Come Fly With Me (2010) s01e00 Episode Script
Come Fly with Me, Come Fly On the Wall
This programme contains some strong language Take one.
A-mark.
Action! Thank you.
Very good.
Happy? Wrap, everyone, that's A WRAP.
Thank you very much Thank you, everybody.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, that is a wrap for the series.
I'd just like to say thank you VERY much.
Well done.
Well done, Matt.
'Well, I'm feeling pleased we're actually the other end of it, 'because you always think some disaster is going to befall you, 'but we've made it.
' The sound man, when you're filming in an airport, it's not the most fun.
I did have hair.
It's like the worst bit over.
Alfred Hitchcock said that filming, he found filming really boring, because he planned it all so perfectly.
I've never had that issue.
Thank you for looking after us, I appreciate it.
Thank you.
I enjoyed it.
'I'm pleased and proud that we've managed to cast aside 'all the characters that people were familiar with.
' With Little Britain, we started on Radio 4, BBC Three, then BBC Two and then BBC One.
So it really grew, whereas this time, we're starting right in the prime slot, which is Christmas Day, 9.
30, or something.
So, it's slightlyscary.
I don't think, "Can we do something as big as Little Britain?", cos I think that's completely the wrong way to go around it.
Can we do something bigger? No.
Can we do something better? Certainly.
Obviously, a lot of people would love to have a success on the scale of Little Britain, but it raised the questions, how long to go on with that and what to do next? To what extent did you have a strategy about that, as Little Britain became more successful? I don't think we had much of a strategy at all, I think we were completely taken by surprise.
But there was definitely a point where it wasn't our show any more, it belonged to other people.
Yes.
When you're part of a phenomenon like that, it starts to belong to the public.
It wasn't our choice necessarily to be in newspapers every day, because every time there was a story to do with teenage delinquents, there was a photo of Vicky Pollard.
We were very aware that the life of the show was kind of being shortened, by its huge exposure.
I think if a show is moderately successful, it can go on for a lot longer.
So, it's not our fault! So, yeah And also, I think, when something peaks, that's hard, because once you've peaked, the only way is down.
We felt the time was right to do something new.
Everything is new, every character is new.
The setting is all new.
The make-up and costume come together.
I've seen some great design work on the show, the posters, the Flylo branding and things like that.
Even down to the lanyards the characters are wearing, it just really feels like everyone's working together, to me, it's really exciting.
There's something really great about being in a real environment, doing something, because it tells the story in a much more filmic way, than just a sketch.
There's no substitute for being in an airport, is there? I can't remember ever seeing this.
It's a gift.
It's a slightly different style which I think is brave of them.
It will have enough to do with Little Britain but have moved it on.
It's a huge challenge for Matt and Dave, to return in a relatively short time and do something with big costumes and big characters after Little Britain.
It takes a lot of guts, I think, to do that in our TV world.
So the stakes are high for them.
When we look in the reference books in future, it will say that the series after Little Britain was Come Fly With Me.
Was that always going to be the case or are there 22 abandoned projects in between? They're not abandoned projects but there was a period where we just met for two or three weeks and every day, we just sort of created a new format, didn't we? We just went, "Oh, what shall we think about today?" We just came out with lots and lots and lots of ideas.
We were thinking of doing a series of six different half-hours.
One idea was to do one in a hotel.
As soon as you say hotel, though, alarm bells ring, cos the greatest sitcom ever made was set in a hotel.
We had one idea, a couple of actors, who had been in some sort of seventies show, together, that was now regarded as really un-PC, and they were going around America cos they couldn't get any work, we had a whole list of them.
So we went to the BBC and we had a chat to them and the one they liked the best was this airport idea.
So they gave us some confidence to see that maybe this idea we thought would be half-an-hour, actually could be a series.
There was an environment that most people can relate to, most people have been to an airport.
It felt like you could have a multi-character show.
Cos we were very aware after Little Britain that people like to see us dress up as different characters, and we didn't want to commit to just two characters now, for six weeks, we thought, can we do another show that's not a sketch show, that has lots of characters in it? And so, the more we though about it, the more we thought, yeah, this could well work.
You can bring in anyone to an airport, anyone getting on or off a plane, or works there, you can depict.
You can depict most kind of people.
You want to depict royalty, you can.
Someone cleaning a toilet, you can.
We have that in our show - the person who cleans the toilet, and someone who owns an airline.
Here it is, the glamour of filming.
Just keeping cool.
With an air conditioning unit.
I'm a bit hot in this make-up.
The thing is, when you go to a lot of trouble like this, you have to be really sure it's funny.
Because, otherwise, you've spent a lot of money, taxpayers' money, on this and it's just now funny and it would be awful.
And a lot of time.
Yeah.
So it's weird but it's all guesswork, you know.
You're always just hoping it's funny.
There's no guarantee.
OK? It's great.
Quite jolly, which I like.
It is.
He's optimistic.
Inanely.
To me, Flylo is a family, and you are all my children.
I know you all by name.
Patty.
Janet.
And, ah! My oldest friend Trainee.
'Don't take this way, cos it's going to sound odd, 'but it's odd to say something's a revelation 'when you've been doing it for 20 years but honestly,' watching David do Omar, yesterday and today, has been the treat of the week for me, because, erm Cos nobody could have done that better.
What is 18 hour shifts between family, huh? What is inadequate toilet facilities between family, huh? What is highly flammable uniforms between family? Do you become self-conscious of the writing process, thinking, are there catchphrases here? Is that going to be a catchphrase? People, like, pick up on things.
And they repeat them.
And that, in a way, makes them a catchphrase.
I don't know.
There's Moses's "happy flighting.
" 'Happy flighting.
' Whether anyone says that "If you'll pardon the pun.
" Let's have a rummage! If you'll pardon the pun.
"If you'll pardon the pun," when there isn't a pun there, that's his thing.
Micky and Buster, "I took that, he took that, I took that" I took that.
He took that.
I took that.
I took that.
He took that.
I took that.
I took that.
He took that.
There's a few but there's not It doesn't worry me.
It's one of those things, people always Laurel and Hardy had catchphrases.
Morecambe and Wise had catchphrases.
The Simpsons have catchphrases, Dad's Army had catchphrases, I mean, it's not I don't see it as a negative thing, it's just a way for people to enjoy your work when you're not there.
I think there is a tendency in some sections of the media to sneer at catchphrase comedy.
But that is in itself a catchphrase.
And we didn't invent the term catchphrase comedy, so It would clearly have been possible in Come Fly With Me for Lou and Andy to be going on a package holiday, or for some of the characters to turn up.
Did you think about that possibility? We did think, initially, that we'd bring one character over, from Little Britain, and that was going to be Carol Beer, the "Computer says no," woman.
Who would be at check-in She would become a check-in woman because when we were originally planning to do another series of Little Britain, we had thought we might do some more, we had said it would be great for her to be a check-in woman.
But we talked about it and I was very keen and you were adamant that it should just be new characters and I just thought it really needs to be another chapter.
We need to close the chapter on Little Britain, and start a new one, otherwise, people will think it's a spin-off, from Little Britain.
I want to talk more about the writing process.
When we get to see it on screen, we will have a character like Omar, the airline boss, who, hours of make-up, and prosthetics, there's an accent there, but when you're writing, to what extent do you decide on look and accent at that stage? Normally, when we write, we are doing the voice of the character.
Often both of us are doing it.
Even characters where we've set who's playing who, we'll still become the character.
Both of us will become the character to write the character.
So, yeah, we sort of think about that, and with Omar, there is a satirical part in him that is meant to be a bit like Stelios, or Mohamed Al-Fayed.
It felt like we knew how he would look and we had an idea of how he would sound.
But we try and just approach it like either of us could play it, and it doesn't really matter.
We don't worry too much about that because I think it can Otherwise, it becomes like, my bits and your bits, and it's our bits.
Someone has a stronger sense of a character or of how to play it, than the other person.
Like Taaj, probably.
Yeah, I was never going to be Taaj.
Cos I can't do that voice.
IN CHARACTER: It's a good look though, isn't it? Ye get me? D'you want to see? How's it look? It's good though, isn't it? But, it's like, one thing David said was maybe he shouldn't have no hair at all.
AS HIMSELF: Right, let's take the wig off when we put the beard on.
The wig don't take long to put on.
AS TAAJ: It's quite dark, know what I mean? Innit? It's quite dark, though, but the performance is quite gentle.
Get me? It's hard, has that been a problem, the fact that Well, we always thought this character would have hair and then, I think when we were trying it on it just looked a bit severe.
And then we were going to have big ears, so we thought hair would be better, and a beard, to hide the ears.
But, you know, that's just what happens, isn't it? You don't know till you get it all on and with the costume and everything, really how it's going to be.
It was nice, because it was one of those things where I just sort of felt, I think like David with Moses or Omar, that I could just sort of improvise in that character when we were doing it.
Of course, both of us write the character and David will be there coming up with lines on set as well.
Almost feel he forces them on you, rather than you asking.
But, it just felt like he was alive.
For me, anyway.
There's a lot of touching going on.
There's a lot of people touching me.
There's three people touching me, isn't it? And two of them is not even women.
The guy who plays me is batty, but I'm not batty.
The guy who acts all of me, who is talking now, who is playing me is batty, but I'm not batty.
So when he's touching me, man, he's batty.
Has he tried to touch you? Has Matt Lucas tried to touch me? No, cos I would not allow it.
And he knows that, isn't it.
Question one, where were you born? Bradford.
Where were your parents born? Oh, Sheffield.
Where were their parents originally from? Pakistan.
Pakistan! We're getting somewhere.
So, if there was a cricket match between England and Pakistan, who would you support? I don't like cricket.
Well, which sports do you like? EhBMX.
Anything else? Oh, cage fighting, man! I love cage fighting! There was these wicked Yeah, all right, all right.
That voice, that's one of the most extraordinary ones to me.
So, from the writing process, you knew that he would have that Midlands voice? The sort of Northern it's kind of a Sheffield and Bradford meets Pakistan.
I thought you were Prince Naseem.
"Prince Naseem I met, isn't it? "Cos we was on tour though, isn't it? You get me?" And we met Prince Naseem Hamed, didn't we? In a hotel in Manchester.
Yeah.
I kept on saying that I was going to beat him up.
He, um, he his wife came to see our show, and heI am sure this happened that he either text or phoned me when we were on the way to the theatre just to check it had no profanity in it, cos his wife was coming.
Which I thought, from a man who hits people for a livingwas funny.
Anyway, so, yeah, I mean, it still even if we know Matt's going to play it.
It's still ours.
it's still something that we just completely, you know, collaborate on.
And we take a view, we'll look at overall what character we're doing and just make sure that there's not an imbalance.
Like one of us tends to be playing all the female characters, or something, cos you've got to get a healthy balance and not have You know, for example, if we're writing Little Britain and it's a Marjorie sketch, I will still "sort of become Marjorie" I think you've got a clearer vision of her, you tend to lead the writing with the Marjorie sketches, anyway, because I'm more naturally cruel.
LAUGHTER That's the way we do it, because we're both writer/performers.
We tend to write by performing.
That's a good thing, I find it amazing to think that there's some great comedy writer, David Renwick or whoever, that could write on his own.
Because I think we really benefit from bouncing off each other, acting out scenes as much as possible.
When we feel we've got something good that's kind of bubbling, then we start to write it down.
We don't normally start writing until we feel we've really got something we can play with.
I do the typing.
That's me.
I've got lots of nervous energy, so I need to walk around the whole time.
Cos you've got a bad back, sometimes you just lie flat on the floor, don't you? Not that often! You have done it, I've seen you do it and lift your legs up a bit.
There was a period you went through, I'm sure, where you wrote predominantly in your underpants, do you remember that? In the early days.
The trousers were just very tight, you know what it's like.
It's more comfortable to take them off! I'd quite like to write in my maybe I'll begin that now.
We're probably just about successful enough now to be able to be eccentric and get away with it, aren't we? I've got a feeling I won't get on today, cos I've got a feeling this is going to take a long Look, you're doing a documentary, you want to see how this show is being made, you watch a man sand.
Come on.
From having watched it, I don't think you do think about the problems you're setting yourself when you come to record it, but you don't think, "That's going to be four hours in make-up," or, "That's an accent that'll be really hard to do"? I think when we were conceptualising the show, it was hard in some ways cos we thought we want to do it in documentary style, but traditionally comedy shows done in documentary style have been quite close to life.
realistic as possible.
But this was a show where we were going to play 20 characters each, so therefore it was never going to be believable in the same way that The Office is.
So, you know, it was something we had to kind of think about as we went on.
Good morning! Good morning.
Who needs daylight, eh? What are they? Are they earlobes? Yeah.
Are they? All right.
How are you? I'll tell you when I wake up! Yeah.
What we've got here is Precious.
What we normally start off with is with the life cast.
We have fibreglass face of Matt.
Then we make a mould of the front of that, which is this part here.
That's Precious.
And we make it out of fibreglass.
We bolt the two together, and then we have a big tube in the back here and we pour silicone into the tube, wait for it to set.
This is what we end up pulling out of the mould, and that's a silicone appliance which is kind of the sandwich in between Matt's face and the outside of the mould.
We powder it, get rid of all of the sort of shine we've got on there at the moment and then that's ready to stick onto Matt.
It's slightly disturbing cos of the transformation, it's like someone wearing a mask.
It's actually quite disturbing, isn't it? It's to do with not being able to see your thoughts and feelings in the face, but it looks really good.
We have this experience where you suddenly think, "I better be funny!" Cos you've gone to all this trouble and people had to get up at, like, four o'clock in the morning to put this make-up on you.
And then you're starting the day really knackered because, you know, it's only 8:15 and Matt's been in that make-up chair since, I guess, about 5am.
Soand he's got to keep his energy going until, you know, 6:30, 7 o'clock tonight.
Here he is! Looks great.
We don't know where is David Walliams.
Having a piss.
Having a wee-wee, Walliam? David Walliam havin' a wee-wee.
David Walliam havin' a wee wee now.
Where does he stop and she starts? I don't start.
You don't start.
Look at the ears as well.
Yeah, the ears, see what they've done? They've put in earlobes.
We got no coffee.
It's brilliant.
We got none! I think it's brilliant.
It's good, int it? Is that harder? I think it is, cos you have to kind of over emphasise.
When I was Omar I was thinking, cos he's got to be quite a joyful character, but somehow it slightly deadens your face.
So you have to slightly over You have to make bigger kind of faces, really.
To get that across.
You have to really smile, you know.
It's like if you put your hands on your face and slightly pull, you feel that all day, yeah.
But it's fine for a day.
I wouldn't want to live my entire life in prosthetics.
Part of your appeal is that you are playing all the major roles, so Precious, for example, the West Indian lady in the airport, if you hired an actress to play that it becomes something quite different, it ceases to be Listen, if we were the writers of the show and we weren't in the show, or if we just played one character each and the show was cast, you know, predominantly, 90% with other people, then you would hire somebody who was 55 and, you know, black to play that role.
But that's not the concept of the show.
I think it's a hard one, because there is a pleasure in seeing us dressed up, and there is something pleasurable about sometimes they are outrageous looks.
I remember in the start of series three of Little Britain, where I come out as Desiree for the first time, there is just a shock and a gasp of, "I can't believe, you know, that's David.
" Are you here with HER? If you mean Desiree, then, yes.
Oh, goodie.
So I'm finally going to meet the woman who destroyed our marriage.
Is she as beautiful as they say? I think so, yes.
Darling.
LAUGHTER Yes.
Desiree, I don't believe you've met my ex-wife Bubbles.
Hello, baby.
So nice to meet you.
So, you do want that laugh as well.
But that's only a momentary one, where you go, "Oh, my word! I can't believe the make-up.
" You know, or the voice or whatever.
But I think the character needs to be funny, beyond its racial characteristics, you know.
And I think all the character we've created of different ethnicities, I think they've been comic characters, not specifically to do with their race.
We play two Japanese girls, not for a moment watching it, will anyone think, "Oh, are they two real Japanese girls?" Not for a moment! They will.
You will! But you just enjoy it, I think, for its own sense of fun.
Can it come up a bit? Yeah, I can cut more off as well.
No, I like it.
I like it.
No-o-o-o-o.
THEY GIGGLE No, no, no.
We say we do what we do.
'I got very excited when we were playing the two Japanese girls 'and we came out of make up and we saw how brilliant the prosthetics were.
'So simple and yet they really transformedhow we looked.
' It's me, David, in case you don't know.
So I came into this little room and, er, was looking at myself in the mirror and doing the voice and that was really exciting.
Taking pictures of myself and thinking, "Oh, who's this person? "What has she got to say?" Have you ever had any qualms at all about blacking or browning up? We never try and get laughs just from the race itself.
That wouldn't be so interesting.
Similarly, if I'm doing Marjorie Dawes in Little Britain, it should be funny if a woman's doing it, not just because it's a man dressed as a woman.
I think, if you're accentuating racial characteristics for laughs, you're on dangerous ground.
If you're portraying someone from a different race it should be OK, you know, cos it used to be people would black up, but they would make jokes very much at the expense of black people about their appearance, or whatever, and I think that's now gone.
And then time past when no-one did it.
Now it seemsit seem acceptable, you know, and in a sketch show is a little different.
I'm not sure, you know, we wouldn't do a whole series about two Japanese girls, it would be a bit odd, but I think, for a couple of minutes, it's acceptable.
Traditionally there has been, in double acts, a physical contrast of some king which you do you do represent.
Yes.
Yeah, there's some physical contrast.
But It's fairly mild.
Yeah, but it's useful Well done for spotting it(!) But it is useful for comedy? Yeah, it's useful to play It means we remember who we are, otherwise I might think I'm him.
If we were playing a couple, or something, like a married couple it's interesting, because I'm taller, to play the wife it's kind of interesting.
A marriage is all about trust and, unfortunately, Simon, you broke that trust when you had an affair.
'This is Simon and Jackie Trent 'and Simon is a pilot 'and Simon made the error of having a one night stand 'about four or five years ago with a stewardess 'on an overnight to Glasgow.
'When confessed all to Jackie, she gave up her job' as a dental hygienist and trained as a pilot so that she could accompany her husband on all the flights.
Um, so, er, they're stuck together, yes.
In a quagmire of unhappiness and mistrust.
The original idea was just to have husband and wife pilots.
We thought, "Oh, that's fun.
" "Park it over here.
" "I am parking over there!" You know, just squabbling and bickering.
Then David comes up with the idea of - what if he slept with someone and that's Then we realised You work backwards, you go, "OK, that's why she became a pilot.
" She's retrained in order to be with him.
He had an affair.
CLEARS THROA He had an affair with one of the stewardesses.
It wasn't an affair, it was just a one night thing.
That makes it worse.
How does it make it worse? It just does.
I did what any woman would do I spent five years retraining as a pilot and now I come on all the flights with him.
We decided it was the best way forward.
You decided it was Please don't undermine me all the time, Simon.
'Sometimes you just hit on something' that has an energy to it and you find it successful, sometimes you struggle and don't find them.
It's harder with a new series because You know, with Little Britain, especially when you did 250 shows, we can become a character in two seconds - quick change and we're there - whereas, this show, we had to find the characters.
Yeah, I didn't know who they were yet.
The only one I knew was Taaj and that was the only character I felt I can really improvise as this character, for better or for worse, and I just felt utterly comfortable playing that character.
Even some of the other ones, like Fearghal, I just First time we shot Fearghal, um, we actually filmed it out of order and the first scene we shot as Fearghal, um, was the last scene with Fearghal at this award ceremony.
And, er, I really struggled that day.
I absolutely didn't know I couldn't feel it.
I scored 100% in those customer satisfaction forms, OK.
I knowbeacuse I filled in every one myself.
All right.
I force fed a mannuts Er, just Erwe'll just do, er Do it again, please.
Thank you, goodnight.
What's got into her? Gay orange turd! AUDIENCE GASPS Just keep Can we keep rolling and do it again? I feel like an idiot.
Why? Why? Cos I've just really struggled to get this scene.
Really struggled and even stopped everything for five minutes to go outside and think about it, which is a really diva-ish thing to do.
I feel very indulgent doing that, but at the same time, we're all here, we've set it all up, for the sake of five minutes we better stop and do it cos if it's not happening, it's no good as it's in the end of the series.
I've just struggled with it.
I'm sure you're a nice girl, but there's no way I'm sharing an award with you.
III Sorry, er, start again.
Sorry.
It's no-one fault - it's my fault - but it's just one of those things.
Sometimes you feel it, sometimes you don't, but just cos you feel it, doesn't mean you're doing it well.
ANd just cos you're not feeling it, doesn't mean you're doing it terribly.
Thank you and goodnight.
What's got into her? Gay orange turd! FAINT LAUGHTER Can we just do another? Yeah.
Fuck.
'To be honest, David's in make-up having Omar done' so he couldn't be here and that's fine cos that's the schedule, but if he was here I'd probably be able to talk to him about it and get that bit of guidance.
He might say, "That thing you think that isn't good, actually is fine.
"A bit more of this and a bit more of that," so I just feel a bit lost.
Without my other half.
I absolutely, you know, learnt You, er, you learn those things, don't you? And, er, you know what you've got when it's not there.
I think the problem with doing comedy is that is it's not funny, it has no value.
So if you suddenly feel that it's not funny or not right, it's really, really scary because it just, well, there's no point doing it.
So if we start doing a scene and putting it in front of the crew and they're not enjoying it and laughing it's really hard and, you know, we've had lots of If you look through the DVDs of deleted scenes you see loads of things that we've done that weren't good.
So it is quite a scary place to find yourself when you don't feel it's working.
Remember when we were doing Little Britain, some deleted scenes, something we thought was hilarious when we wrote it with this guy who was like, he was in porno, he was into, like, porno and we thought it was so funny and we did it and it was so unfunny.
It was humiliating having to do it.
It's a harvest festival coming up soon, see, and the vicar said everybody in the village got to make up a box to send to the poor people in Africa.
What you be sending, porno? No, I wasn't thinking along the lines of porno, no.
I thought of sending them something they need.
Like tinned fruit.
You can't send nothing perishable.
Porno ain't perishable.
No, but perhaps that's not the best thing to send them.
What they really need is food and clothing and Porno? No.
I was begging not to do it.
I said, "Look, it's clearly not working "we shouldn't do it," and it was like, "No, no we've got the studio," and, you know, it was shit.
So what kind of things would you say to each other on the set? What kind of notes do you give? There was one scene that I wasn't in where, a passenger was trying to fly with an out of date passport.
It's a Chinese gentleman who speaks very little English MOCK CHINESE ACCEN The passport is out of date.
Out of date, your passport is.
'.
.
and David plays Moses, 'who's trying to help him, but isn't really helping at all.
'And I was marvelling at what David had done 'when we were writing, which was - try and do this very elaborate mime.
' I'm glad I was there on the day, in a way, cos I was probably getting really on your nerves, but I kept pushing you to do more of it.
I don't know, just as a suggestion of your playing.
HE MUMBLES Oi, oi, oi.
You're recently married, there are developments in your lives does that change the relationship? I Yeah, I guess.
I guess.
Erit;s hard to talk about, really.
Does it change it? Yeah.
Yeah.
What do you think? I haven't, like, said to Matt, "Can my wife be in the show?" That sort of thing would be the beginning of the end.
But, erm, I don't know, I mean, your lives change.
You go through good times and bad times and so But, erm, your creative life is something a bit different.
There is this desire, for double acts, for there to be tension between them, but the reason for that is that so many double acts have fallen out or have ended up not speaking to each other.
We have to address this, I know you don't like it, but, um, is there ever bickering? Yeah, but you see, the thing is, there is bickering, but I think you'd be mistaken if you saw bickering as a sign of, um, distance.
Bickering is often a sign of intimacy.
Two people who never argue, there are the people that are going to have problems eventually.
So to actually squabble, but to deal with it, is no bad thing.
The "not a sausage" needs to come in.
It will.
I'm just distracted.
I'm finding my way into it.
We'll run it a few times and we'll I'm just saying, though.
No, I understand.
Otherwise I'm stopping talking Let's keep running while they set up.
It's just, you know, we'll be fine.
So, er, OK, yeah.
We're rehearsing and it's all right to give a note when we're rehearsing.
Yeah, but the same note three times is enough, it's enough.
There's lots of people wandering around it's distracting.
Let's do it somewhere else then, if we can't do it here.
'I think, if you're going to collaborate you need to sometimes disagree because' otherwise there's no point having both of you there because if you just agreed on everything, well, then there's no creative tension.
So we're constantly trying to find out what the best thing to do is.
SO we don't always agree on that and so, yes, there'll be bits where we might argue about things, but then you're creatively working with someone so there's going to be things that you disagree about.
Does it ever get to slam doors and not speaking? Not really.
There's not been many.
We've known each other for 20 years, we've probably had a few, but I mean, We're still here.
I was best man at his wedding, you know, I've had some great, you know, upsets in my life recently and David has been there for me and you just do, you know I mean, I think anything, er, that we have transcends the odd argument.
Or, you know, "You're getting on my nerves.
" "You're getting on my nerves," you know, then you finish the day and meet up the next day and find something new to laugh at.
It's an intense relationship when you're working very closely with someone day in and day out.
You just need to be kind of mature about that and not be too worried about the less important things like, you know, someone being late or some irritations of the way someone coughs or whatever it is cos, you know MATT COUGHS If you said, "We're not working together again.
" "Why?" "Well, because Matt, I don't like his cough," or something.
You know what I mean? It's absolutely ridiculous and petty.
So you need to be as mature as possible, um, about these things and you also need to respect that the work is the greater good.
You know, so you're working together to create something that is greater than if one of you had done it, you know.
It's probably an impossible area to talk about, this, but there is a link between creativity and your private life in that when you come to do the series, you're noticeably different people from what you were four, five years ago.
But are you conscious of that when working, when writing? Erm, I think something to check is when you have success, is that you can sometimes have a more privileged life, because, you know, you're living in a bigger house and whatever else, and you've just got to make sure that you haven't lost touch with what normal people are concerned with.
I know what a pint of milk costs, because my butler tells me.
HE LAUGHS I think you attune yourself to it.
It's more that, just, you lose your anonymity, so people just look at you.
I think that's the biggest thing you have to get used to, is people looking at you.
When you first become well-known I think it's all kind of an up, you know, like, you've got a successful programme, and it's all really exciting, and no-one really has anything bad to say about you.
And then you kind of reach a level of success, and then you do something else, and then people really start laying into you, and quite personally as well.
It's quite extraordinary seeing the outpourings of bile.
I mean, when I got married, it was quite nice, and there's pictures cos of the photographers outside, and, you know, these vile comments about me and my wife from total strangers.
It's extraordinary.
You sometimes feel a little self-conscious, becausebecause people recognise you from the TV, but, you know, it's your own fault, because you've put yourself on TV.
You weren't dragged kicking and screaming to be on TV, and you knew that would happen.
In Little Britain one of my testicles fell out, and I had long nails on, and I couldn't do anything.
Aaron had to replace the nut, didn't you? Yes, I did indeed.
With a pencil I think it was.
With a pencil? Yeah, with a pencil.
I tried it with a pencil.
Nothing to do with you.
He's very long-suffering, Aaron.
There is a pleasure in drag acting, which is why it's been such a successful form, but was there a point in your writing and performing relationship when you thought, "This is going to be one of our things.
"This is one of the things we do?" Not really.
I think we were worried we were doing too much of it, but it's just seemingly that somehow we found those voices of female characters while we were writing what we thought were just lots of funny female characters, and actually we were kind of worried, especially with Little Britain, that we were, like, seemingly unable to depict straight, male characters.
Today's a rarity because you're playing a man! .
.
who's not gay! Yeah.
It's a first.
It's something that I've been doing some research as.
I've been doing heterosexual walking, like this.
This is how heterosexuals walk, apparently.
Like that.
What's your normal walk? Our comic energy is more directed in that way.
We're obviously better at finding that.
I mean, you know, there are other comics that might be great at playing something like, you know, a rugby player or something like that, which is just not something we would really do so well.
Also, you write what you know, and, you know, I grew up For much of my upbringing I lived just with me and my mum and was surrounded by her friends, and you just Those are the voices you hear, aren't they? Mmm.
you were close with your mum, you have an older sister, those are the voices you hear.
Yeah.
Don't we look so alike? Well, that's a bit scary! Somebody came up to me yesterday, I went to this wedding, and she said, "I don't know you, and I hope you don't mind me saying," she said, but you and your son are so much alike! What, just alike as people? Well, obviously alike facially.
I mean, she didn't know me, she doesn't know you, but You were dressed as Emily Howard at the time, weren't you? I was.
I did put my best frock on to go to this party yesterday.
My mum is a big Cliff Richard fan.
Is.
She loves Cliff.
Is a big Cliff Richard fan, yeah.
She absolutely loves Cliff Richard, right, and you've been following Cliff 50 years, really.
But the first time she met him, cos she's met him a few times, he was 17, was he, and you were 13? Yes.
The radio show at Earls Court.
And she was waiting for Larry Adler to come, the harmonica player, Larry Adler, to make a personal appearance.
And they announced that Larry Adler's unwell, and we've got this young star coming.
And Cliff Richard, this spotty 16-year-old, turned up, didn't he? Yeah.
And what did you think? So my mother said, "Ooh, get his autograph, he may be famous one day.
" I said, "Him? He's all spotty.
He'll never be famous.
" Yeah, and that was it.
You didn't bother, did you? That was it.
I never bothered.
I don't think I got it then.
I have since.
She's met him a couple of times since, right, and had photos, and every Christmas, part of her Christmas present, Hanukkah present, I should say, is I get her a Cliff Richard calendar.
True.
It's in the kitchen, isn't it? It is.
You got two this year.
I got one at work and one in the kitchen.
The same.
And every month, oh, when I turn it over, I swoon at the picture.
She likes him.
You mentioned the number of gay characters you've played.
The back story of these characters, do you discuss that? When writing, do you say, "This character is gay," or does it just become apparent? I think we assume they're gay! Gay unless proven otherwise, isn't it? Isn't that the law? It is when it comes to writing our characters.
Yeah.
Certainly there's lots of our characters who are quite cruel, probably behaviour we wouldn't actually want to do ourselves, but somehow there's a little part of us that wants to get that out.
I think it's weird when you create characters, cos you are actually revealing something of yourself, you know, in an interesting way, because you are, in a way, because you're disguising yourself, you're able to do things you might actually want to do but you couldn't.
You couldn't do if you were you, if you know what I mean, I went on Top Gear.
I'm waiting backstage to go on the show, and the producer says, "Oh, Jeremy's just going to touch on the gay-o-meter thing "in the Sun with you.
" "Fine, he can ask what he likes.
" "He's just going to touch on it.
" "Oh, fine.
" So I walk on stage, he goes, "Right, are you gay?" And I go, "Well, who's asking?" He went, "I am," and I said, "Well, I wouldn't have sex with you.
" He goes, "Well, you're definitely not gay, then.
" And the cross-dressing, as we found out from your book, The Boy In A Dress, that is an aspect of your character.
What, me? You enjoy dressing up, don't you? Yeah, I don't Yeah.
I mean, it's enjoyable.
I haven't enjoyed it so much recently! 'It's fun to see yourself transformed, 'and I suppose if you're a man one of the biggest transformations you can do is become a woman.
' Would you ever wear it round the house? No.
Not No.
No, now, cos I'm married, my wife has got a wardrobe full of really beautiful clothes, but unfortunately they're all too big for me! THEY LAUGH And do you ever have that famous thing of Ian McKellen when he played Widow Twankey said he thought he looked like his sister, but do you have that thing of, "I look like my mother?" When you dress as a woman you always hope you look like a beautiful woman, and I've never, ever looked like a beautiful woman.
Yes, you do look like your mum or your auntie or your granny or something, yeah.
Fortunately, my mother is a beautiful woman.
Yeah.
Luckily for me.
You know there's Bryan Adams and there's a singer called Ryan Adams? Mmm.
I wonder if there's now going to be one soon called Yan Adams.
And then An Adams.
And then N Adams, who'd be, like, Chinese.
And then one called Adams, one called just Dams, one called Ams, one called MS, who has multiple sclerosis, very sad, and one just called S.
And then one without a name.
She's trying to cut your beard.
Yeah.
And not only am I making stupid jokes like that, I'm doing them while a woman has scissors right by my throat.
Yeah.
Because we were following Little Britain, where we did cover a lot of ground, sometimes in Come Fly With Me we were going, "We can't do that," cos it's similar to this one we've done, or that one.
That was We hadn't had to compete with ourselves before, do you know what I mean, with our own past? In a 30-second title sequence, we're talking about introducing between 8 and 12 characters, I'd have thought, you know.
It's going to Sort of, Little Britain did that as well as it's going to be done.
It needs to feel contemporary, and it also needs to Maybe it ought to take its lead from the sort of title sequences that those shows have.
The other thing is to shoot the characters in the style of the show, so it looks like you've sort of picked clips up.
I do like the idea of using the tilt-shift lens approach to create environment.
It is something where you are making the journey through the airport.
Flipping a passport, and on each page is a different character.
There is the potential criticism of, "It looks like Little Britain in an airport.
" No, but I think if the airport is featured as much as they are, I think you'll sort of Yeah.
There are plenty of other concepts that you could do.
I just think a really good look at the characters is sensible.
You could do that thing where he's in a crowd, it is actually you walking through the terminal.
The idea is that we're going to have a It's sort of like Little Britain plus, I suppose, cos we want to have portrait shots to introduce the characters, but we also want to try and get the speed and excitement and thrill of the airport.
'What we're hoping to do, we're going to be filming in normal time, 'David and Matt, kind of doing their little posey things, meet the characters.
'We're going to do them against green screen, 'then we're going to take the green screen away and do really long time-lapses of the airport,' so they're at normal speed, but the airport behind them is going brrrr! This is for the background of Matt and David's shot as Melody and Keeley, and we don't have any money for extras, so we've just got the crew literally putting on a variety of hats.
Unfortunately, we've only got one hat.
'Basically, you shoot the same scene twice.
'You shoot me up on a normal speed,' and then you shoot exactly the same camera movement a lot slower, and then you can put the two images together, so you can have the background moving really quickly, 'and the foreground moving at normal speed, 'which is quite a nice effect that you might use in something like an advert or a pop video 'or a title sequence.
You really wouldn't use it actually in the main body of a piece 'cos it's kind of a bit abstract.
' We really want to sell the idea in the titles of loads of new characters that me and Matt are playing in this setting, and get the sense of scale of an airport.
It was interesting, because doing this show, much of this show was shot in a real airport, and there were a plethora of distractions - tannoys, people wandering through your eye line Babies crying.
Babies crying.
Members of the public who were there spotting you, shouting out, "Oi, Little Britain," while you're doing a scene, or taking photographs, or all sorts, you know, and you really have to really focus and try and concentrate.
Where are you going to have us? We're going to have you here.
What, on the chairs? So we set sail, and we'd just left the port at Athens when we discovered that all 780 passengers on board the vessel had contracted dysentery.
Peter, you and I are going to come to blows in a minute! You had to queue for 14 hours to use the toilet.
Well, we'd been waiting for 13 hours and it was very nearly our turn when we heard gunshots and discovered that the boat had been boarded by pirates.
They gathered up the passengers Sorry What's the matter? I looked at you before the line, which is no good.
Don't worry.
I put my hand up and volunteered Peter, but before Peter had had any chance to HE BLOWS A RASPBERRY Where do we do a pick-up from? Just as we thought, "Surely this cruise can't get any worse," we discovered that the cabaret that night was John Barrowman.
That's when I broke down.
INDISTINCT TANNOY ANNOUNCEMEN I'm sorry.
It's so stressful, trying to do this amount of dialogue with this amount of distraction.
I look like a prima donna, but it was fucking hard doing it.
You need to completely concentrate.
When we're filming something and there's someone in the crew wandering around, it's distracting, but when there's 50 people wandering around, and babies crying and phones going off, and stuff, it's just really, really tough.
Are we still turning? I'll pick it up.
I'll just pick it up.
HUBBUB Sorry, I just need to It's so much noise.
The concentration level required for this it's justit's just insane.
I mean, all I can hear is phones ringing, people talking.
It's getting to be impossible to get through a tape.
We'll have to block some bits.
So we've got to make a decision here - either we do this in blocks or we move and film this piece somewhere else I did ask.
I said, "Please can it be in places that are quiet.
" It's just so distracting.
You've got to remember two pages of dialogue in a go.
All right, all right.
Let's just go.
But honestly, you can't believe how hard it is trying to remember all these lines, and you're just hearing phones and people.
DAVID SIGHS But if we can just OK.
'We should have put these somewhere quieter.
' I mean, really, you could do these in their home.
Or, you know, in a complaints office, waiting in a complaints office.
Because the thing about this is, what's important is the performances, cos it's telling a story.
One of the things that I found really, really hard was filming in such a public place, because, actually, when you are filming, um .
.
weirdly, you are a bit vulnerable.
Even though you are just doing comedy, you are accessing certain emotions, and you do need to really concentrate, and I'm one of those people who usually thinks what I've done isn't good enough, and, you know, I might, um, you know, scold myself, and it's harder when you see loads of people watching you, because you just think, "Not only have I been crap, "but that person over there is filming it on their phone.
" We were filming in the arcade - fine.
That's one of the reasons we did it here and not Doncaster, because we could uses the arcade, all booked and planned.
Last night at 7 o'clock, they go, "You can't have the arcade.
" Did they say why? Because somebody from the arcade decided that the scene promoted gambling, which, as arcade owners, they clearly find offensive.
So What do you mean? An arcade owner themselves? Yeah.
The people who own the arcade.
Having said it was fine, for months, cos this has been planned for months, where can we put it? Can we put it here? No.
Can't put it there, can't put it there.
Can't put it in five locations.
"Fine, we'll do it in " That was the only place they'd agree to let us put it.
And we went, "There won't be any people, will there?" "No, don't worry.
completely corrupted.
They'll move their queue.
It's fine.
" This is a deserted part of the airport where we've put three fruit machines(!) Why don't you have a little look around you? A week of filming at this airport has taught us that this is a way too busy area to be able to shoot this piece.
It's quite complex, as well.
And, as you can see, um, we're just going to be obstructing Hello.
How are you? Yeah? Hello there.
So we've got to find somewhere else to film.
It's always lovely when you've got like a very short space of time to do the scene, you know, but that's just the reality of filming, isn't it? 'I found it quite difficult to film in such public places, and yet' I'm looking forward to seeing, er, the fruits of that labour on screen.
I'm looking forward to seeing a comedy show that was filmed in a real space.
There is a desire sometimes, often, in the media for successful people to fail the next time, which, to some degree, you had with Little Britain USA where there were gleeful reports in certain newspapers about how you'd apparently completely bombed in America etc.
Do you Do you fear that with Come Fly With Me, that there will be some people just sitting there waiting to be disappointed? I don't fear it.
I know it, um, and I don't care.
INDISTINCT BACKGROUND CHATTER Yeah, it could be.
Could be tricky and, er, you know, when things are tricky, everyone gets in a bad mood and sparks fly.
I stab people with this pen.
At the moment, we're just waiting Oh, you're joking me?! Sorry, guys.
Forgive.
Ready? WOMAN GIGGLES Forgive, mate.
No, you wouldn't have got odds on me doing that, would you? Let's do it.
Happy? Ready? Stand by to shoot then, please.
Are we ready? The public need to see my pale, whale-like flesh.
DIRECTOR: Get set.
Thank you.
Ready? Thank you.
OK.
And action! SCOTTISH ACCENT: I had to give the uniform back.
My foster mother always told me that if I didnae make it as a pilot, it was important to have something to fall back on.
'The presence of a camera legitimises the strangest of behaviours.
'A man thumps another man - he goes to prison.
'But if it happens on a football pitch, 'he just misses a game.
And, similarly, 'if I walk around in my pants, I get arrested.
' But if there's a camera to capture itpeople laugh.
What? Up here? Yeah.
Oh.
Hi, mate.
Did you see a photographer around here? No, I can't say I have.
No? No.
So, what? Where is this? Well, that ain't a headline, is it? Oh, there I am! How lovely(!) What a joy(!) How lovely for the publicof our great country to wake up and look at my muffin top over breakfast(!) "Yeah, gut.
No, gut.
Matt Lucas parades in Speedos and a red wig "as he films new comedy Come Fly With Me.
"The Little Britain star, 36" It's very, very, very important to put people's ages in newspapers, isn't it? ".
.
The Little Britain star provides the belly laughs "as he joins a shuttle bus queue in the BBC One show.
"Matt and David Walliams, 39" Considerably older.
".
.
play check-in girls in another scene "being shot at an airport in the Southeast.
"You have to wonder if Matt packed those trunks himself.
" Just looking at the comments section.
"The computer says no," says Happy Sacks.
And Sean1986 says, "These two are about as funny "as a sledgehammer between the eyes.
" So there we are.
Yeah, but, you know, a sledgehammer between the eyes that's probably in the hands of Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson would be very funny.
Think about that.
In a nice way I'm not bothered what people think.
You know, in a kind of, I hope they like it and if they don't, I'm sure it doesn't ruin anyone's life.
They turn over, don't they? I think the thing is that With something like a TV show, the public ultimately decide whether something's successful or not.
If they find it funny, they'll tune in next week.
And if they do that, it'll be successful.
I like the fact that we have now, you know, have created two distinct kind of creative worlds - Little Britain and Come Fly With Me.
And if we do more Come Fly With Me, it'll kind of You know, that'll even grow and, you know, it's really special.
If you can pull off two successes in your life If you pull off one you've done well.
If you pull off two, amazing.
(Shall I go and kiss Paul?) There's steam coming up and I'll probably Oh, thank you.
Thank you for helping with the films.
Oh, you're absolutely loved.
Are you all right? Yeah, fine.
How are you? All right, yeah? Good.
All right, thank you.
You all right, Paul, yeah? I'm all the better now.
You all right.
A little perk me up.
Yeah.
It's got very physical.
Kind of physical fighting.
What? last week, innit, Paul? If we're not going to do it now, when are we going to do it, mate? Know what I mean? Is Monday sorted out? Yes.
Oh, thank you.
Doesn't want me to.
CHUCKLES I don't know why anyone would turn me down dressed like this.
For Monday Yes.
No, no, I was looking.
I was just looking.
We've got something there.
Um, do you want to have a? We'll do this later.
Um, thanks.
LAUGHTER It's funny.
I don't know why it's so funny.
It's so random to go physical.
Mm, nice! When I've been on set, looked around and seen the scale of the show, 'er, I've felt really privileged that something 'that I've co-written and that I'm in, er, is being rendered 'so well.
You know, there are times when we've arrived on set and the set 'is grander and is more impressive than what we had 'in our minds when we wrote the scenes.
' Um, and I think that's partly down to the design team as well as the makeup and costume because I think they've done something pretty extraordinary.
I think there's something exciting in the moment it's put on TV for the first time.
They go, "Now on BBC One, "a news series - Come Fly With Me.
" You go, "It's about to start!" And after that moment, it's really embarrassing and you turn it off.
Would you like to be in films? No, not at all.
No, no.
Really? Did you want to act? A radio man really.
Um, no, no, I Did you ever do acting at all? School play or anything? Yes, school plays and at college.
Who did you play? Um, I played King Duncan in I played kings mainly, actually.
Duncan in Macbeth See we've mainly been queens.
Yeah.
So Duncan in? In Macbeth.
The Scottish play! Sorry, David.
Henry VIII in A Man For All Seasons.
Oh, I thought you were going to say Carry On Henry.
A Man For All Seasons! That's good.
It was OK.
You can come and be in our show if you like.
The schoolteacher in Three Sisters, Chekhov.
Did you? Yeah.
That's quite an illustrious CV.
Yeah.
Not bad.
Not bad.
A-mark.
Action! Thank you.
Very good.
Happy? Wrap, everyone, that's A WRAP.
Thank you very much Thank you, everybody.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, that is a wrap for the series.
I'd just like to say thank you VERY much.
Well done.
Well done, Matt.
'Well, I'm feeling pleased we're actually the other end of it, 'because you always think some disaster is going to befall you, 'but we've made it.
' The sound man, when you're filming in an airport, it's not the most fun.
I did have hair.
It's like the worst bit over.
Alfred Hitchcock said that filming, he found filming really boring, because he planned it all so perfectly.
I've never had that issue.
Thank you for looking after us, I appreciate it.
Thank you.
I enjoyed it.
'I'm pleased and proud that we've managed to cast aside 'all the characters that people were familiar with.
' With Little Britain, we started on Radio 4, BBC Three, then BBC Two and then BBC One.
So it really grew, whereas this time, we're starting right in the prime slot, which is Christmas Day, 9.
30, or something.
So, it's slightlyscary.
I don't think, "Can we do something as big as Little Britain?", cos I think that's completely the wrong way to go around it.
Can we do something bigger? No.
Can we do something better? Certainly.
Obviously, a lot of people would love to have a success on the scale of Little Britain, but it raised the questions, how long to go on with that and what to do next? To what extent did you have a strategy about that, as Little Britain became more successful? I don't think we had much of a strategy at all, I think we were completely taken by surprise.
But there was definitely a point where it wasn't our show any more, it belonged to other people.
Yes.
When you're part of a phenomenon like that, it starts to belong to the public.
It wasn't our choice necessarily to be in newspapers every day, because every time there was a story to do with teenage delinquents, there was a photo of Vicky Pollard.
We were very aware that the life of the show was kind of being shortened, by its huge exposure.
I think if a show is moderately successful, it can go on for a lot longer.
So, it's not our fault! So, yeah And also, I think, when something peaks, that's hard, because once you've peaked, the only way is down.
We felt the time was right to do something new.
Everything is new, every character is new.
The setting is all new.
The make-up and costume come together.
I've seen some great design work on the show, the posters, the Flylo branding and things like that.
Even down to the lanyards the characters are wearing, it just really feels like everyone's working together, to me, it's really exciting.
There's something really great about being in a real environment, doing something, because it tells the story in a much more filmic way, than just a sketch.
There's no substitute for being in an airport, is there? I can't remember ever seeing this.
It's a gift.
It's a slightly different style which I think is brave of them.
It will have enough to do with Little Britain but have moved it on.
It's a huge challenge for Matt and Dave, to return in a relatively short time and do something with big costumes and big characters after Little Britain.
It takes a lot of guts, I think, to do that in our TV world.
So the stakes are high for them.
When we look in the reference books in future, it will say that the series after Little Britain was Come Fly With Me.
Was that always going to be the case or are there 22 abandoned projects in between? They're not abandoned projects but there was a period where we just met for two or three weeks and every day, we just sort of created a new format, didn't we? We just went, "Oh, what shall we think about today?" We just came out with lots and lots and lots of ideas.
We were thinking of doing a series of six different half-hours.
One idea was to do one in a hotel.
As soon as you say hotel, though, alarm bells ring, cos the greatest sitcom ever made was set in a hotel.
We had one idea, a couple of actors, who had been in some sort of seventies show, together, that was now regarded as really un-PC, and they were going around America cos they couldn't get any work, we had a whole list of them.
So we went to the BBC and we had a chat to them and the one they liked the best was this airport idea.
So they gave us some confidence to see that maybe this idea we thought would be half-an-hour, actually could be a series.
There was an environment that most people can relate to, most people have been to an airport.
It felt like you could have a multi-character show.
Cos we were very aware after Little Britain that people like to see us dress up as different characters, and we didn't want to commit to just two characters now, for six weeks, we thought, can we do another show that's not a sketch show, that has lots of characters in it? And so, the more we though about it, the more we thought, yeah, this could well work.
You can bring in anyone to an airport, anyone getting on or off a plane, or works there, you can depict.
You can depict most kind of people.
You want to depict royalty, you can.
Someone cleaning a toilet, you can.
We have that in our show - the person who cleans the toilet, and someone who owns an airline.
Here it is, the glamour of filming.
Just keeping cool.
With an air conditioning unit.
I'm a bit hot in this make-up.
The thing is, when you go to a lot of trouble like this, you have to be really sure it's funny.
Because, otherwise, you've spent a lot of money, taxpayers' money, on this and it's just now funny and it would be awful.
And a lot of time.
Yeah.
So it's weird but it's all guesswork, you know.
You're always just hoping it's funny.
There's no guarantee.
OK? It's great.
Quite jolly, which I like.
It is.
He's optimistic.
Inanely.
To me, Flylo is a family, and you are all my children.
I know you all by name.
Patty.
Janet.
And, ah! My oldest friend Trainee.
'Don't take this way, cos it's going to sound odd, 'but it's odd to say something's a revelation 'when you've been doing it for 20 years but honestly,' watching David do Omar, yesterday and today, has been the treat of the week for me, because, erm Cos nobody could have done that better.
What is 18 hour shifts between family, huh? What is inadequate toilet facilities between family, huh? What is highly flammable uniforms between family? Do you become self-conscious of the writing process, thinking, are there catchphrases here? Is that going to be a catchphrase? People, like, pick up on things.
And they repeat them.
And that, in a way, makes them a catchphrase.
I don't know.
There's Moses's "happy flighting.
" 'Happy flighting.
' Whether anyone says that "If you'll pardon the pun.
" Let's have a rummage! If you'll pardon the pun.
"If you'll pardon the pun," when there isn't a pun there, that's his thing.
Micky and Buster, "I took that, he took that, I took that" I took that.
He took that.
I took that.
I took that.
He took that.
I took that.
I took that.
He took that.
There's a few but there's not It doesn't worry me.
It's one of those things, people always Laurel and Hardy had catchphrases.
Morecambe and Wise had catchphrases.
The Simpsons have catchphrases, Dad's Army had catchphrases, I mean, it's not I don't see it as a negative thing, it's just a way for people to enjoy your work when you're not there.
I think there is a tendency in some sections of the media to sneer at catchphrase comedy.
But that is in itself a catchphrase.
And we didn't invent the term catchphrase comedy, so It would clearly have been possible in Come Fly With Me for Lou and Andy to be going on a package holiday, or for some of the characters to turn up.
Did you think about that possibility? We did think, initially, that we'd bring one character over, from Little Britain, and that was going to be Carol Beer, the "Computer says no," woman.
Who would be at check-in She would become a check-in woman because when we were originally planning to do another series of Little Britain, we had thought we might do some more, we had said it would be great for her to be a check-in woman.
But we talked about it and I was very keen and you were adamant that it should just be new characters and I just thought it really needs to be another chapter.
We need to close the chapter on Little Britain, and start a new one, otherwise, people will think it's a spin-off, from Little Britain.
I want to talk more about the writing process.
When we get to see it on screen, we will have a character like Omar, the airline boss, who, hours of make-up, and prosthetics, there's an accent there, but when you're writing, to what extent do you decide on look and accent at that stage? Normally, when we write, we are doing the voice of the character.
Often both of us are doing it.
Even characters where we've set who's playing who, we'll still become the character.
Both of us will become the character to write the character.
So, yeah, we sort of think about that, and with Omar, there is a satirical part in him that is meant to be a bit like Stelios, or Mohamed Al-Fayed.
It felt like we knew how he would look and we had an idea of how he would sound.
But we try and just approach it like either of us could play it, and it doesn't really matter.
We don't worry too much about that because I think it can Otherwise, it becomes like, my bits and your bits, and it's our bits.
Someone has a stronger sense of a character or of how to play it, than the other person.
Like Taaj, probably.
Yeah, I was never going to be Taaj.
Cos I can't do that voice.
IN CHARACTER: It's a good look though, isn't it? Ye get me? D'you want to see? How's it look? It's good though, isn't it? But, it's like, one thing David said was maybe he shouldn't have no hair at all.
AS HIMSELF: Right, let's take the wig off when we put the beard on.
The wig don't take long to put on.
AS TAAJ: It's quite dark, know what I mean? Innit? It's quite dark, though, but the performance is quite gentle.
Get me? It's hard, has that been a problem, the fact that Well, we always thought this character would have hair and then, I think when we were trying it on it just looked a bit severe.
And then we were going to have big ears, so we thought hair would be better, and a beard, to hide the ears.
But, you know, that's just what happens, isn't it? You don't know till you get it all on and with the costume and everything, really how it's going to be.
It was nice, because it was one of those things where I just sort of felt, I think like David with Moses or Omar, that I could just sort of improvise in that character when we were doing it.
Of course, both of us write the character and David will be there coming up with lines on set as well.
Almost feel he forces them on you, rather than you asking.
But, it just felt like he was alive.
For me, anyway.
There's a lot of touching going on.
There's a lot of people touching me.
There's three people touching me, isn't it? And two of them is not even women.
The guy who plays me is batty, but I'm not batty.
The guy who acts all of me, who is talking now, who is playing me is batty, but I'm not batty.
So when he's touching me, man, he's batty.
Has he tried to touch you? Has Matt Lucas tried to touch me? No, cos I would not allow it.
And he knows that, isn't it.
Question one, where were you born? Bradford.
Where were your parents born? Oh, Sheffield.
Where were their parents originally from? Pakistan.
Pakistan! We're getting somewhere.
So, if there was a cricket match between England and Pakistan, who would you support? I don't like cricket.
Well, which sports do you like? EhBMX.
Anything else? Oh, cage fighting, man! I love cage fighting! There was these wicked Yeah, all right, all right.
That voice, that's one of the most extraordinary ones to me.
So, from the writing process, you knew that he would have that Midlands voice? The sort of Northern it's kind of a Sheffield and Bradford meets Pakistan.
I thought you were Prince Naseem.
"Prince Naseem I met, isn't it? "Cos we was on tour though, isn't it? You get me?" And we met Prince Naseem Hamed, didn't we? In a hotel in Manchester.
Yeah.
I kept on saying that I was going to beat him up.
He, um, he his wife came to see our show, and heI am sure this happened that he either text or phoned me when we were on the way to the theatre just to check it had no profanity in it, cos his wife was coming.
Which I thought, from a man who hits people for a livingwas funny.
Anyway, so, yeah, I mean, it still even if we know Matt's going to play it.
It's still ours.
it's still something that we just completely, you know, collaborate on.
And we take a view, we'll look at overall what character we're doing and just make sure that there's not an imbalance.
Like one of us tends to be playing all the female characters, or something, cos you've got to get a healthy balance and not have You know, for example, if we're writing Little Britain and it's a Marjorie sketch, I will still "sort of become Marjorie" I think you've got a clearer vision of her, you tend to lead the writing with the Marjorie sketches, anyway, because I'm more naturally cruel.
LAUGHTER That's the way we do it, because we're both writer/performers.
We tend to write by performing.
That's a good thing, I find it amazing to think that there's some great comedy writer, David Renwick or whoever, that could write on his own.
Because I think we really benefit from bouncing off each other, acting out scenes as much as possible.
When we feel we've got something good that's kind of bubbling, then we start to write it down.
We don't normally start writing until we feel we've really got something we can play with.
I do the typing.
That's me.
I've got lots of nervous energy, so I need to walk around the whole time.
Cos you've got a bad back, sometimes you just lie flat on the floor, don't you? Not that often! You have done it, I've seen you do it and lift your legs up a bit.
There was a period you went through, I'm sure, where you wrote predominantly in your underpants, do you remember that? In the early days.
The trousers were just very tight, you know what it's like.
It's more comfortable to take them off! I'd quite like to write in my maybe I'll begin that now.
We're probably just about successful enough now to be able to be eccentric and get away with it, aren't we? I've got a feeling I won't get on today, cos I've got a feeling this is going to take a long Look, you're doing a documentary, you want to see how this show is being made, you watch a man sand.
Come on.
From having watched it, I don't think you do think about the problems you're setting yourself when you come to record it, but you don't think, "That's going to be four hours in make-up," or, "That's an accent that'll be really hard to do"? I think when we were conceptualising the show, it was hard in some ways cos we thought we want to do it in documentary style, but traditionally comedy shows done in documentary style have been quite close to life.
realistic as possible.
But this was a show where we were going to play 20 characters each, so therefore it was never going to be believable in the same way that The Office is.
So, you know, it was something we had to kind of think about as we went on.
Good morning! Good morning.
Who needs daylight, eh? What are they? Are they earlobes? Yeah.
Are they? All right.
How are you? I'll tell you when I wake up! Yeah.
What we've got here is Precious.
What we normally start off with is with the life cast.
We have fibreglass face of Matt.
Then we make a mould of the front of that, which is this part here.
That's Precious.
And we make it out of fibreglass.
We bolt the two together, and then we have a big tube in the back here and we pour silicone into the tube, wait for it to set.
This is what we end up pulling out of the mould, and that's a silicone appliance which is kind of the sandwich in between Matt's face and the outside of the mould.
We powder it, get rid of all of the sort of shine we've got on there at the moment and then that's ready to stick onto Matt.
It's slightly disturbing cos of the transformation, it's like someone wearing a mask.
It's actually quite disturbing, isn't it? It's to do with not being able to see your thoughts and feelings in the face, but it looks really good.
We have this experience where you suddenly think, "I better be funny!" Cos you've gone to all this trouble and people had to get up at, like, four o'clock in the morning to put this make-up on you.
And then you're starting the day really knackered because, you know, it's only 8:15 and Matt's been in that make-up chair since, I guess, about 5am.
Soand he's got to keep his energy going until, you know, 6:30, 7 o'clock tonight.
Here he is! Looks great.
We don't know where is David Walliams.
Having a piss.
Having a wee-wee, Walliam? David Walliam havin' a wee-wee.
David Walliam havin' a wee wee now.
Where does he stop and she starts? I don't start.
You don't start.
Look at the ears as well.
Yeah, the ears, see what they've done? They've put in earlobes.
We got no coffee.
It's brilliant.
We got none! I think it's brilliant.
It's good, int it? Is that harder? I think it is, cos you have to kind of over emphasise.
When I was Omar I was thinking, cos he's got to be quite a joyful character, but somehow it slightly deadens your face.
So you have to slightly over You have to make bigger kind of faces, really.
To get that across.
You have to really smile, you know.
It's like if you put your hands on your face and slightly pull, you feel that all day, yeah.
But it's fine for a day.
I wouldn't want to live my entire life in prosthetics.
Part of your appeal is that you are playing all the major roles, so Precious, for example, the West Indian lady in the airport, if you hired an actress to play that it becomes something quite different, it ceases to be Listen, if we were the writers of the show and we weren't in the show, or if we just played one character each and the show was cast, you know, predominantly, 90% with other people, then you would hire somebody who was 55 and, you know, black to play that role.
But that's not the concept of the show.
I think it's a hard one, because there is a pleasure in seeing us dressed up, and there is something pleasurable about sometimes they are outrageous looks.
I remember in the start of series three of Little Britain, where I come out as Desiree for the first time, there is just a shock and a gasp of, "I can't believe, you know, that's David.
" Are you here with HER? If you mean Desiree, then, yes.
Oh, goodie.
So I'm finally going to meet the woman who destroyed our marriage.
Is she as beautiful as they say? I think so, yes.
Darling.
LAUGHTER Yes.
Desiree, I don't believe you've met my ex-wife Bubbles.
Hello, baby.
So nice to meet you.
So, you do want that laugh as well.
But that's only a momentary one, where you go, "Oh, my word! I can't believe the make-up.
" You know, or the voice or whatever.
But I think the character needs to be funny, beyond its racial characteristics, you know.
And I think all the character we've created of different ethnicities, I think they've been comic characters, not specifically to do with their race.
We play two Japanese girls, not for a moment watching it, will anyone think, "Oh, are they two real Japanese girls?" Not for a moment! They will.
You will! But you just enjoy it, I think, for its own sense of fun.
Can it come up a bit? Yeah, I can cut more off as well.
No, I like it.
I like it.
No-o-o-o-o.
THEY GIGGLE No, no, no.
We say we do what we do.
'I got very excited when we were playing the two Japanese girls 'and we came out of make up and we saw how brilliant the prosthetics were.
'So simple and yet they really transformedhow we looked.
' It's me, David, in case you don't know.
So I came into this little room and, er, was looking at myself in the mirror and doing the voice and that was really exciting.
Taking pictures of myself and thinking, "Oh, who's this person? "What has she got to say?" Have you ever had any qualms at all about blacking or browning up? We never try and get laughs just from the race itself.
That wouldn't be so interesting.
Similarly, if I'm doing Marjorie Dawes in Little Britain, it should be funny if a woman's doing it, not just because it's a man dressed as a woman.
I think, if you're accentuating racial characteristics for laughs, you're on dangerous ground.
If you're portraying someone from a different race it should be OK, you know, cos it used to be people would black up, but they would make jokes very much at the expense of black people about their appearance, or whatever, and I think that's now gone.
And then time past when no-one did it.
Now it seemsit seem acceptable, you know, and in a sketch show is a little different.
I'm not sure, you know, we wouldn't do a whole series about two Japanese girls, it would be a bit odd, but I think, for a couple of minutes, it's acceptable.
Traditionally there has been, in double acts, a physical contrast of some king which you do you do represent.
Yes.
Yeah, there's some physical contrast.
But It's fairly mild.
Yeah, but it's useful Well done for spotting it(!) But it is useful for comedy? Yeah, it's useful to play It means we remember who we are, otherwise I might think I'm him.
If we were playing a couple, or something, like a married couple it's interesting, because I'm taller, to play the wife it's kind of interesting.
A marriage is all about trust and, unfortunately, Simon, you broke that trust when you had an affair.
'This is Simon and Jackie Trent 'and Simon is a pilot 'and Simon made the error of having a one night stand 'about four or five years ago with a stewardess 'on an overnight to Glasgow.
'When confessed all to Jackie, she gave up her job' as a dental hygienist and trained as a pilot so that she could accompany her husband on all the flights.
Um, so, er, they're stuck together, yes.
In a quagmire of unhappiness and mistrust.
The original idea was just to have husband and wife pilots.
We thought, "Oh, that's fun.
" "Park it over here.
" "I am parking over there!" You know, just squabbling and bickering.
Then David comes up with the idea of - what if he slept with someone and that's Then we realised You work backwards, you go, "OK, that's why she became a pilot.
" She's retrained in order to be with him.
He had an affair.
CLEARS THROA He had an affair with one of the stewardesses.
It wasn't an affair, it was just a one night thing.
That makes it worse.
How does it make it worse? It just does.
I did what any woman would do I spent five years retraining as a pilot and now I come on all the flights with him.
We decided it was the best way forward.
You decided it was Please don't undermine me all the time, Simon.
'Sometimes you just hit on something' that has an energy to it and you find it successful, sometimes you struggle and don't find them.
It's harder with a new series because You know, with Little Britain, especially when you did 250 shows, we can become a character in two seconds - quick change and we're there - whereas, this show, we had to find the characters.
Yeah, I didn't know who they were yet.
The only one I knew was Taaj and that was the only character I felt I can really improvise as this character, for better or for worse, and I just felt utterly comfortable playing that character.
Even some of the other ones, like Fearghal, I just First time we shot Fearghal, um, we actually filmed it out of order and the first scene we shot as Fearghal, um, was the last scene with Fearghal at this award ceremony.
And, er, I really struggled that day.
I absolutely didn't know I couldn't feel it.
I scored 100% in those customer satisfaction forms, OK.
I knowbeacuse I filled in every one myself.
All right.
I force fed a mannuts Er, just Erwe'll just do, er Do it again, please.
Thank you, goodnight.
What's got into her? Gay orange turd! AUDIENCE GASPS Just keep Can we keep rolling and do it again? I feel like an idiot.
Why? Why? Cos I've just really struggled to get this scene.
Really struggled and even stopped everything for five minutes to go outside and think about it, which is a really diva-ish thing to do.
I feel very indulgent doing that, but at the same time, we're all here, we've set it all up, for the sake of five minutes we better stop and do it cos if it's not happening, it's no good as it's in the end of the series.
I've just struggled with it.
I'm sure you're a nice girl, but there's no way I'm sharing an award with you.
III Sorry, er, start again.
Sorry.
It's no-one fault - it's my fault - but it's just one of those things.
Sometimes you feel it, sometimes you don't, but just cos you feel it, doesn't mean you're doing it well.
ANd just cos you're not feeling it, doesn't mean you're doing it terribly.
Thank you and goodnight.
What's got into her? Gay orange turd! FAINT LAUGHTER Can we just do another? Yeah.
Fuck.
'To be honest, David's in make-up having Omar done' so he couldn't be here and that's fine cos that's the schedule, but if he was here I'd probably be able to talk to him about it and get that bit of guidance.
He might say, "That thing you think that isn't good, actually is fine.
"A bit more of this and a bit more of that," so I just feel a bit lost.
Without my other half.
I absolutely, you know, learnt You, er, you learn those things, don't you? And, er, you know what you've got when it's not there.
I think the problem with doing comedy is that is it's not funny, it has no value.
So if you suddenly feel that it's not funny or not right, it's really, really scary because it just, well, there's no point doing it.
So if we start doing a scene and putting it in front of the crew and they're not enjoying it and laughing it's really hard and, you know, we've had lots of If you look through the DVDs of deleted scenes you see loads of things that we've done that weren't good.
So it is quite a scary place to find yourself when you don't feel it's working.
Remember when we were doing Little Britain, some deleted scenes, something we thought was hilarious when we wrote it with this guy who was like, he was in porno, he was into, like, porno and we thought it was so funny and we did it and it was so unfunny.
It was humiliating having to do it.
It's a harvest festival coming up soon, see, and the vicar said everybody in the village got to make up a box to send to the poor people in Africa.
What you be sending, porno? No, I wasn't thinking along the lines of porno, no.
I thought of sending them something they need.
Like tinned fruit.
You can't send nothing perishable.
Porno ain't perishable.
No, but perhaps that's not the best thing to send them.
What they really need is food and clothing and Porno? No.
I was begging not to do it.
I said, "Look, it's clearly not working "we shouldn't do it," and it was like, "No, no we've got the studio," and, you know, it was shit.
So what kind of things would you say to each other on the set? What kind of notes do you give? There was one scene that I wasn't in where, a passenger was trying to fly with an out of date passport.
It's a Chinese gentleman who speaks very little English MOCK CHINESE ACCEN The passport is out of date.
Out of date, your passport is.
'.
.
and David plays Moses, 'who's trying to help him, but isn't really helping at all.
'And I was marvelling at what David had done 'when we were writing, which was - try and do this very elaborate mime.
' I'm glad I was there on the day, in a way, cos I was probably getting really on your nerves, but I kept pushing you to do more of it.
I don't know, just as a suggestion of your playing.
HE MUMBLES Oi, oi, oi.
You're recently married, there are developments in your lives does that change the relationship? I Yeah, I guess.
I guess.
Erit;s hard to talk about, really.
Does it change it? Yeah.
Yeah.
What do you think? I haven't, like, said to Matt, "Can my wife be in the show?" That sort of thing would be the beginning of the end.
But, erm, I don't know, I mean, your lives change.
You go through good times and bad times and so But, erm, your creative life is something a bit different.
There is this desire, for double acts, for there to be tension between them, but the reason for that is that so many double acts have fallen out or have ended up not speaking to each other.
We have to address this, I know you don't like it, but, um, is there ever bickering? Yeah, but you see, the thing is, there is bickering, but I think you'd be mistaken if you saw bickering as a sign of, um, distance.
Bickering is often a sign of intimacy.
Two people who never argue, there are the people that are going to have problems eventually.
So to actually squabble, but to deal with it, is no bad thing.
The "not a sausage" needs to come in.
It will.
I'm just distracted.
I'm finding my way into it.
We'll run it a few times and we'll I'm just saying, though.
No, I understand.
Otherwise I'm stopping talking Let's keep running while they set up.
It's just, you know, we'll be fine.
So, er, OK, yeah.
We're rehearsing and it's all right to give a note when we're rehearsing.
Yeah, but the same note three times is enough, it's enough.
There's lots of people wandering around it's distracting.
Let's do it somewhere else then, if we can't do it here.
'I think, if you're going to collaborate you need to sometimes disagree because' otherwise there's no point having both of you there because if you just agreed on everything, well, then there's no creative tension.
So we're constantly trying to find out what the best thing to do is.
SO we don't always agree on that and so, yes, there'll be bits where we might argue about things, but then you're creatively working with someone so there's going to be things that you disagree about.
Does it ever get to slam doors and not speaking? Not really.
There's not been many.
We've known each other for 20 years, we've probably had a few, but I mean, We're still here.
I was best man at his wedding, you know, I've had some great, you know, upsets in my life recently and David has been there for me and you just do, you know I mean, I think anything, er, that we have transcends the odd argument.
Or, you know, "You're getting on my nerves.
" "You're getting on my nerves," you know, then you finish the day and meet up the next day and find something new to laugh at.
It's an intense relationship when you're working very closely with someone day in and day out.
You just need to be kind of mature about that and not be too worried about the less important things like, you know, someone being late or some irritations of the way someone coughs or whatever it is cos, you know MATT COUGHS If you said, "We're not working together again.
" "Why?" "Well, because Matt, I don't like his cough," or something.
You know what I mean? It's absolutely ridiculous and petty.
So you need to be as mature as possible, um, about these things and you also need to respect that the work is the greater good.
You know, so you're working together to create something that is greater than if one of you had done it, you know.
It's probably an impossible area to talk about, this, but there is a link between creativity and your private life in that when you come to do the series, you're noticeably different people from what you were four, five years ago.
But are you conscious of that when working, when writing? Erm, I think something to check is when you have success, is that you can sometimes have a more privileged life, because, you know, you're living in a bigger house and whatever else, and you've just got to make sure that you haven't lost touch with what normal people are concerned with.
I know what a pint of milk costs, because my butler tells me.
HE LAUGHS I think you attune yourself to it.
It's more that, just, you lose your anonymity, so people just look at you.
I think that's the biggest thing you have to get used to, is people looking at you.
When you first become well-known I think it's all kind of an up, you know, like, you've got a successful programme, and it's all really exciting, and no-one really has anything bad to say about you.
And then you kind of reach a level of success, and then you do something else, and then people really start laying into you, and quite personally as well.
It's quite extraordinary seeing the outpourings of bile.
I mean, when I got married, it was quite nice, and there's pictures cos of the photographers outside, and, you know, these vile comments about me and my wife from total strangers.
It's extraordinary.
You sometimes feel a little self-conscious, becausebecause people recognise you from the TV, but, you know, it's your own fault, because you've put yourself on TV.
You weren't dragged kicking and screaming to be on TV, and you knew that would happen.
In Little Britain one of my testicles fell out, and I had long nails on, and I couldn't do anything.
Aaron had to replace the nut, didn't you? Yes, I did indeed.
With a pencil I think it was.
With a pencil? Yeah, with a pencil.
I tried it with a pencil.
Nothing to do with you.
He's very long-suffering, Aaron.
There is a pleasure in drag acting, which is why it's been such a successful form, but was there a point in your writing and performing relationship when you thought, "This is going to be one of our things.
"This is one of the things we do?" Not really.
I think we were worried we were doing too much of it, but it's just seemingly that somehow we found those voices of female characters while we were writing what we thought were just lots of funny female characters, and actually we were kind of worried, especially with Little Britain, that we were, like, seemingly unable to depict straight, male characters.
Today's a rarity because you're playing a man! .
.
who's not gay! Yeah.
It's a first.
It's something that I've been doing some research as.
I've been doing heterosexual walking, like this.
This is how heterosexuals walk, apparently.
Like that.
What's your normal walk? Our comic energy is more directed in that way.
We're obviously better at finding that.
I mean, you know, there are other comics that might be great at playing something like, you know, a rugby player or something like that, which is just not something we would really do so well.
Also, you write what you know, and, you know, I grew up For much of my upbringing I lived just with me and my mum and was surrounded by her friends, and you just Those are the voices you hear, aren't they? Mmm.
you were close with your mum, you have an older sister, those are the voices you hear.
Yeah.
Don't we look so alike? Well, that's a bit scary! Somebody came up to me yesterday, I went to this wedding, and she said, "I don't know you, and I hope you don't mind me saying," she said, but you and your son are so much alike! What, just alike as people? Well, obviously alike facially.
I mean, she didn't know me, she doesn't know you, but You were dressed as Emily Howard at the time, weren't you? I was.
I did put my best frock on to go to this party yesterday.
My mum is a big Cliff Richard fan.
Is.
She loves Cliff.
Is a big Cliff Richard fan, yeah.
She absolutely loves Cliff Richard, right, and you've been following Cliff 50 years, really.
But the first time she met him, cos she's met him a few times, he was 17, was he, and you were 13? Yes.
The radio show at Earls Court.
And she was waiting for Larry Adler to come, the harmonica player, Larry Adler, to make a personal appearance.
And they announced that Larry Adler's unwell, and we've got this young star coming.
And Cliff Richard, this spotty 16-year-old, turned up, didn't he? Yeah.
And what did you think? So my mother said, "Ooh, get his autograph, he may be famous one day.
" I said, "Him? He's all spotty.
He'll never be famous.
" Yeah, and that was it.
You didn't bother, did you? That was it.
I never bothered.
I don't think I got it then.
I have since.
She's met him a couple of times since, right, and had photos, and every Christmas, part of her Christmas present, Hanukkah present, I should say, is I get her a Cliff Richard calendar.
True.
It's in the kitchen, isn't it? It is.
You got two this year.
I got one at work and one in the kitchen.
The same.
And every month, oh, when I turn it over, I swoon at the picture.
She likes him.
You mentioned the number of gay characters you've played.
The back story of these characters, do you discuss that? When writing, do you say, "This character is gay," or does it just become apparent? I think we assume they're gay! Gay unless proven otherwise, isn't it? Isn't that the law? It is when it comes to writing our characters.
Yeah.
Certainly there's lots of our characters who are quite cruel, probably behaviour we wouldn't actually want to do ourselves, but somehow there's a little part of us that wants to get that out.
I think it's weird when you create characters, cos you are actually revealing something of yourself, you know, in an interesting way, because you are, in a way, because you're disguising yourself, you're able to do things you might actually want to do but you couldn't.
You couldn't do if you were you, if you know what I mean, I went on Top Gear.
I'm waiting backstage to go on the show, and the producer says, "Oh, Jeremy's just going to touch on the gay-o-meter thing "in the Sun with you.
" "Fine, he can ask what he likes.
" "He's just going to touch on it.
" "Oh, fine.
" So I walk on stage, he goes, "Right, are you gay?" And I go, "Well, who's asking?" He went, "I am," and I said, "Well, I wouldn't have sex with you.
" He goes, "Well, you're definitely not gay, then.
" And the cross-dressing, as we found out from your book, The Boy In A Dress, that is an aspect of your character.
What, me? You enjoy dressing up, don't you? Yeah, I don't Yeah.
I mean, it's enjoyable.
I haven't enjoyed it so much recently! 'It's fun to see yourself transformed, 'and I suppose if you're a man one of the biggest transformations you can do is become a woman.
' Would you ever wear it round the house? No.
Not No.
No, now, cos I'm married, my wife has got a wardrobe full of really beautiful clothes, but unfortunately they're all too big for me! THEY LAUGH And do you ever have that famous thing of Ian McKellen when he played Widow Twankey said he thought he looked like his sister, but do you have that thing of, "I look like my mother?" When you dress as a woman you always hope you look like a beautiful woman, and I've never, ever looked like a beautiful woman.
Yes, you do look like your mum or your auntie or your granny or something, yeah.
Fortunately, my mother is a beautiful woman.
Yeah.
Luckily for me.
You know there's Bryan Adams and there's a singer called Ryan Adams? Mmm.
I wonder if there's now going to be one soon called Yan Adams.
And then An Adams.
And then N Adams, who'd be, like, Chinese.
And then one called Adams, one called just Dams, one called Ams, one called MS, who has multiple sclerosis, very sad, and one just called S.
And then one without a name.
She's trying to cut your beard.
Yeah.
And not only am I making stupid jokes like that, I'm doing them while a woman has scissors right by my throat.
Yeah.
Because we were following Little Britain, where we did cover a lot of ground, sometimes in Come Fly With Me we were going, "We can't do that," cos it's similar to this one we've done, or that one.
That was We hadn't had to compete with ourselves before, do you know what I mean, with our own past? In a 30-second title sequence, we're talking about introducing between 8 and 12 characters, I'd have thought, you know.
It's going to Sort of, Little Britain did that as well as it's going to be done.
It needs to feel contemporary, and it also needs to Maybe it ought to take its lead from the sort of title sequences that those shows have.
The other thing is to shoot the characters in the style of the show, so it looks like you've sort of picked clips up.
I do like the idea of using the tilt-shift lens approach to create environment.
It is something where you are making the journey through the airport.
Flipping a passport, and on each page is a different character.
There is the potential criticism of, "It looks like Little Britain in an airport.
" No, but I think if the airport is featured as much as they are, I think you'll sort of Yeah.
There are plenty of other concepts that you could do.
I just think a really good look at the characters is sensible.
You could do that thing where he's in a crowd, it is actually you walking through the terminal.
The idea is that we're going to have a It's sort of like Little Britain plus, I suppose, cos we want to have portrait shots to introduce the characters, but we also want to try and get the speed and excitement and thrill of the airport.
'What we're hoping to do, we're going to be filming in normal time, 'David and Matt, kind of doing their little posey things, meet the characters.
'We're going to do them against green screen, 'then we're going to take the green screen away and do really long time-lapses of the airport,' so they're at normal speed, but the airport behind them is going brrrr! This is for the background of Matt and David's shot as Melody and Keeley, and we don't have any money for extras, so we've just got the crew literally putting on a variety of hats.
Unfortunately, we've only got one hat.
'Basically, you shoot the same scene twice.
'You shoot me up on a normal speed,' and then you shoot exactly the same camera movement a lot slower, and then you can put the two images together, so you can have the background moving really quickly, 'and the foreground moving at normal speed, 'which is quite a nice effect that you might use in something like an advert or a pop video 'or a title sequence.
You really wouldn't use it actually in the main body of a piece 'cos it's kind of a bit abstract.
' We really want to sell the idea in the titles of loads of new characters that me and Matt are playing in this setting, and get the sense of scale of an airport.
It was interesting, because doing this show, much of this show was shot in a real airport, and there were a plethora of distractions - tannoys, people wandering through your eye line Babies crying.
Babies crying.
Members of the public who were there spotting you, shouting out, "Oi, Little Britain," while you're doing a scene, or taking photographs, or all sorts, you know, and you really have to really focus and try and concentrate.
Where are you going to have us? We're going to have you here.
What, on the chairs? So we set sail, and we'd just left the port at Athens when we discovered that all 780 passengers on board the vessel had contracted dysentery.
Peter, you and I are going to come to blows in a minute! You had to queue for 14 hours to use the toilet.
Well, we'd been waiting for 13 hours and it was very nearly our turn when we heard gunshots and discovered that the boat had been boarded by pirates.
They gathered up the passengers Sorry What's the matter? I looked at you before the line, which is no good.
Don't worry.
I put my hand up and volunteered Peter, but before Peter had had any chance to HE BLOWS A RASPBERRY Where do we do a pick-up from? Just as we thought, "Surely this cruise can't get any worse," we discovered that the cabaret that night was John Barrowman.
That's when I broke down.
INDISTINCT TANNOY ANNOUNCEMEN I'm sorry.
It's so stressful, trying to do this amount of dialogue with this amount of distraction.
I look like a prima donna, but it was fucking hard doing it.
You need to completely concentrate.
When we're filming something and there's someone in the crew wandering around, it's distracting, but when there's 50 people wandering around, and babies crying and phones going off, and stuff, it's just really, really tough.
Are we still turning? I'll pick it up.
I'll just pick it up.
HUBBUB Sorry, I just need to It's so much noise.
The concentration level required for this it's justit's just insane.
I mean, all I can hear is phones ringing, people talking.
It's getting to be impossible to get through a tape.
We'll have to block some bits.
So we've got to make a decision here - either we do this in blocks or we move and film this piece somewhere else I did ask.
I said, "Please can it be in places that are quiet.
" It's just so distracting.
You've got to remember two pages of dialogue in a go.
All right, all right.
Let's just go.
But honestly, you can't believe how hard it is trying to remember all these lines, and you're just hearing phones and people.
DAVID SIGHS But if we can just OK.
'We should have put these somewhere quieter.
' I mean, really, you could do these in their home.
Or, you know, in a complaints office, waiting in a complaints office.
Because the thing about this is, what's important is the performances, cos it's telling a story.
One of the things that I found really, really hard was filming in such a public place, because, actually, when you are filming, um .
.
weirdly, you are a bit vulnerable.
Even though you are just doing comedy, you are accessing certain emotions, and you do need to really concentrate, and I'm one of those people who usually thinks what I've done isn't good enough, and, you know, I might, um, you know, scold myself, and it's harder when you see loads of people watching you, because you just think, "Not only have I been crap, "but that person over there is filming it on their phone.
" We were filming in the arcade - fine.
That's one of the reasons we did it here and not Doncaster, because we could uses the arcade, all booked and planned.
Last night at 7 o'clock, they go, "You can't have the arcade.
" Did they say why? Because somebody from the arcade decided that the scene promoted gambling, which, as arcade owners, they clearly find offensive.
So What do you mean? An arcade owner themselves? Yeah.
The people who own the arcade.
Having said it was fine, for months, cos this has been planned for months, where can we put it? Can we put it here? No.
Can't put it there, can't put it there.
Can't put it in five locations.
"Fine, we'll do it in " That was the only place they'd agree to let us put it.
And we went, "There won't be any people, will there?" "No, don't worry.
completely corrupted.
They'll move their queue.
It's fine.
" This is a deserted part of the airport where we've put three fruit machines(!) Why don't you have a little look around you? A week of filming at this airport has taught us that this is a way too busy area to be able to shoot this piece.
It's quite complex, as well.
And, as you can see, um, we're just going to be obstructing Hello.
How are you? Yeah? Hello there.
So we've got to find somewhere else to film.
It's always lovely when you've got like a very short space of time to do the scene, you know, but that's just the reality of filming, isn't it? 'I found it quite difficult to film in such public places, and yet' I'm looking forward to seeing, er, the fruits of that labour on screen.
I'm looking forward to seeing a comedy show that was filmed in a real space.
There is a desire sometimes, often, in the media for successful people to fail the next time, which, to some degree, you had with Little Britain USA where there were gleeful reports in certain newspapers about how you'd apparently completely bombed in America etc.
Do you Do you fear that with Come Fly With Me, that there will be some people just sitting there waiting to be disappointed? I don't fear it.
I know it, um, and I don't care.
INDISTINCT BACKGROUND CHATTER Yeah, it could be.
Could be tricky and, er, you know, when things are tricky, everyone gets in a bad mood and sparks fly.
I stab people with this pen.
At the moment, we're just waiting Oh, you're joking me?! Sorry, guys.
Forgive.
Ready? WOMAN GIGGLES Forgive, mate.
No, you wouldn't have got odds on me doing that, would you? Let's do it.
Happy? Ready? Stand by to shoot then, please.
Are we ready? The public need to see my pale, whale-like flesh.
DIRECTOR: Get set.
Thank you.
Ready? Thank you.
OK.
And action! SCOTTISH ACCENT: I had to give the uniform back.
My foster mother always told me that if I didnae make it as a pilot, it was important to have something to fall back on.
'The presence of a camera legitimises the strangest of behaviours.
'A man thumps another man - he goes to prison.
'But if it happens on a football pitch, 'he just misses a game.
And, similarly, 'if I walk around in my pants, I get arrested.
' But if there's a camera to capture itpeople laugh.
What? Up here? Yeah.
Oh.
Hi, mate.
Did you see a photographer around here? No, I can't say I have.
No? No.
So, what? Where is this? Well, that ain't a headline, is it? Oh, there I am! How lovely(!) What a joy(!) How lovely for the publicof our great country to wake up and look at my muffin top over breakfast(!) "Yeah, gut.
No, gut.
Matt Lucas parades in Speedos and a red wig "as he films new comedy Come Fly With Me.
"The Little Britain star, 36" It's very, very, very important to put people's ages in newspapers, isn't it? ".
.
The Little Britain star provides the belly laughs "as he joins a shuttle bus queue in the BBC One show.
"Matt and David Walliams, 39" Considerably older.
".
.
play check-in girls in another scene "being shot at an airport in the Southeast.
"You have to wonder if Matt packed those trunks himself.
" Just looking at the comments section.
"The computer says no," says Happy Sacks.
And Sean1986 says, "These two are about as funny "as a sledgehammer between the eyes.
" So there we are.
Yeah, but, you know, a sledgehammer between the eyes that's probably in the hands of Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson would be very funny.
Think about that.
In a nice way I'm not bothered what people think.
You know, in a kind of, I hope they like it and if they don't, I'm sure it doesn't ruin anyone's life.
They turn over, don't they? I think the thing is that With something like a TV show, the public ultimately decide whether something's successful or not.
If they find it funny, they'll tune in next week.
And if they do that, it'll be successful.
I like the fact that we have now, you know, have created two distinct kind of creative worlds - Little Britain and Come Fly With Me.
And if we do more Come Fly With Me, it'll kind of You know, that'll even grow and, you know, it's really special.
If you can pull off two successes in your life If you pull off one you've done well.
If you pull off two, amazing.
(Shall I go and kiss Paul?) There's steam coming up and I'll probably Oh, thank you.
Thank you for helping with the films.
Oh, you're absolutely loved.
Are you all right? Yeah, fine.
How are you? All right, yeah? Good.
All right, thank you.
You all right, Paul, yeah? I'm all the better now.
You all right.
A little perk me up.
Yeah.
It's got very physical.
Kind of physical fighting.
What? last week, innit, Paul? If we're not going to do it now, when are we going to do it, mate? Know what I mean? Is Monday sorted out? Yes.
Oh, thank you.
Doesn't want me to.
CHUCKLES I don't know why anyone would turn me down dressed like this.
For Monday Yes.
No, no, I was looking.
I was just looking.
We've got something there.
Um, do you want to have a? We'll do this later.
Um, thanks.
LAUGHTER It's funny.
I don't know why it's so funny.
It's so random to go physical.
Mm, nice! When I've been on set, looked around and seen the scale of the show, 'er, I've felt really privileged that something 'that I've co-written and that I'm in, er, is being rendered 'so well.
You know, there are times when we've arrived on set and the set 'is grander and is more impressive than what we had 'in our minds when we wrote the scenes.
' Um, and I think that's partly down to the design team as well as the makeup and costume because I think they've done something pretty extraordinary.
I think there's something exciting in the moment it's put on TV for the first time.
They go, "Now on BBC One, "a news series - Come Fly With Me.
" You go, "It's about to start!" And after that moment, it's really embarrassing and you turn it off.
Would you like to be in films? No, not at all.
No, no.
Really? Did you want to act? A radio man really.
Um, no, no, I Did you ever do acting at all? School play or anything? Yes, school plays and at college.
Who did you play? Um, I played King Duncan in I played kings mainly, actually.
Duncan in Macbeth See we've mainly been queens.
Yeah.
So Duncan in? In Macbeth.
The Scottish play! Sorry, David.
Henry VIII in A Man For All Seasons.
Oh, I thought you were going to say Carry On Henry.
A Man For All Seasons! That's good.
It was OK.
You can come and be in our show if you like.
The schoolteacher in Three Sisters, Chekhov.
Did you? Yeah.
That's quite an illustrious CV.
Yeah.
Not bad.
Not bad.