from the Big Bang up to last Thursday,
all that stuff.
Since the Big Bang, there have been five great mass extinctions.
Not one, not two, but five.
Uh, which means the creatures came
and they had lots of eyes...
Then they blew up or disappeared or went on holiday and never came back,
and then a second lot turned up.
Then they all disappeared.
The fifth lot were the dinosaurs.
You know about them, 165 million years we had of those guys.
Remember, we've had about 500 years of good stuff.
165 million years of...
That's all they did.
Morning, noon and night.
They were pirates.
We're pretty sure now.
We don't know if they ever said "Jim Lad."
But we know they went...
Then, as you may well know, a big rock came from outer space again,
pretty random to me, and... hit down in the Gulf of Mexico.
All this stuff went up into the atmosphere
and killed the weather systems and the dinosaurs died
in the K-T extinction within two years,
and some say these days it could be... There's a new theory, it could be within two hours.
With tsunamis of water and fire and all the dinosaurs were gone.
Only 25 percent of creatures made it through.
And one was a little shrew-like meerkat-ish creature.
Little mammal, underground, and his name was Kenny. We think.
We're not sure of that, we're making a guess there.
And we are related to him.
That's not a plan, is it?
That's... You wouldn't... You wouldn't...
You wouldn't vote for this God in a referendum.
It's too much like a crack plan, isn't it?
Think about it. If all the dinosaurs did go in two hours...
We know they went, but if it was in that two hours,
it would've gone overnight and all these underground creatures,
next morning, they would've got up and gone...
Boom. Boom.
I'm gonna go upstairs.
Where the fuck is it?
"Hi." "Yeah?"
"There's no fucking thing up here."
"What?"
"There's no fucking thing here."
"Oh, I can't hear."
"Where the fuck is it?" "I don't know."
"That's what I mean."
That could be true.
That may be why meerkats are often seen going...
Because they remember that day.
Oh, yes.
So, this little creature made it through.
It was a shrew-like creature that ate insects.
So, we ate a lot of insects.
Then at a certain point went... This is disgusting.
Then we stopped eating insects and asked for steaks and things and breakfast cereal.
And later on, we became the great apes.
Of course, we all were part of the great apes.
With the gorillas and chimpanzees.
Then the gorillas separated from us and the bonobos and those guys,
about ten million years ago, and they went and stood over there.
I don't know why, but they just separated.
Six million years ago, the chimpanzees separated from us.
They took all the bananas with them.
Fucking hell.
First banana jokes were six million years ago, we know that.
They found...
They found the remains of a chimpanzee in that position
where he'd obviously fallen on a banana skin.
We're pretty sure.
Then we started to talk 100,000 years ago.
100,000 years ago, we started to talk.
The FOXP2 gene is very central to this.
So, 100,000 years ago, talking.
There's the cognitive revolution which is about 70,000 years ago,
which is imagination, those two things are us.
Talking plus imagination equals humans.
Apart from that, we're just...
we're the same as the rest of the animals.
But the talking, very important. We got it 100,000 years ago.
This FOXP2 gene, we don't know how we got it, but we know we got it
100,000 years ago, probably on a Tuesday, about half-three.
We think something like that.
And we were just monkey people. Just gatherers,
just going around...
"Wow.
"Oh, this one's very tasty.
"I'm talking, Gerald. I'm talking, can you hear me?
"I always thought you're Gerald.
"Are you Gerald? You can't talk.
"You can't talk. Try one of these.
"Open your mouth. Shut up. Just open your mouth."
"Why did you do that?
"Oh, my God. I'm talking too.
"I said, Oh, my God, is there a God? I don't think so.
"Gerald, this is amazing."
"I can't be Gerald, you're Gerald. I'm Gerald? Two Geralds.
"That's not going to work."
"Well, who the fuck are you then?"
"I am Samantha..."
"Are you gender-fluid?"
"I'm gender-fucking-liquid, baby."
"Are we talking German?"
"Could be German, could be Spanish, could be French.
"Could be English.
"No, I think it's probably English or Spanish.
"Seems quite easy, this.
"The Germans would have more rules in their language."
"Yes, they would, masculine, feminine, neuter, 'things made out of wood.'
"I agree."
And then there came a point where they...
we left Africa, the "out of Africa" theory.
"Come, we must get out of Africa.
"You other monkeys, you non-talky monkey people,
"you stay here and guard the village, we're going
"out of Africa. Going to make a film.
"It will be on DVD eventually.
"So, you stay... Can you understand?
"Do you... Just..."
"Don't want to stay."
"You speak English?"
"Do you speak German?" "Si."
"Do you speak Spanish?" "Ja."
"How did you learn four languages?"
"We bought tapes, okay?"
"Where did you buy tapes?" "We bought them online."
"Online?" "Yeah, the line over there, we're just hanging on.
"My uncle sells them.
"Two bananas each."
"Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle."
"No, that's him. He's the monkey's uncle."
So, yes, so, 100,000 years ago we started talking
and from that day, 100,000 years ago to here,
today in London, nothing really has happened.
No, it's been kinda "same old, same old."
We did start to think 70,000 years ago, apparently.
Which is interesting, the cognitive revolution.
But, uh, I think we invented God on the way, I think we invented God.
Makes sense, to... to answer things that we didn't understand.
'Cause if there was a God, I think everything should pray, not everyone but everything.
Al the animals should pray.
You've never seen an animal praying.
Never seen tigers praying, "We're going in for a hunt, going to get a buffalo.
"We're going to have breakfast. Padre, quick prayer. Thank you.
"Eyes down for a full house.
"Oh, great God, Timmy the tiger who lives...
"who lives up in the clouds, until that day when we learn to fly
"through the clouds and then we notice he isn't there,
"and we'll just never mention it again.
"God, Timmy, please bless this, our hunt.
"Make our feet fleet of foot.
"Whatever that means.
"Make our teeth even more pointed than they usually are.
"And when we find a young and tender buffalo, please let us
"tear him apart in an orgy of blood and violence in your mercy.
"Aah... tigers."
That should happen, but it doesn't.
Now, we started this show in Paris next to Notre Dame cathedral.
A beautiful cathedral. I do like the buildings.
You know, Notre Dame is a testament to human creativity,
built for a God who didn't make it to the opening night.
When they opened the Notre Dame cathedral,
he didn't make it to the 500th year anniversary of the building.
Didn't make it when it was on fire,
which you'd think he could've turned up then.
Just go, "Sorry, I'll get some rain clouds. Come on, lads, rain clouds. Here we go."
But they are beautiful buildings.
Cathedrals, churches, especially with candles.
I love them with candles.
I always get a candle for Mom, a candle for Dad.
I like that part of the Catholic faith. The rest of it, I'm gonna leave.
Just the candle bits.
It makes churches look fantastic, especially in an action movie.
They look excellent, don't they?
Jason Bourne.
♪ Ahh
There's this wonderful, contemplative moment
where you look at it and it's great.
And some cathedrals are mixing it up, Liverpool Cathedral has a cafe in it.
I think that's excellent. Good laugh. Um, just saying.
Have you just joined us?
Okay, you'll have to stuff a sock in that.
Uh... otherwise it's gonna be ruling the show.
But yes, Liverpool Cathedral has a cafe in there
and I think that's good, Jesus would have liked that.
He said, "My table is not a place... house of money,
"but coffee, yes, because I've got a Sermon on the Mount coming up
"and I gotta stay awake and learn all these lines."
So, Notre Dame cathedral is beautiful,
it's got flying buttresses, arc boutons,
if you want to drop that into conversation, ever.
Um, and it's called Notre Dame,
it's named after an American football team.
Which is... which is kinda crazy.
Some people say. Others say, "Notre Dame, 'our lady.' It's the mother of Jesus."
Apparently, she built it or caused it to be built.
She came over from Judaea, it's a whole Dan Brown, Da Vinci Code, kind of story.
Came over way back in 1973, before any of us were born.
Going...
"But who are you?"
"I'm Mrs. Jesus, I am.
"My son told me to build this."
"But he died 2,000 years ago."
"Yeah, traffic was hell.
"They're digging up the Mediterranean to put in irrigation."
"Mrs. Jesus, tell us the story." "Well, well, my son, he was on his death bed."
"Mom, I'm on my death bed, Mom.
"I'm dying. The Romans, they got me, Mom."
"What happened?" "I'll tell you what happened.
"I was in the Garden of Gethsemane
"with Judas and James and Matthew and Kenny.
"Stevie Nicks, Roger McGough.
"Che Guevara.
"Uh, Konrad Adenauer, Kenny Dalglish and the Pope,
"and we're all playing Shove Ha'penny and Scrabble.
"And then the Romans come in and they got me.
"It all went tits up, Mom.
"You must build a cathedral." "I will build a cathedral.
"What's a cathedral?" "I dunno, I made it up in Scrabble.
"300 points on a triple word."
"I'll build one in Jerusalem." "Not Jerusalem, no, that's gonna be a nightmare
"with politics there.
"And traffic is bad. Um...
"Paris, why not Paris?" "Oh, Paris, why Paris?"
"For the tourists." "Oh, yeah."
"Make it colder there, Mom. I want it like a fridge." "All right.
"I'll put yoghurt and ham everywhere." "Yes, yoghurt and ham.
"That makes it a fridge.
"And also..." That's my fridge.
Funnier than it was yesterday.
"Yeah, yoghurt and ham, Mom, and,
"in the cathedral, put lots of candles in the cathedral as well.
"Not too many, could burn down."
Yeah, well, the French firefighters,
they saved that cathedral. It's a beautiful building.
And President Macron said it'll be rebuilt in five years
and I'm absolutely sure they'll keep their word
and it'll be rebuilt and be even better than before.
And it will have more sprinkler systems than you've ever seen.
So, well done to them. But I was in Notre Dame,
a year ago I was there. No, two years ago.
Uh, no, five years ago, I was there.
I've never been there, actually, but...
No, of course, I was there, I was there. No.
No, I have been there.
No, of course. Everyone. You go to Paris, you go to...
I was there with Engelbert Humperdinck last time.
And Ziggova Bambleback was there.
And Slod Van Walle was there.
And I was talking to the priest, "Monsieur le priest,
"vous avez beaucoup of the candles here.
"Mucho mucho.
"and my question to you is, warum haben Sie..." German.
"...all these candles here, why?"
And he wasn't smoking, he was vaping.
So much smoke in vaping.
What is happening? It's like a Hogwarts train of smoke, isn't it?
It has killed the film noir.
Do you remember film noir, with the cigarettes and hats on?
"Kenny, you gotta get out of town. Mr. Big's home."
"Mr. Big?
"He's so big." "I know.
"That's why we call him Mr. Big.
"He's gonna kill you, Kenny."
"Don't think so. Sticks and stones may break my bones,
"but names will never hurt me."
"He's got a gun." "Ah, shit."
With vaping? "Kenny, you gotta get out of town.
"Mr. Big's coming."
"Fucking exploded, man."
"No, I'm still here."
"You smell of vanilla."
Yes, indeed. So, anyway,
talking to the priest. Monsieur le priest. He was there...
"Oh, you sell the... and it raises money for religion?"
"Und pour acheter more of the blood of Christ and body of Christ for communion."
We've been eating his body and drinking his blood for 2,000 years
and he wasn't that big to begin with.
Which is true, in the strict rules of the Catholic faith,
they are not eating a facsimile of his body,
they're eating his real body and drinking his real blood
in a cannibalistic, vampiristic way
that is never pointed out.
And how tall was he? How big was he?
Was the Sermon on the Mount the Sermon of the Mount?
Was he some sort of mountain man and they keep...
"Saw another bit off him.
"Let's munch away at that on Sundays."
But this new pope, the guy who just became pope
like ten years ago, I dunno.
Somewhat... The latest pope.
I like him, I think he's got a different thing going on.
He's much more South American than the rest of them.
Um, he's much more, "Buenas fucking noches, guys!
"Hey, ole!"
And, uh, he's changed things.
You know, because you have the body of Christ
and the blood old Christ, and they used to get vin de table, ordinary table wine.
They'd bless it and it becomes... but now they're using
uh, Cotes du Rhone and Pouilly-Fume, Burgundies, Beaujolais.
Really fruity wines, you know?
Strong, great tastes.
For the blood of Christ. It's really working well.
The body of Christ, they're using Focaccia bread
uh, sourdough breads.
You know, very good breads that you can get in Sainsbury's.
And, uh, and it's taken off. There's queues around the block.
Sunday mornings... Have you seen the pictures?
Seven o'clock, queues around the block
for Notre Dame cathedral. "Uh, blood of Christ, please, large one.
"Aah!
"Another one, please."
"Oh, it's one each, I'm terribly sorry."
"Oh, this isn't a bar? I thought it was a bar.
"They look like this these days."
Merci beaucoup.
"C'est formidable, the blood of Christ.
"Is the body of Christ close? 'Cause I'm a little bit drunk now."
"Thank you, two bits, please.
"One's for me and one's for my religious friend. He's got his foot stuck in a pew.
"Do you have any butter?"
"Thought that was a rule. No? No worries.
"Wipe on, wipe off. Wipe on, wipe off.
"Wipe on, wipe off."
That's how it started. Yeah, you see?
'Cause when Christians, the lions were going on,
it was karate that kept them going.
"Wipe on, wipe off."
They were all, "Uh... Lion!"
That's how it all started.
Because Father, Son and Holy Ghost, that doesn't make sense,
'cause there's four points to the cross and there's only a Holy Trinity.
Three into four don't go. Do you remember your mathematics?
Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Who's that guy?
Is that Kenny?
But they put on a service, don't they?
I dunno if you're Catholic or you if you met a Catholic once.
Some of my best friends are Catholic.
Sorry, it's a thing people say.
Well, in the old days it used to matter, I grew up and
I went to a boarding school after Mum died.
And there was one Catholic kid in our... In these boarding houses.
And every Sunday, we'd have to troop off to church
to hear someone go, "And now...
"we shall read from the Book of Death.
"Chapters four to eight million.
"And then Shadrac went into a small pen
"and he set fire to his tonsils."
And this went on and on and on.
But the Catholic guy, he had to go, "You can go off to your own church."
He could do whatever he wanted, go down to the pub.
It seemed a lot better to be Catholic, you see.
That was my only frame of reference.
Okay, I lost you all. That's okay.
It's just in the old days it was Catholic against Protestant
and they would burn each other at the stake.
And nowadays, it's slightly different.
But not in Glasgow.
Where they'll try and kill each other.
But they put on a service, don't they? In the Catholic faith, they've got
carpets, tapestries, stained-glass windows.
Someone sets fire to a handbag, they spin that round,
that always looks fun.
The priests, they often talk in Latin.
No one understands Latin, it's a clever idea.
'Cause it means the priests can make mistakes
and no one knows.
Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti. Cumulonimbus.
Stratocumulus. Cominangonis baked potatus.
Inspectum Patronum.
Rubber duckus, cor blimus.
But as you probably know, the French
are lapsed Catholics, whereas we in the United Kingdom are lapsed Protestants.
We have cathedrals as well, but they're full of nothing.
Because King Henry VIII, he took it all
when he split from the Catholic faith.
So, this was back in the year 15...
Henry VIII was born in 15...
And he became king in 15... farther, bit later.
And he split from the Catholic faith in 15... sometime after.
Now, Henry, he said, "We're going to separate from the Catholic church"
and they stripped all the Catholic churches.
"We'll take everything, the gold and tapestries."
They took all the precious stuff down
and said, "King, what do we do with it?"
He said, "Put it in a blender, I'm going to eat it.
'Cause he had this eating disorder called "munch too much." And...
Some of us have this in this world, some of us eat and when we are sated,
when our hunger is sated, we go, 'That's enough for me."
But Henry VIII, he ate cake mix and cakes and trees,
helicopters, baked potatoes, ratatouille,
swans, uh...
people from outer space, anything.
He was just... on and on and on.
You've seen these menus that the kings would eat.
And he became a large lad.
And he married six women, he married Catherine of Aragon
very arrogant, that's why she was called that.
Second wife was Anne Boleyn,
who invented the Bowline knot, very good climber.
Would've climbed Everest but she didn't know where it was.
Third wife was Sally from Birmingham, I believe.
She died in a harpoon accident.
Yes, 'cause Henry had been watching, uh,
Dr. No and Thunderball,
which were medieval plays at the time.
And in Thunderball, there's a harpoon scene...
"Ooh, she got the point," and that's, uh...
You're not going for this, are you? But it's true.
It's true.
Fourth wife was Scottish, Lady Macbeth.
She was always cleaning.
"Just get the blood off this carpet, Henry.
"Bit of blood on the ceiling here, as well."
So, he divorced her, he was scared of her.
Fifth wife had no name,
she was from spaghetti westerns
and he lost her down the back of the sofa one day.
"I can't find her anywhere."
Sixth wife was Elizabeth. Of course, she's still on the throne.
And...
Five hundred years old, doing very well.
Lost the muscles in her smile,
but she's a fighter. She's a game-bird.
So, those were the six wives of Henry VIII.
And Henry VIII of course died, he exploded. That's how he died.
As you well know, he ate a mint and exploded.
"Really, was it a big mint stuck in his throat?" No, it was a thin mint.
Almost wafer-thin, some people say.
So, yes, these are all true things.
But many English kings, as you probably know, have exploded.
Henry VIII, exploded, William the Conqueror, exploded.
King Kenny IX, exploded.
Okay, two kings. That's quite a lot of kings, isn't it?
So, William the Conqui-bum, he did explode.
He did, he did, he did. That's what happened.
So, this is all 1066 stuff.
And 1066, an important date
for the English, not the British.
Because we lose the Battle of Hastings in 1066,
but we won the World Cup that year.
So...
Swings and round-abouts.
A thousand years ago since we won the football World Cup,
that's how long it seems to us.
But this is all William of Normandy, back in the north of France.
Before 1066.
He was eight years old
when he inherited the dukedom of Normandy.
This is the power list in the old days, it was king, most powerful, then Duke,
then Earl, Baron, Viscount...
Bloke in a hedge. Okay?
So, it's right up there.
Very powerful position, and he was eight. And he was an illegitimate child.
A bastard child.
His father was Robert the Magnificent, amazing name.
He was obviously very good at karaoke.
And when singing one evening, he obviously fell over on a spike and died.
And he'd had a child with a hairdresser,
I believe she was.
Called Veronique or Sally or Jeff.
And... "Bonjour. Hello.
"What do you do?" "I am a slave."
"Oh, the Middle Ages, yeah. What can you do?
"All right, I'll give you short back and sides.
"Give you one of those weird haircuts like in the Bayeux Tapestry.
"So, what you doing the weekend?" "Working, I'm a slave."
"Oh, yeah. Slavery.
"What am I like?
"So, where are you going on your holidays?"
"Nowhere. Slavery." "Oh, yes.
"I'll just shut up, shall I?"
So, this eight-year-old gets the dukedom of Normandy
and all the barons and viscounts are pissed off,
going, "Why has this bastard child inherited the Duke of Normandy?
"I should be the Duke of Normandy. I am Baron Kenny,
"from over there, left of the chip shop.
"I should be..." "No, I am Viscount Steve Claude,
"from over the hills and not too far away."
"Okay, well, one of us, one of the aristocracy, not that eight-year-old
"illegitimate child, what can we do?"
"We could kill him."
"Is that legal?" "You fool, this is the Middle Ages.
"Laws are fuzzy at the moment."
"Very well, I will kill him with a knife. No, I will kill him with a fork.
"No, I will kill him with a spoon."
"Can you kill people with spoons?"
"I killed Humpty Dumpty that way.
"And all the king's horses and all the king's men, couldn't put Humpty together again."
"Yes, I did hear this.
"I always wanted to ask you, why did you ask all the king's horses
"to try and put Humpty together again?
"That seemed like a waste of an afternoon."
"We were testing whether hooves were good tools to reassemble eggs that had been broken."
"What were your findings?" "Not good."
So, they decided to try and kill the kid.
Now this is true. All this, everything I've said so far is true.
Not the Humpty Dumpty bit, but everything else, right?
So, for ten years, they try and kill this kid.
On and on...
And he survived for ten years.
He survived 'cause he learned Krav Maga. Yes, yes.
Martial arts is 95 percent martial, five percent art.
And that's what he did.
And basically, you hit people with things, that's what you do in Krav Maga.
When they're coming towards you, very Jason Bourne-ish,
you reach out, grab a frying pan...
A lot of frying pan moves in Krav Maga,
which you can see, they all came from the Looney Tunes documentaries that Chuck Jones
directed for Warner Bros. in the '30s.
So, yes, so he survives. He wins the Battle of Val-es-Dunes in Normandy.
Which is very famous in Val-es-Dunes.
And he goes to his mom for another haircut. "How'd it go?" "I killed them all, Mom."
"Excellent, well done. How did you do this?" "I learned Krav Maga."
"How did you learn that?" "I bought
"these tapes off a monkey for two bananas each."
"Very clever. So, now you have a rest?"
"No. I'm going to invade England."
"You fool. You don't have a navy."
He says, "Oh, no." And he runs down to the army and navy stores and he goes in, "Hello.
"Do you have any navies left?" "Well, we have one left.
"We can give you inflatable mattresses and some pedal boats.
"We got rowing boats, and one or two speedboats."
"How do they work, this new speedboat thing?"
"Well, they're just rowboats, but we've nailed ducks to the bottom."
"And does it go very fast?"
"Well, you have to get all your ducks in a row. But then..."
Fuck off. Now...
Getting a "ducks in a row" joke into a
piece about 1066, that's...
That doesn't happen every day. So, fuck off.
No, no, too late, too late. No, too late.
So, this is 1066. Bayeux Tapestry stuff,
all the weavers were there at the battle.
"Slow it down, please. It's not a bloody video.
"All right, eyes and teeth.
"Just leave them down here. We'll put 'em in later."
And Harold, famously, Harold of England died with a frying pan through the eye,
you've all seen that image.
And King William becomes King of England for 20 years
and he eats cats and dogs and trees and helicopters, baked potatoes,
ratatouille and he becomes huge.
And then in his dying days, he says, "I will go
"back to Normandy today. I'll go to the city of Rouen.
"The English will not follow me to Rouen, because they can't pronounce Rouen."
I can't, it's very difficult.
And he's there, he's lying in a bed,
wheezing away, dying, and he is not beloved,
he's be-hated. It's like Stalin dying.
It's not nice, but all the pretenders to the dukedom, they were all coming going,
"How are you doing, Guillaume? Are you okey-dokey, or are you nokey-dokey?
"I will pokey-pokey to test your okey-dokeyness.
"We'll do the frying pan test."
And he's dead. He's dead there in the bed.
So they all run away because they hate him and they just leave him.
They don't bury him and he's there for about two or three weeks and that's not good.
Because, you know, when you die, you stop, but you know, the tummy keeps going.
The tummy is like the engine room from the Titanic.
People are going, "Come on, no news is good news, lads."
And the tummy keeps making gas.
And so the archbishop came up and said, "My God, he's huge!
"Oh, this is terrible. We must get him to the church on time.
"Come on, Kenny, Veronique, help me.
"Monsieur Magoo, can we use your car?"
And with the help of Monsieur Magoo,
who was... his eyesight was not that great,
they got him to the cathedral in Caen within seven years.
And... probably quicker.
Thank you for laughing, three people. And...
He's there and they do a service. In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti.
Inspectum patronum!
"We're here to bury the kid, Duke of Normandy, the King of England.
"What a guy. What has he achieved, as we lower him into a coffin.
"Just push down gently there.
"And we say goodbye, old fellow.
"Amazing things you've done. What can we say, as we get the lid and we push
"down quite heavily upon the lid, and...
"Get some butter, I don't know.
"As we lie ourselves over the coffin like Nancy Reagan
"and try and push down upon the..." They couldn't get him in. This is all true.
And he burst, basically.
Yeah. Yeah, check it up.
And the gas came out,
it made a sound a bit like, "Bonjour."
The smell apparently was 149 out of ten
and they apparently did the fastest last rites ceremony in the history of Catholicism.
In nomine Patris... Open the fucking fenetres...
Give me some dog poo, some dog poo, thank you.
King of England, Duke of Normandy, what did he do? Lots of stuff.
All right, put him in a bin.
And they flicked him out the window.
And he spun in the air, held for a second and then fell splosh into a pond
and came third in the Normandy diving competition.
True story.
I was talking about human beings before. Now, that's us.
And if you are a human being, which I assume you are,
very few Martians in tonight.
We don't... we take ourselves for granted,
we don't think of ourselves as interesting but we are.
We were just one of the natural animals in the world
and then we separated. We became civilized.
They stayed wild. So, that was the separation.
But they kept fitness with them, but we kept cake
and daytime television.
That was the deal we did.
They are so fit, aren't they? Like tigers...
If they're hunting, they creep up with their Pilates
slash yoga.
Creepy-crawly. It's amazing and they attack with the speed of a train.
You never see a crap tiger, have you? You never see a tiger...
"What's that, mate? No, the hunt. I'm ready for the hunt, I'm always ready.
Born ready, I'm a tiger.
"Yeah, oh, they're going...
"Shouldn't have done that.
"Hang on. I've just burnt my foot.
"Padre, you got any Savlon? Plasters?
"Save a bit for me!
"Yeah, no, uh...
"Buffalo wing...
"Not gonna get any breakfast now. This is no good. Tony!
"Bring us a couple of boxes, will you mate?
"The one with a free armchair, yeah, one of that."
You remember the old days, when we used to read the cereal packets
as if they were mobile phones?
God, we would read the whole of that thing.
We're eating our food and going,
"Riboflavin, thiamine and niacin.
"I am so glad to have got that stuff inside me."
Those cereals are full of riboflavin, thiamine and niacin.
And in my teenage years, I thought, "These are important things to get inside you."
And in my adult years, I've never once heard anyone say, "This kid is dying!
"Get a shovelful of riboflavin inside of him."
Just they're not mentioned, are they? What are they?
Ah, but anyway, the fitness
intrigued me, of the wild animals.
When I realized that they were all fit.
So, in 2009, what I thought was I am going to try and get some of that fitness back,
because as a kid, I was a run-about-y kid
and I thought, "I want some of that back." So, I started running these marathons
and I ran 43 in 51 days
in the UK and 27 marathons in 27 days in South Africa.
Now, I'm only mentioning them in order to big myself up.
But they seem quite impressive.
They're somewhat impressive, they're not that impressive,
but my theory is, anything I can do,
you can do bett... Anything I can do, you can do similar.
Anything I can do, you can do a little bit worse, hopefully.
Otherwise it'll make what I did look so easy.
But the first ten marathons are hard.
If you do multiple marathons, ten in a row, that is hard.
After that, it gets easier because the brain is... "Ah,
"we do marathons, that's what we do."
That's why the first ten are hard.
So, if you're ever doing that, just...
Just do ten and then you're...
But I made it an adventure. That's another thing.
If life is hard, if whatever you're doing is hard, make it an adventure.
There's always down bits as well as up bits.
And it's easier to deal with because adventures,
then there will be a story about it.
You could regale people at night.
"Did I tell you when I had to go down to the shops
"and get soup?
"And it was terribly difficult.
"Because there was a force three gale wind..."
Just something.
That doesn't quite work. Force three, that's just a gentle wind.
That's not a gale, is it? Anyway, so,
I was thinking, when did I have my first adventure? And it was with my mother.
Now, my mom and dad met in the city of Aden
in the country of Yemen.
And it was a British colony.
The British, we took it. We took the port of Aden.
The British called it Aiden but it's a bit weird, they obviously got there and said...
Our ancestors got there and said, "Hi.
"Where's this place?" "This place is Aden."
"Well, we'd like to own it." "Oh."
"We're going to call it Aiden." "But it's Aden."
"No, we'll call it Aiden. Brighter A."
"Well, it is actually Aden." "Do you have a flag?"
So, I think it was that basis, the fact that we had flags and guns.
Where's this fucking fly?
We got hair spray for the fly, we haven't got fly spray.
So, at some point,
I will destroy the fly, but he's moving quite fast.
Anyway, I'll give him a lot of hair spray.
And then he'll either go, "Hey, this looks great."
Or he'll go, "I can't fly anymore, I'm all sticky."
Can't see him now. Okay, here we go.
Um, so... What was I... Oh, yes.
So, my parents met in Aden, in Yemen,
and they were married there in '59,
and my brother was born in '60, I was born in '62.
And then we left in '63, Dad said, "We gotta get out of here, there's a revolution coming.
"We're gonna go to Northern Ireland." "All right, Dad."
Yes.
Now, we got to Northern Ireland in '63, we left in '67, just before it all kicked off in '69.
We always left before everything kicked off. That was kind of an Izzard trait.
Not planning, just, Dad just kept moving
and things started happening.
Um, not because of us, we didn't do anything.
Now, we sounded like this, this is my point.
From the south-east of England, you get to Northern Ireland,
um, and Mom sounds like this and my brother sounds like this.
And all the local kids are, "Who are you?
"What are you doing here? Are you from Yemen?
"Is that south of the border? I think that is.
"We're gonna throw mud at cars, wanna throw mud at cars?"
"Uh, yeah, okay." And...
And I was into sugar, I loved sugar.
You know, recovering sugar-holic, now.
And most of my day in my youngers years was spent going,
"Mummy, can I have a glass of lemonade? Can I have another glass of lemonade, Mummy?
"Can I get a bottle of lemonade strapped to my head and drip-fed into me?"
After three months, it changed. I was going, "Mother!
"Can I get a glass of lemonade, now?
"I think that would be sufficient to quench my thirst.
"And in the negotiations between you
"as my mother and I as a child,
"I feel a glass of lemonade would ease the passage of detente
"and make this agreement work and function,
"in a way of the socio-economic situation at the moment.
"I dunno what I'm talking about here, but get us a glass of lemonade, will you?
"Ulster says yes to lemonade,
"and no to not lemonade."
So, apparently my mother was freaked out by this.
And so, she encouraged... 'cause if your parents sound one thing
and the kids sound different, that's a little odd.
So, my mother was probably encouraging us to,
"How now brown cow."
Anyway, we stayed in the fold of sounding like this.
But, um,
we would sound Irish outside of the house
and English inside the house. We would code switch at the front door.
A friend of the family just told me this, this year.
My dad never told me that. My dad had told him
that he'd listen at the door and could hear us
talking Irish outside the house, with an Irish accent,
and English inside the house.
So, probably after six months,
I was going, "Mummy, can I have another glass of lemonade?
"Thank you. Oh, does anybody else, outside? Okay.
"Anybody else want a glass of lemonade there?
"Seamus, Headey, Kenny?
"Stevie Nicks, Patrick Pearse?
"Konrad Ardenauer?
"The Pope?
"Stevie Nicks and the Pope would like a glass of red wine.
"Everyone else would rather have milk and coffee."
And then my brother went off in 1965
to Ballyholme primary school
to practice his vowels.
And I was left at home with Mum,
and she said one day, "We're gonna go on an adventure. "An adventure, Mum?
"How do we do that?" "You're gonna get on your brother's bicycle.
"We put the training wheels back on, the stabilizers.
"And we're gonna put a little box at the back, get provisions from the local shops."
That was my first adventure.
And off I went on a little bicycle with little training wheels.
If you remember, ten degrees to the vertical. That's how we do it.
It's supposed to get you in the middle, didn't it?
Bu you just didn't trust that middle bit, so you'd...
I remember this, going down a pathway, went over a bridge, over a stream.
Up another pathway and into the shop and then Mum said,
"We'll have some butter, eggs, flour, sugar. We're gonna make a cake.
"We're gonna make a bouncy castle for hamsters."
So, uh, yes...
So, running marathons, I'll tell you how the first ten go.
This is how... If you ever want to run ten marathons in ten days. Good laugh at the back.
A lot of people are going, "I'm not going to do that."
Just in case there's a bear chasing you,
every day,
regular time, "The bear is back. Oh, my God, better do another run."
First marathon, I think everyone here could run, walk, stagger a marathon.
I think you could do it, it's...
Give yourself 20 hours, it won't look pretty, but you could get it done.
The second and third marathons you will get for free.
Because the brain goes, "Oh, this is a nightmare.
"I'm still in bed." And you're...
The brain cannot catch up with you.
Now the fourth to the tenth marathon are pretty evil,
and I do remember the seventh marathon,
I was running at literally this speed.
It was really just sort of crab-walking along.
And I looked back, a family had joined me and there was a young girl with them.
And she was about ten and I was
sort of pretending to run.
She was just walking along
with a couple of dogs.
And I noticed it and I thought, "I'm not running very fast."
But I got it done, I just kept going and got it done. That's what I did.
And some of it was tough, up and down, I remember
in the city of Bath, the south and west of England,
it's very upsy-downsy. Brassknocker Hill, they have.
It goes on and on and on.
And I had gone up that and gone down and gone up,
I was staggering up the hill, not even
pretending to walk, I was just staggering.
And a guy came out of a house, it was one of those
wonderful houses with a secret garden
and a door in the garden and he came out and, "Oh,
I could see into it." He was in his 60s.
And when people see me running, or anyone running,
I think they feel compelled to say something
and it quite often comes out wrong.
He saw me and said,
"I think you're supposed to be running, aren't you?"
I think you're supposed to be dying, aren't you?
I mean...
I... It just seems wrong.
Usually they say, "Come on." Fuck off!
I've been running for... Forever.
And they won't believe you. After about 18 marathons,
it became surreal. You get in and say,
"Ah, can I have a cup of tea, please?"
"Where have you come from?" "Oh, I've run from London.
It's my 18th marathon." They go, "All right, it's tea, is it, then?"
And they just...
It's as if I said, "I've just eaten a car.
"I'm from Mars, can I have...
"Can I have a cup of tea?" They wouldn't believe you.
So, you get tired, angry, pissed off.
You go, "This hill goes on forever."
But you're never scared, you're never going, "I could fall into a hedge
and die of hedge disease."
But, um,
but since then I've started sea swimming...
Now, sea swimming, doing training for sea swimming,
it's scary, it's um...
On the beach it's fine, isn't it? On the beach it's, "Throw me the ball."
"I'll throw you the ball."
"I'm in the water up to my knees. What am I like?"
"Do you want an ice cream? I'll get a Magnum and hold up a bank
"and we can have as many ice creams as we want."
But 50 meters into the sea,
50 yards, 50 meters out there...
That's all you're doing, hour after hour.
Face in the water, out of the water, in the water, out of the water.
And every time you come out of the water, you're taking a breath.
If you don't get the breath, you die.
So, it's a little bit stressful, you see?
And every time your face comes out, you look for the safety boats,
if the safety boat is with you. If you can't see it, you're dead.
See, 'cause they've gone off. "We're going off to go shopping or something."
And the tensions are higher
and the boat in the sea would have a course that it was going on.
And the current would move it, so it would auto-correct, sometimes it would go like,
then it would move this way and I'd be going...
"It's going away. Catch up with the boat.
"It's coming back towards me. Get away from the boat."
It was worrying.
And then there's jellyfish, they sting you, they sting me, they sting anyone.
They are Nazis of the sea world.
They have no moral compass,
they have no geographical compass,
they really don't know much about compasses.
Then there's seagulls. You may know that seagulls follow boats out to the sea.
Every day, we'd go out for training and the seagulls would follow out.
And the seagulls, they follow boats 'cause they usually chuck rubbish over the side
and then the seagulls go, "Oh, rubbish."
And then they fly down and they swim around and eat it with knife and fork.
And then they go, "Ah, lovely mange of rubbish."
But I think when they were following us,
I think they thought I was rubbish.
'Cause I was very slow-moving. "Hey, he's nearly dead."
And 'cause two of them, three of them were flying
and then after a while two of them were flying and one of them was swimming behind me.
He was literally just doing this, like a duck.
And I looked round and saw him at one point and he was going...
Kinda like someone in a spy movie, he was...
Like he was looking in a shop window.
"Lovely weather."
Then I start swimming again and he goes...
Waiting. God. And then there's the vomit.
I'm pretty good at vomit. There's a song that goes, "Trains and boats and planes."
And I have thrown up on all of those.
But if you added to trains and boats and planes, old ladies,
I have thrown up on those. I have thrown up on an old lady.
If your gran or your aunty
was on the train to Penrith in 1974
and got thrown up on, that was me.
I don't remember this, my brother assures me it's true.
So, I think it was true and...
I have... The bones in my inner ear don't know what's going on.
And I thought when you're swimming, you're driving
the vehicle, so you're gonna be okay. But no,
I still need to take sea-sickness tablets,
which I didn't even know about.
And normally when you throw up, you're planted, aren't you?
You're kinda locked down there, there's a sink, a toilet, a basin, a hat.
Or, once in the hospital A&E I was given
a kidney dish, which is a thing they put instruments in, it's about that big.
And I looked at them and I said, "Really?
"That's a launchpad.
"I think the CIA use these to throw up around corners."
But I was doing this training swim and swimming along and I feel this...
I'm gonna throw up,
and I was in the sea, treading water, and when you throw up then,
it's not good, 'cause you go...
And I could feel fish around me going, "Oh, my God.
"Oh, he's British? Oh, I see.
"Oh, this is Brexit,
"where you throw up on your own head?
"Ah, yes, I understand."
So, yes, but now, I keep fit,
that's what I do, I decided match-fit for life.
That's what we should all do. I encourage you to do that, you probably won't.
But it's what the wildies are doing. Oh, those old wildies.
And they do look pretty good, don't they?
Very few crap tigers, as I mentioned.
So, um, so I was training.
I was doing a training thing. I normally do
fast, high-intensity interval training.
But sometimes I'll just drop a few marathons.
So, I was running seven marathons in seven days for seven brothers.
And it was in Sussex, where I
hailed from for half of my life,
and I was running down the A-22, went past a big house in the country.
Big house with walls and big driveway, one of those big solid gates.
As I went past the solid gates of the driveway,
there was a dog, obviously, behind the gate.
I couldn't see him. The dog went...
as dogs have done since the dawn of time.
And for the first time I suddenly thought, "What is this dog trying to say?"
If I could inject FOXP2 into him,
what would he be trying to say? And I assume a dog
would be going, "Thief, thief or a burglar. Thief slash burglar.
"Assassin, behind the gates. They're here!
"Listen to me, I know what I'm talking about. I'm a dog.
"Hello.
"You say that I am the dog that cried woof, but...
"Really.
"This is important. Now!"
Dogs are so sure, aren't they? They're so insistent.
You've never heard a hesitant dog, have you?
You've never heard of an unsure dog,
going, "Woof?
"Is that a woof?
"Are you an assassin?
"Hello, are you an assassin? I'm a dog, here.
"And the owner of my house, he employs me,
"sort of, to do a survey on the people coming by the front gate.
"Do you follow? Hello? Are you still with me?
"And so if you're an assassin, I must come and kill you
"by tearing out your throat with my teeth.
"But if you're a little old lady, well, then, good luck to you.
"You see my dilemma.
"Are you still there?"
It doesn't seem that that's the conversation dogs are having. They're just go...
"Assassins!
"Motherfuck... Oh, God, why has thou forsaken me?
"Dad, come. Kill them, kill them now.
"Kill them all.
"I'm a dog."
Seems like every dog has joined a right-wing party.
And based on very little information,
they seem to be absolutely sure.
"Assassins!
"Assassins slash immigrants are here!
"I am right because I am loud."
And then the owner comes out, "What the hell is going on?"
"Assassins."
"Assassins, are you sure?" "Of course I'm sure, I'm a dog, motherfucker."
"Well, how many assassins?" "Two." "Two?" "Thousand."
"2,000?"
"Well, 1,527."
"And you're sure you saw them?" "I saw them with my ears.
"It's a dog thing, we're like bats."
"What?"
"Just get a gun. Shoot them!
"Shoot them all, take them now!"
"I haven't got a gun, I'm British."
"Well, go on a spaceship to America very quickly for story purposes..."
"The Americans won't give me a gun, there will be background checks."
"No, there won't.
"They give Exocet missiles to three-year-olds."
"That is true."
So, off he goes to get a gun and the dog continues.
And he will continue woofing until something happens or until anything happens.
Just something unusual.
A cat sneezing, a dog back-firing.
A rabbit imploding,
a snail playing the banjo, anything.
"What?
"What was that?
"Where was I? Now, oh, yes, woof woof woof, thank you.
"Oh, no, what have I stood in?
"Who would do that?
"Who would leave a steaming pile of that there,
"just walk away, no forwarding address?
"Who would do that?
"I would do that.
"This is my own poo.
"The irony.
"The horror.
"The irony. I have stood in my own poo.
"I am hoisted by my own poo-tard.
"Oh, God, what can I do? I must get rid of this.
"Right, let's try and get rid of this.
"Is this what Michael Jackson did? Is this how he learned
"how to Moonwalk? By standing in his own poo..."
And then the owner comes back. "I got a gun."
"You do what now?"
"I've got a gun for the assassins." "Assassins?
"You have seen assassins?" "No, you saw assassins.
"You said you saw 1,527."
"Uh... really? I said that?"
"You said you saw them with your ears."
"That doesn't even make sense.
"I don't think this was me, I think this was Kenny."
"Who is Kenny?" "Kenny is a jellyfish, comes around here when it rains.
"Yes, we found poo though. Yeah, we found poo.
"It's assassin's poo. Pretty sure it's assassin's poo.
"Shoot the poo.
"Shoot it, shoot the poo, shoot it!
"Take the shot. Shoot it!
"Shoot the poo. You can't handle the poo.
"Can you? Shoot it.
"You shot the poo.
"The poo is dead.
"Long live the poo."
Now everything I have said as the character of the dog,
that is what is going on
in Donald Trump's mind.
All the time.
I was talking about the ancient gods.
They are just like the Marvel, DC comic superheroes.
They are very similar in their jealousy and aggression and all that kind of stuff.
They're exactly the same except for spandex.
More spandex in the modern ones. Less spandex more loincloth-y
in the ancient ones. But out of all of them,
my analysis out of all of them,
Batman is the best because he has psychological problems.
It's much more mature. He's not from a planet, Bat,
he's not bitten by a bat, he's got psychological problems,
which is a much more advanced kind of idea.
So, his story was, he was eight years old
and his parents died and he inherited the dukedom of Normandy.
In financial equivalence.
Just a lot of cash, right? His parents died in a tragic thing,
they fell on spikes and exploded. And...
But a few days after that, he gets attacked by a whole load of bats.
And little Bruce Wayne is going, "God damn it, this is a bad week for me."
But then he keeps getting these nightmares. Nightmares of bats. "Too many bats, man."
And then when he's 18 years old, he says, " I must fight these bats in my belfry."
And he becomes...
Batman!
With a very deep voice.
But he's still Bruce Wayne, he looks like Bruce Wayne, so he has to adopt
a slightly higher cadence in his voice, have you seen the films?
"Hello, I'm Bruce Wayne, how are you?
"No, I am not Batman, he has a deeper voice.
"We have a similar shape, but
"we use the same trainer, I believe, that's why.
"Oh, I do like the Bee Gees.
"Particularly their '70s work where they started to look more like owls."
So, as you know, Batman has the power of a man, the power of a bat.
And he wears the mask of a bat. Disguised as a bat.
And he has a belt here with all the travel stuff you get at airports.
There's little sprays and little creams and stuff.
And he's against bad people, wherever they are.
"Are you bad people? You've done many bad things."
"We have done bad things, but that's what we do, we're bad people."
"I am your worst nightmare, for I am the Batman."
"It's the Batman, run from the Batman."
But surely bats can attack anyone,
anytime, anyplace, anywhere.
Could attack anyone all over the world. It could be a giraffe in Africa.
♪ I'm a giraffe in Africa
♪ Just munching the leaves from the trees
♪ And talking to the birds and the bees ♪
"Fucking hell, what's all these bats doing?
"Too many bats, why are you attacking..."
"Bat giraffe.
"Power of a giraffe, power of a bat.
"Disguised as a bat.
"Travel section."
Against bad giraffes wherever they may be.
"You giraffe, you've taken far too many leaves.
"But I am your worst nightmare, for I am Bat Giraffe."
"It's Bat Giraffe, run from the Bat Giraffe." "I'm coming to get you."
Or maybe a crocodile.
♪ I'm a crocodile just swimming down the Nile
♪ Trying to rhyme with Nile
♪ And all the whiles
♪ That's quite difficult if I file my teeth ♪
"Fucking hell, bats! What are these bats doing?
"Underwater bats? That's very unusual."
"Bat Crocodile.
"Power of a crocodile, power of a bat."
That's really just a crocodile, isn't it?
In a Halloween mask.
I don't think the bat skills will really help that crocodile do anything
that the crocodile couldn't already do.
But of course, there's one animal
that I think you would like to see the adventures of if it was attacked by a bat.
I think you would watch the films, you'd read the books. I would too.
And those would be the adventures of...
Bat-bat.
♪ I'm a fruit bat I'm a fruit bat
♪ And at every night at three
♪ I go out looking for strawberries
♪ But we don't find them 'cause you can't see shit at night
♪ You can't see shit at night
♪ So, I don't know why we're not day bats, day bats
♪ Day bats would see more strawberries but night bats we don't see any
♪ That's probably why we are so trim ♪
"Fucking hell, lads, I'm on your side.
"Why are you attacking... It doesn't make any..."
"Bat-bat.
"Power of a bat, power of another bat. Two-bat power.
"Disguised as himself.
"Travel section.
"Against bad bats, wherever they may be.
"You bats, you've taken far too many bananas."
"We have indeed, we'll sell these bananas to a monkey we know.
"He will...
"He will give us tapes, we will learn German."
"But I am your worst nightmare."
Ich bin Bat-bat.
"You are a bad bat?"
"No, I am Bat-bat, with two T's."
"Your grammar's atrocious, bat has only one T."
"No, it's bat. B-A-T-B-A-T, you see.
"Just like Boutros Boutros-Ghali.
"It's a bit like..." "Oh, so you work for the UN?"
"I did work there, I was in the canteen,
"but there's no... you can't really get a promotion.
"It doesn't go canteen to diplomat. There's a...
"Oh, fuck off."
But finally tonight, I'm gonna leave you
with the story of imagination.
Now, talking plus imagination, equals us.
That's my analysis of the distillation of humanity.
Talking without imagination is just this.
"Well, I went down the road and went in the shops today.
"Went and I bought some soup. I bought the soup and paid for the soup.
"I came back and I cooked the soup and I ate the soup and I went to bed."
That's talking without imagination.
Imagination without talking is more like...
But we have imagination. We do, oh, we do.
We have written books with our imagination.
Books from Beowulf up to a book that was written recently.
And one of those books was Lord of the Rings.
Written by J.R.R. Tolkien.
Who, as you know, was born J.R.R.R.R.R.R. Tolkien.
In Bloemfontein, South Africa.
And he grew up there in the 1800s, in his first few years.
And he would say to his mother, "Mother, are we South African?" "We are South African."
"J.R.R. to the power of nine.
"We are indeed."
"Is this an Afrikaans accent?"
"It is indeed an Afrikaans accent."
"So, are we racist?" "Well, we are only as racist as any other white person in the 1800s.
"'Cause most people are, unfortunately, racist people."
"That is not so good, Mum." "No, it's not."
"And will we get less racist in South Africa?"
"Well, actually we'll get more racist.
"In 1948, we will start Apartheid.
"But then that will eventually finish in 1994.
"Nelson Mandela will become the first Black president of South Africa.
"And he will encourage us to win the Rugby World Cup. We win it three times.
"And the third time, a Black captain will raise the cup and that will be a wonderful day."
"Excellent news, Mum. How do you know this?"
"A transvestite told me about this.
"He was from the future."
"Transvestite?" "Well, transgender, he changed the...
"The language changes over the period of time."
"Mum, what has happened to Dad?" "Oh, Dad has exploded
"and fallen on a spike.
"We must leave South Africa, J.R.R. to the power of nine.
"We're gonna go to Birmingham, in England."
"Why there?" "It is the next logical place to go.
"In the chess game of life."
So, as you may know, he moved to Birmingham, he grew up there.
The Birmingham accent is much more like that...
And so when he's about five or six, he's got a completely weird accent.
Kinda South African, kinda Birmingham.
And he realizes he's got far too many R's in his name.
And he turns to his mother, in his new Birmingham, South African twang,
and he says to her, "Mother!
"Oh."
His mother replied, "What the hell did you just say to me?
"No one understands that, that doesn't make any sense.
"Have another go at that, J.R.R."
"No, that was a bit worse, if anything.
"I'll tell you what, J.R.R. to the power of nine.
"Why don't you write it all down in a big book and never talk again?"
And that's how Lord of the Rings was born.
In that book, he put in
two bad guys. No one has ever done two bad guys before. But he put in two bad guys.
One was called Sauron, the other was called Saruman.
And if you're a dyslexic kid,
that's the same guy.
I could not follow what was going on.
Would it have been so hard to have had Sauron and Jeff?
"I am the wizard Jeff.
"Not Sauron at all."
That would've helped, but no, he didn't do that.
Now ignore Sauron, if you don't know the story, ignore Sauron.
He's an eyeball on a hill.
Got no arms, no legs, no eyebrows.
Chuck a towel over him and he's toast.
Now, in the story, if you follow it, there's Jeff slash Saruman,
the bad wizard, and he fights Gandalf, and they fight with magic wands,
sticks and frying pans.
And it goes on for about ten minutes. It's quite a good fight.
And eventually, Gandalf is overpowered
'cause Saruman does this trick of saying, "Is that a budgie over there?"
And he knees him in the bollocks
and Gandalf goes, "Fucking hell, eh?"
Because Gandalf grew up in Liverpool.
So, then Gandalf's imprisoned on the top of the Tower of Isengard,
which is eight kilometers high, five miles high.
And he's up there going, "I'm imprisoned five miles... eight kilometers high.
"Oh...
"Oh, now I know the difference between the metric and imperial system of measurement.
"And maybe I will use this five over eight algorithm
"while I'm running marathons, maybe to change
"the distances between each other,
"just as a mind exercise."
I don't... Anyway, so, Gandalf is up there
and the weather is atrocious, if you've seen the film.
Stormy and crazy and then a butterfly comes by.
What on earth a butterfly is doing eight kilometers up?
"I am completely lost, I dunno where...
"I haven't seen a flower for ages, I don't know...
"Oh, look, there's a bloke in a dress. I'll go and have a chat with him."
Gandalf grabs the butterfly, "Hey, hey."
And because people can hear, bad people are around.
Because bad people are around, Gandalf whispers to him, "Hey..."
"What?"
"What did you not understand?" "I didn't understand any of that.
"You didn't seem to be talking English."
"I was doing sotto voce."
"Oh. you're Italian?" "No, it's, uh...
"Look, I'll tell you again. There's two bad guys.
"One's called Sauron, the other's called Saruman."
"This is the same guy?" "Different guys."
"Their names... Just call one of them Jeff."
"Look, you've got a mission.
"I want you to go to Misty Mountains, find an eagle,
"come back here and I can escape."
"Okay, Misty Mountains, eagle, come back, escape.
"Where are the Misty Mountains?" "They're 800 kilometers..."
"500 miles?" "Apparently so."
"Is there a car hire place near here?" "What?"
"Well, how am I gonna get 800 kilometers?" "Oh, you fly." "Oh, there's an airport?"
"No."
"Isengard airport?" "No.
"No, use these things."
"Oh, these things? These are beer mats.
"I'm an ant, I was hand-gliding."
"Really?" "Ah...
"All right. Let's do it.
"Okay, I'll do this. Will this be in the film?"
"Yeah, this bit will be in the film."
"So, when I fly, a butterfly, 800 kilometers, that's worth filming, yeah?
"Finding an eagle, telling an eagle, not being eaten by an eagle,
"get the eagle to come back, pick you up,
"that's worth filming, yeah? Being in the film?"
"Yeah, it could be in the film."
"Bastard.
"I'm going anyway. All right, here goes.
"Wait, what are you doing?" "I listen to music.
"It's a Baby Driver thing, I gotta...
"get there. Got a set list."
After four hours, Gandalf's going, "I can still see you, you know?"
"I'm a fucking butterfly."
They cut that out of the film. I have no idea why.
I'm gonna leave you tonight by telling Dad's last joke.
'Cause I came from a family where there was no religion at home.
We just had fun, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun.
We used to muck about, we used to throw mud balls at passing cars,
we'd play around, I'd drink a lot of lemonade
and eat cake mix and go on adventures.
And then at Christmas, Mum would say, "What do you want for Christmas?"
to me and my brother Mark. We'd write down
stuff on a piece of paper and she'd put it in the fire.
And it would go up the fire, which I thought was wonderful.
Dad was obviously on the roof going, "I can't read this.
Hello?"
And so Christmas was like that and summers were long, hot summer days.
And playing in the fields behind the house.
And then Mum would make a salad. Salads were okay for kids.
But when you smothered it with that yellow salad cream,
it tasted pretty good,
'cause that is apparently sugar
in a yellow paste.
But then Mum died, far too long ago.
And Dad went on and he had a good job, he got a good pension.
And I said to Dad, "You created a concrete runway here.
"And I'm gonna run down that runway, I'm gonna take off. I'm gonna take some chances.
"Because of you, you've given me that confidence."
And he said to me, "You've always had some crazy ideas.
"But the difference is now, some of them have worked."
Which is kind of true.
So, here it is, Dad's last joke.
Dad liked hearing jokes and retelling jokes.
And he would phone my brother
and tell him the jokes and laugh at his own joke.
He never told me them, he always told my brother. I think maybe
he might've thought I might've marked him on them,
as a professional comedian. "That's a good joke, Dad.
"But the end was a bit fuzzy,
"um, bit more pacing."
I dunno why, but I never heard them.
But my brother heard them and he read this joke out at his funeral last year.
So, here's Dad's last joke.
A rabbit goes into a butcher shop
and says, "Hello, do you have any carrots?"
And the butcher goes, "No, this is a butcher shop, we don't have any carrots.
"We do meats here, that's what butchers do. There's no carrots here at all."
"No carrots at all? Ah, I was misinformed."
So, the rabbit goes away.
Now, the next day, could be a Tuesday, no one really knows.
The same rabbit goes to the butcher, "Hello, do you have any carrots?"
Butcher goes, "No this is a butcher shop.
"Didn't I tell you this yesterday? Aren't you the same rabbit that came in yesterday?
"Look there's no carrots here. You need a carrot shop. Carrots R Us, Marks and Carrots.
"One of the carrot shops." "Oh, I need to go? Ah, I see.
"I didn't quite understand where... Ah, I will go there."
So, that was the end of day two. Day three, same rabbit, same butcher shop.
"Hi, there, do you have any carrots?"
"No, we don't have any bloody carrots!
"I dunno... You keep coming in, you keep asking this.
"You come again, I'm gonna nail your ears to the wall."
"Ears to the wall? That will not help me
"in my quest for carrots."
"Well, don't bloody come in here, then."
So, the rabbit goes away. Day four comes along.
Rabbit does not go to the butcher shop.
Day five comes, rabbit does not go to the butcher shop.
Sixth day comes along.
Rabbit goes to the butcher shop.
"Hi, there, do you have any nails?"
"Do I have any nails? No, I do not have any nails."
"Right.
"Do you have any carrots?"
I think we are so lucky to have this.
We are here because we are lucky enough to be here.
What is the meaning of life? There isn't one.
We have to put meaning into it.
I think this century, 21st century,
is a coming-of-age century for humanity.
We either are gonna wipe ourselves off the planet,
or we're gonna make it a fair world for 7.5 billion people.
It's up to us. If we can do that,
if we can make that happen,
it will be Wunderbar.
So, this has come from my brother's attic.
It's a historical game.
It's also got history to it.
I talk about it in the show.
It's called Waddington's Campaign.
This is the very one.
My brother, my father and me were playing.
My brother is so competitive in board games.
His life is more tranquil, but board games, any games...
very competitive. Plays to win.
I'm amazed how well it's kept.
Be interesting to see if there any marks of it being thrown against a wall.
A bit battered up there.
Yeah, there's a thing that Dad would say,
particularly in Monopoly, 'cause you get fines in Monopoly.
He would get fines and he'd say, "A mere bagatelle."
Which was just his saying or a saying that was out there. I'd never heard it before.
And I do remember when I was running my marathons in the UK,
I had five marathons to go.
Already run 38, only got five to go.
I just ad-libbed "a mere bagatelle" to the cameras.
I thought, "Oh, my dad used to say that."
And that's where it came from. That came from Dad playing board games.
Yeah, so now I'm gonna put this away.
I don't think I can play Campaign right this second.
So, yeah. So fuck off.