Live at The Apollo (2004) s14e03 Episode Script

1 Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome your host for tonight, Gina Yashere! APPLAUSE MUSIC: "Tumbum" by Yemi Alade # I know that she give you fufu # You put am for my soup Baby, what you gonna do? What's happening, Apollo?! Love it, good to be here! Getting older.
Certain things are happening to me now, in my old age.
I've recently, I was recently diagnosed with sleep apnoea.
Yeah, let's talk about it.
Sleep apnoea, generally, a fat disease.
It's a fat disease, big people get sleep apnoea.
Now, I used to be big.
I lost the weight, they don't tell you, you lose the weight, you still get fat diseases.
If I'd known I'd still get fat diseases, I would have stayed fat! I liked having Jaffa Cakes for breakfast! Now, for those of you that don't know what sleep apnoea is, basically, when I'm asleep at night, my neck and the soft tissues around my neck start to collapse in on themselves, therefore crushing my throat so I can't br Basically, my neck is trying to kill me while I'm asleep.
LAUGHTER And if it's left untreated, it can lead to heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, death and snoring.
Now, I know I said snoring after death because, as a woman, snoring is worse than death.
Right, women, come on! Women, we don't like to admit we snore.
Because it's not sexy, it's not sexy! Men, they don't care.
Men don't care because their women put up with it.
And other men, gay men, put up with their partners snoring, they don't give a shit.
Men make excuses for their snoring.
Men are like, "What? Yeah, I snore, I work hard.
" "It's all right.
I'm a man.
"I work hard, I get tired, cos I'm a man.
"I'm a man, I work hard, I get tired, so I snore, "cos I'm a man.
Work hard, tired.
Snore.
Man.
"Sometimes I get drunk, shit the bed.
Man.
Cos I'm a man.
" LAUGHTER Women, we can't make those excuses.
We haven't got those same excuses.
We might shit the bed but we haven't got the same excuses.
Every woman in here likes to think she looks cute when she's asleep.
Every woman in here thinks she looks cute when she's sleeping.
Not all of us look cute when we sleep.
I found out on holiday with my friends, when one of the bitches filmed me.
We're not friends any more.
She died under suspicious circumstances.
She filmed me! And that was not sexy, people! I was like that LOUD SNORING And you know you stop breathing SNORING STOPS BREATHING LAUGHTER COUGHING AND SPLUTTERING SNORING CONTINUES Not sexy! And you know what the treatment is for sleep apnoea? I'll tell you what it is, it's a box.
A box that plugs into the wall, it's called a CPAP machine.
And it pulls air down this vacuum cleaner pipe looking thing that ends in a mask.
A mask, a full-face mask.
A mask that goes over my face.
I've got to wear this every night, attached to a pipe, attached to a box, attached to it every night.
Does this look sexy to you? Look at me.
SUCKING IN AIR Would you like this in bed? Look at me, look at me.
Nobody wants to have sex with Bane from Batman - nobody.
I travel everywhere with that little box, I've got to go everywhere, can't go anywhere without it.
I travel a lot, that box has been all round the world.
I did a tour of Asia last year, did a tour of Asia.
Love to tour Asia, do comedy all over the world.
I did comedy in China, Malaysia, Singapore, India, Vietnam, Cambodia, Brunei, all over Asia, learnt a lot travelling around Asia as a black woman.
That's the black people laughing, they know exactly what's happening.
Black woman travelling around Asia gets stared at.
I get stared at a lot! Now, different countries, I don't know if you know this, different countries stare at you differently.
In Vietnam, they kind of just looked at me and giggled.
GIGGLING Look at the Vietnamese, look at them, look at these adorable racists, look at them, they're so In Cambodia they straight up laughed in my face.
I'd walk down the street and they'd be like Cambodians! They're racist as shit! And then the other comedian I was travelling with was like, "No, Gina, they're not racist.
"I've been here before, they're just confused.
"They're laughing because they were confused "because they thought you were a boy.
" LAUGHTER I was like, "You know what? I think I'd have preferred "if they'd been racist, to be honest.
" Same thing happened to me in India.
I'm stomping around India, I'm getting mistaken for a man 76 times a day.
Everywhere I went in India, they're like, "Hello, sir, hello, mister, come, sir, hello.
"Taxi, sir, taxi? Sir, hello? "Mister, come, hello? Mister, come "I take you for food.
Chapati poppadom, sir.
"Hello? Mister, come, sir.
"Mister, come.
Mister, come, sir, you! "You! You, sir! Come, Mister! "Mister, sir, hello? Mister, come.
"Sir, hello?! Sir, Mister?" After about a week of that, I was like "Have a look, have a look!" And they were like, "Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry.
" "Sir man breast, Mr Man Breast.
Mr Titty, hello? "Mr Titty, hello? Mr Nipple, hello? Mr Breast, hello?" People often get uncomfortable when we discuss race.
Let me rephrase that.
White people often get uncomfortable .
.
when we discuss race.
They always try and shut down the conversation.
No, I'm not racist! I don't see colour! Yes, you do, we all do.
I see colour, I know you're white.
You know I'm black, we all see colour.
Otherwise we'd all be walking around here dressed like clowns.
I'm not racist! I don't carry a tiki torch! I'm not in the KKK, I don't wear a hood! Those are not the racists that black people really care about, we don't care about those racists.
Because we know who they are.
If I see some twat biscuit in a bed sheet with eye holes cut out Pretty obvious! That's not the racism that I care about, that's not what worries me.
It's the other racism, the everyday racism, the undercurrent of racism that black people suffer every day.
It's the death by a thousand cuts kind of racism, the micro-aggression White people are completely confused at this point, you're looking at me like that.
It's not your fault.
It's not your fault, white people, because sometimes you just think you're making a mistake.
Because this kind of racism is often invisible to the naked white eye.
OK, I'm a comedian, I travel a lot.
I'm going up to Leeds, I'm travelling with my tour manager and best friend Lila, also a black woman.
So I go, "You know what?" FAR OFF CHEER That's Lila.
I go, "You know what, Lila, let's not drive, it's a long drive.
"Let's get a train and go up in comfort.
" So we rush down to the train station, I buy us two first-class tickets.
There's a train leaving so we jump on the train, train takes off.
And we're walking through the train towards the first-class carriage.
We walk into the first-class carriage, and this white woman is sitting at the table.
She looks up, she sees us and at the top of her voice she shouts, "Erm, this is first-class!" Now Lila goes, "What the fuck did you say?" And I hold Lila, "No, Lila!" "No!" Just grab her by her collar.
"No, Lila, no! No, Lila! "No! "No!" Watch me humiliate this bitch just with my mouth.
Come back.
LAUGHTER So at the top of my voice I say, "Thank you, lady, "but what was it about us that made you assume that we didn't belong "in the first-class carriage?" She starts to fumble.
Everybody on the train just kind of leans out from their seats.
And she gets flustered, she's like And then all she could think of was like, "I thought you were lost!" And I was like, "How do you get lost on a moving train "going in one direction, bitch?" Now this woman was not alone.
She was with her husband.
Her husband was sitting opposite her at the table, same table.
But we did not see her husband's face for this entire confrontation.
Because the entire time he was hidden behind the newspaper, just His hands never came down! All we saw were his knuckles just gripping that paper! And they were in their 60s, so they'd obviously been married a long time and he's behind that newspaper going "Agh!" "Nosy big-mouthed cow!" "30 years we've been married and every day of those 30 years "I've said, mind your own fucking business!" "Shit!" "And now we're both going to get beaten up by these two black boys!" LAUGHTER CHEERING Take that, white people, take that to your people.
All right, are you guys ready for your first act of the show? Are you ready? Are you nice and warm? Give it up for Lost Voice Guy! MUSIC: "Clearest Blue" by Chvrches COMPUTERISED VOICE: Hello, ladies and gentlemen, are you all very well? As you can probably tell from my accent, I'm from around these parts of the country, so it's nice to be home in this generic town or city.
LAUGHTER I guess I'd better start by introducing myself because one or two of you are looking very confused.
Believe it or not, my name isn't really Lost Voice Guy.
My parents were never mean enough to do something like that.
At least it's what they told me to say whenever the nice lady from social services visited.
Anyway, I'm here tonight to be the token disabled comedian.
And I am here to tick some boxes and make you all feel awkward.
I'm looking forward to it.
If you are wondering how I got disabled, it's because I didn't forward that chain e-mail to ten of my closest friends when I was younger.
I am afraid that I am not here to inspire you, I'm here for the cold, hard cash.
The fact of the matter is that I am sick of being called an inspiration, and it would seem like these inspirational quotes are everywhere these days, which just makes it worse.
I can guarantee that at least a couple of your friends have them plastered all over their walls at home.
They probably say things such as, "Fill a house with love and it becomes a home.
" Or maybe "We create our tomorrow by what we dream today.
" And I can guarantee that you think these people are a twat.
The ones that really get to me are the stuff that gets shared on Facebook.
Quotes like "The only disability in life is a bad attitude.
" Fuck off.
For a start, being nice to the stairs in my flat hasn't turned them into a ramp yet.
No amount of positive thinking is going to help the blind man when he walks into a book shop.
And if it really is the case that the only disability is a bad attitude, then why the hell isn't Katie Hopkins paralysed from the neck down? APPLAUSE AND CHEERING I am quite impressed at the number of sports that have been adapted for disabled people, though.
It's nice that they are so inclusive these days.
I reckon we should go further and adapt versions of classic board games as well.
You could play a very special edition of Guess Who?, where all the characters have disabilities.
No-one would ever win, because everyone would be too afraid to describe their character in case they caused offence.
The questions would be fun as well.
Is your person incontinent? Does your person have crayon around his mouth? Does your person have trouble speaking properly? Is your person Dani Dyer? You could also have a disabled version of Monopoly, where every space is just free parking.
Another question that I get asked quite often is, have I ever tried to talk just to see what would happen? As if I had just been lazy all of my life and just couldn't be bothered to talk! Like I was only putting it on to take advantage of the disabled parking.
But in case you are wondering, no, I haven't tried to talk before.
Mainly because I know nothing would happen.
Besides, I've built a career out of not being able to speak now.
I don't think I should be encouraging my voice to magically reappear too much.
The Found Voice Guy just doesn't have the same ring to it.
I do actually talk in my sleep, though.
I know I do because I always wake up with random sentences typed out on my iPad.
Admittedly, this job would be so much easier if I could talk.
Because apparently it's very important to get your tone of voice right when doing comedy.
So, that means I'm completely screwed.
For example, this is what I sound like when I'm excited and this is what I sound like when I'm miserable.
And this is what I sound like when I'm happy.
And this is what I sound like when I'm bored.
FEMALE VOICE: In fact, the only time I sound any different is on Tuesday nights, when I pretend to be a woman.
Ladies and gentlemen, I have been The Lost Voice Guy.
If you find my voice, please contact me as soon as possible.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE You have been a fantastic audience.
Even if you hadn't, I can't really change what I say at this point.
I hope you have had fun laughing at a disabled man.
Enjoy the rest of your night, goodbye.
Lost Voice Guy! Are you ready for more? AUDIENCE: Yeah! Give it up for Ed Gamble.
Live at the Apollo, how are we doing? CHEERING Such a pleasure to be here, very exciting.
Let's deal with the face straight away.
My face, quite a boring face, not much of an impact when I walk on.
I don't think.
Tell you what I look like.
You know when you're playing a computer game and you get to design your own character? I look like that before you've added any other features to it, that's Second shade of white from the left, hit start, that's me.
Big start to the year, weird start in fact.
Got stranded in New York City, I was on holiday with three other comedians in New York City.
There was a big snowstorm, all the flights got grounded.
Made the BBC News website.
Four comedians stranded in New York City.
And I imagine as people read that they thought, "Ooh, four comedians stranded in New York City, on the BBC News "website, I imagine we've heard of all of these comedians, have we?" No, no, no, no.
Please adjust your expectations, dear reader, because three quarters of that article was dedicated to explaining who each one of us was.
Everyone got their own little paragraph and that was exciting.
I was like, how are they going to describe me? What are they going to go with? Good comedian? I would have taken that.
Affable funster, something like that.
Well, here's what they actually went with - "diabetic comedian".
LAUGHTER Diabetic comedian! Now, this annoyed me for a number of reasons, Apollo.
Firstly, because it is technically true, right? They've done some basic research.
I am type one diabetic, I am a comedian.
Put those two things together and I sort of see how we arrived at diabetic comedian.
But I still think it is a confusing moniker.
Because I'm here to let you know tonight, diabetic comedy is not a thing.
That is not a genre of humour that exists.
Hope none of you have read about me on the BBC News website and when I walked out here, you're like, "Ooh, I can't wait, a bit of diabetic comedy!" "Look, Cheryl, we've read about him.
I wonder what he's going to do.
"What is this diabetic comedy? "Is he going to test his blood sugar on stage and we can all guess what it is?" "Maybe he's going to do one of his catchphrases, 'pancreas, what pancreas?'" It's not a thing, it's not a thing because not enough people know about diabetes.
It would only be a thing if this was an audience full of diabetics, which, I'll be honest, is very rare.
Well, there's definitely one in, we know that for sure.
Give me a cheer if you're type one diabetic.
SOME CHEERING Quite a few, lovely.
Type Two? Doesn't count.
LAUGHTER Doesn't count if you do it to yourself.
Should explain, sorry guys.
There's been a lot of beef between the two communities.
It has to be beef because that has no impact on blood sugar levels.
See, the majority of you will not know about diabetes.
People get confused about it in day-to-day life.
I'll take you through some of the paraphernalia, right.
This is my insulin pen.
I inject insulin with this pen.
Put a cartridge of insulin in here, screw the needle on the end, stick it in wherever.
Regularly do this in public.
The other day a woman saw me doing that and shepherded her child away from me, like I was some sort of horrible drugs man.
Where did she think I'd come from to take heroin in this? The future? Look at it.
Also, don't move your child away from me like I'm suddenly going to go, "Ooh, some for the little one! "Share and share alike, 'tis a lesson he must learn!" This is my blood sugar testing machine, right? Use this on a regular basis throughout the day.
What I do is I put my finger here, click a little button, a spike goes in and out like a James Bond shoe, pierces my finger.
Get blood out the end of it, put that in the machine, look at the screen, take the reading, act accordingly.
Regularly do it in public.
The other day I was in a cafe at a communal table.
A man watched me go through all of those steps - prick my finger, get the blood, put it in the machine, look at the screen.
He lent over and said, "Oh, is that your phone?" LAUGHTER What contract did he think I was on that it demanded a blood sacrifice? Someone else recently, a friend of a friend, saw me do all of that, 25 minutes, looked really confused, and out of the blue went, "Sorry, I've been meaning to ask, "is that your vape?" My vape?! You've just seen me put blood in it, you maniac! I know they get pretty wacky with the flavours but I think haemoglobin might be taking it a step too far.
Also don't ask me if something is my vape because the basic translation of that sentence is, "Are you a twat?" And I'm sorry by the way, if there is any vapers in here, but you do not look as cool as you think you do.
You're producing too much smoke, the volumes are hilarious.
It's not even smoke, is it? It's dry ice, is what that is.
You look like you're recreating an episode of Stars In Their Eyes with your head.
Tonight, Matthew, I will be the biggest dick in the pub.
LAUGHTER That's all it is back there, when people come on, by the way.
It's not a dry ice machine, it's just one bloke with a vape.
Stinks of raspberries when you walk on.
The point is it smells too nice to be cool, as well, vaping.
Cigarettes are cool because they smell bad.
You smell a cigarette, you're like, "Oh, that is disgusting.
They don't give a shit what they're putting into their body.
"They are a badass legend.
" James Dean wouldn't have been the same if he'd ridden off on his motorcycle leaving a cloud of waffles and maple syrup behind him.
I'm diabetic.
I run I ran the marathon last year for a diabetes charity.
Thank you, thank you so much.
You're clapping very early there.
I did run it for a diabetes charity so I will see the money eventually.
Didn't like running the marathon.
For one reason, if you've run one you'll know about this.
Every few miles or so, there are people stood there with blue rubber gloves on, with globs of Vaseline on the ends of their fingers, like that.
Now, I've since found out that those people are supposed to be there.
LAUGHTER They're there in a supportive capacity.
You're supposed to run past, get the Vaseline, rub it on any areas of chaffage.
At the time, I had no idea that they were there in an official capacity.
Didn't look very supportive to me.
I found it rather disconcerting.
Firstly, because I could not see a pot of Vaseline anywhere.
I could not see the origin receptacle for the lubricant.
So in my head, they just got it from home, then got the bus all the way to the start line.
"Sorry, I can't get my Oyster card out of my pocket, "I've got very slippy fingers.
" Also, it doesn't look supportive or helpful to me, it looks threatening.
"You'd better keep running, boy!" "You'd better pick up the pace, otherwise it's examination time!" "You've got yourself an appointment with Doctor Fingers.
" Ladies and gentlemen, live at the Apollo, you've been absolutely fantastic, thank you very much.
I've been Ed Gamble.
Goodnight! Ed Gamble! Yeah! Ladies and gentlemen, that is the end of the show.
Yes! You saw Lost Voice Guy, you saw Ed Gamble and I am your host, Gina Yashere.
Thank you very much, goodnight! Thank you, Apollo.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE