Live at The Apollo (2004) s18e05 Episode Script

Ladies and gentlemen, please
welcome your host for tonight,
Emmanuel Sonubi.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Welcome to Live at the Apollo.
How we all doing? Are we well?
AUDIENCE CHEERS
Oh, this is amazing.
So exciting to be here
hosting for you this evening.
I've been looking forward to this.
I did this show two seasons ago,
and it's only recently people
have started to believe me when
I tell them that I'm a comedian now.
And I get it.
Like, I don't look like
I don't look like a comedian.
This is my happy face.
I'm
I'm in a really good mood right now.
But no-one ever guesses comedian.
And obviously you guys know
I'm a comedian but that's just
cos I'm on a stage with
a microphone under some lights.
It's just scenario.
That's all it is.
It's the scenario that tells you
that I'm a comedian.
Cos let's change the scenario.
Let's say it's three o'clock
in the morning
and you're walking home from
a night out, and you've had a drink,
and you decide to cut down a dark
alleyway and you bump into me.
I guarantee not one person
in this room is going to think
to themselves,
"I'm about to have an amazing time."
Right?
Side note, I can see
That was a perverted laugh.
I can see you.
I used to tell that joke
a lot slower.
I used to tell it slower,
and I used to deepen my voice,
cos you need gravitas
with that joke.
I was in Liverpool doing a show,
telling that joke, right?
And I'd just got to the
part where I said,
DEEPER: "If you were to see me
"walking down a dark alleyway"
And this lady screamed out,
"I'd sit on your face!"
Very awkward for me after that.
No, it was. I was walking
around Liverpool for hours.
There are so many alleyways.
I'd just shaved as well.
Didn't want to waste it.
You guys,
you're a lovely audience as well.
This was what I was most nervous
about when it comes to hosting -
speaking with the audience members.
Cos I've got the worst luck
speaking to audience members.
About a year ago, I flew out
to Iraq to do a comedy show.
Now, I don't know how many of you
have ever been to Iraq for comedy.
It's a different vibe out there.
The show was going well. There was
people from all over the world,
and the show was going really well,
and I thought,
"Do you know what?
I'm going to kill some time.
I'm going to speak to
some of the audience."
There was a lady that caught my eye.
I said, "Hello, what's your name?"
She said, "Maria."
I said, "Maria, what do you do?"
And I don't care what Maria does,
but whatever Maria does,
I'm just waiting for her
to tell me her job
so I can make up a funny punch line
about her stupid job,
and then we can all laugh at Maria,
and it was going to be hilarious.
I said, "Maria, what do you do?"
She said,
"I'm a human rights lawyer.
I'm actually here trying to help
"women get out of
the sex and slave trade."
Oh.
"Thank you, Maria."
So I've just stopped doing it.
You're all safe now.
Not all comedy gigs are like this.
I very recently did two weeks of
stand-up comedy on a cruise ship,
where the average age was 85.
It's lovely to see some of you
back here, actually.
I don't know if you've ever been, if
you guys have ever been on a cruise.
Let me paint a picture for you.
The cruise that I did -
4,500 people on this cruise ship.
Not one of them looked like me
..if you get what I'm saying.
They had a melanin deficiency,
all of them. It was very
I was scared enough anyway,
cos it was my first time
on a cruise ship.
I was terrified, cos I watch
a lot of films, and there's not
any film that starts on a cruise
ship that ends well, is there?
And also, I don't know
if you know this,
but historically
we don't really like ships.
APPLAUSE
I told that joke on a cruise ship.
There was one table that just went,
"Ooh-oh-oh."
Don't have a go at me.
You're the ones that did it.
Do you know what I mean?
You've never been on a cruise,
have you?
Yeah, cruises are fun.
If you get the chance to go,
go on a cruise, cos they are
There's so much It's a lot of old
people, but there's a lot to do.
Even when the weather's bad
there's so much you can
There's actually a game
that you can pretty much
only play on a cruise ship,
so if you get the opportunity to go,
take a stick and play this game.
I didn't make up this game,
but I did name it.
OK, so take a stick,
play this game.
It's called Sleeping Or Dead.
Try it.
Have you ever seen
an old person sleep?
Sometimes you don't know.
I'm just saying.
Seriously, cos if you get it right
a lot, you win free ice cream.
It's amazing.
No, I'm being ser
OK, let me explain.
Cruise ships, they are full of
very, very old people,
and sometimes very, very old people
pass away.
So every cruise ship, by law,
has to have a freezer on board
with four coffins in it just
I don't know why
you're looking shocked.
Do you think they throw them off?
Proper litterbug. Know what I mean?
Take it with you.
Every cruise ship has got
this freezer on board, by law,
with four coffins on it,
just in case the worst happens.
And sometimes, and it can be
it can be rare, but more than four
people will pass away, and the only
other freezer they've got big enough
is where they keep the ice cream,
so they've got to
give it away for free.
Which, I'll be honest, all that does
is make it really, really difficult
when you're trying to mourn,
and you're on deck,
and you're like, "Oh, Nan."
Like
They are fun.
The last cruise I did,
I thought I'm going to use this
as an opportunity to get
some new material.
So for one show
I had nothing planned.
I said I'm going to go out
and I'm going to do
a whole show of just improv.
So I gave out a piece of paper
to ten tables in the room.
I said, "Write whatever you want,
"and that's what
I'm going to talk about."
Didn't read them before the show,
just had them in a bowl onstage,
and I came out to everyone,
told them what we were going to do,
and I took the first one out.
"Right
"Do black people
use sun tan lotion?"
Now what happened then is
kind of what just happened now.
The room split.
Half the room are going,
"You can't say that.
"You cannot say that. That is
a horrible, horrible question."
But you had the other half going,
"Yeah, but do they?"
I thought, "I'm going to answer it,
cos it's just a question,
"so I'm going to answer it."
I said, "Yeah, cos
"..cos we've got skin,
just like everyone else.
"I mean it's much nicer than yours,
"but other than that
it's exactly the same."
And I think it's just a question,
and I think if you've
got a question,
you should be able
to ask that question,
especially if it's something
that sits outside of your cultural
or your social knowledge base.
You should be able to ask questions.
It's how we learn about each other.
Everyone has questions.
I've got questions.
There are things that sit outside
of my cultural knowledge base
that I don't understand.
Like, why can't you lot dance?
What's that?
It's easy. You think I'm wrong -
go on a cruise ship and watch 4,500
white people get the YMCA wrong.
That's the easiest one.
The only thing I didn't like
about cruise ships is you can get
a lot of very pretentious
people on a cruise,
the kind of people that will just
moan about absolutely anything.
And I'm like,
you're on a luxury holiday,
yet you've still found
something to moan about.
And someone made a complaint
against me, which I didn't like.
I don't consider myself
to be an offensive comedian.
I try not to be.
I think people should leave comedy
with a smile on their face.
I'm an observational comedian,
which basically means I see stuff
in life, I talk about it onstage,
and I like to make the comedy that I
do about the room that I'm in, and I
tried to do this on the cruise ship.
So all I was doing, I was observing
this elderly couple sleeping
..or dead.
Then they woke up and I was like,
"Oh, I was wrong."
I was one stamp away from getting
a free Biscoff. I was fuming.
They've woken up.
I'm in their face
like a two-year-old
in the middle of the night.
They start screaming.
It gets very awkward very quickly,
and I tried to calm
the situation down.
I said, "I'm really sorry,
I didn't mean to make you guys jump.
"I'm just the comedian on board.
"I'm just trying to get
some material together
"for the show tonight,"
and they would not stop screaming.
Like, you're giggling.
It got so awkward,
I got out of their bed, and then..
..put my trousers back on
..and I just left because I won't
be spoken to like that by anyone.
I do love doing comedy.
A lot of people know that
I used to be a bouncer,
which, if you didn't know, I imagine
that's come as quite a surprise.
"What?!" I was.
Problem is,
I still look like a bouncer.
There's about 12 of you in here
that showed me your tickets.
People still treat me
like a bouncer.
I went out a little while ago
for a drink.
I'm in the bar. The bar's hot,
so I went outside, get some air,
send a text message,
so I wasn't stood there very long.
I looked up from my phone
and a queue had formed.
I had to learn how to be a bouncer
while being a bouncer,
which is like the worst place to
learn how to do that job,
especially
when people think you can fight.
I accidentally got a reputation
that I could fight.
I was 19.
It was in my local bar, and
I'd been there for I was drunk.
I was really drunk.
I'd had, like, 50 beers.
I'd had three.
You know I had three.
What I've realised
about that lie, like,
as you get older you think
that lie's going to stop.
It doesn't. It just changes.
Do you remember being 19 and you
go out drinking with your friends
and you have, like, three
Budweisers and you're comatosed,
but your friend says, "How many
drinks did you have last night?"
and you're like, "50."
And then you get into your
mid-30s and you actually go
day drinking and consume 50 pints
and then come home and, like,
throw up on the cat and go
to the toilet in the cupboard,
but the moment your
partner says to you,
"How many drinks
did you have last night?"
you're like, "Two."
"I think that second one
was a bad one."
I was really drunk.
I was that level of drunk
where I've now gone to the toilet
and now I can't stop
going to the toilet.
Have you ever been that drunk?
You've broken the seal and
now you can't stop pissing.
It doesn't even look like piss
any more, does it?
It's so clear.
Doesn't it? It doesn't look
Have you ever had that drunk thought
where you're like, "Taste it"?
No, me neither.
I haven't unless you have.
I haven't.
I haven't, have you?
Ugh, right? That's disgusting.
Why would you bring that up?
I haven't.
Ugh! Have you?
Ugh!
I was really I was really drunk,
and a fight kicked off.
This guy threw a drink in this
lady's face, and then he punched
a bouncer and tried to
run out of the club,
and as he's gone to run out,
I've gone to lean on the bar,
cos I need a nap, and he's tripped
over my leg and hit his face on
the bar, knocked himself clean out.
Now I'm stood over this dude
and, I'll be honest,
I was just trying to figure out
if I was in the toilet yet or not.
And I'm stood over this guy,
and the owner of the bar came up
and he shook my hand and he said,
"Well done." I was like, "Haha."
Then the barmaid came over
and she went,
"Yeah, look at him,
and he's pissed himself."
I was like, "Yeah. Yeah. He's
"Yeah
"Yeah, he's
He definitely did that."
There's a lot of misconceptions
about bouncers as well.
People think that bouncers
People think we know a lot more
about star signs than we really do.
Like, we don't.
We just know that's how to
catch you out, cos I don't know,
but I also know neither do you.
You always know
who in the queue to pick,
cos you can see them practising.
We've all done it outside of clubs
when you're waiting to go in, going,
"Third of the eighth, '94,
third of the eighth, '94."
Then they get to the front
and they're confident,
and they hand their ID and you go,
"Date of birth, please?"
They go, "Third of the eighth, '94."
You go, "What's your star sign?"
The most confident kid
I ever met was this one kid.
He gave me his ID.
I knew straight away
that this wasn't him.
I did that job a long time.
You can just tell.
But this kid was so confident
how he handed this ID to me
that I had to ask the question.
And I'm looking at this ID, staring
at this kid, and he's looking back
at me with his big blue eyes full of
hope, and his perfectly conditioned
bright blonde hair, and I've got
this ID and I said,
"Mohammad
"What's your date of birth,
please, mate?"
He said, "I actually lost
my driving licence so they've just
"delivered that one back to me, so
I don't know my date of birth yet."
I was like
That's not how that works, is it?
Never underestimate how hilarious
a drunk person can be.
I think drunk people are
They crack me up.
We had this one guy try
three times to get into my club,
in the space of, like, ten minutes,
and the first time I told him
very politely, "You can't come in.
You're far too drunk."
He said, "No, I'm not."
I said, "Yes, you are."
He said, "I'm not."
I said, "Mate, you're only
wearing one shoe." Right?
Here's the thing.
He wasn't, but he checked.
You should just know that,
shouldn't you?
You shouldn't have to check that.
And then he walked away,
but he didn't walk far.
I could still see him.
He took, like, eight steps and
then turned his jacket inside out
and then came back,
like a brand-new person,
like we're not going to
recognise his brand-new disguise.
The third time, and this is what
I love about drunk people,
the third time he was
he was so drunk that he had that
eight-pint level of confidence
where everything is possible, and
he was so drunk that he convinced
himself that if he was to walk
..really slowly
..he'd turn invisible
..and he could walk
straight past us.
Thing is, we were so confused
watching this happen
that from his perspective
it looked like it was working.
I do, I miss it at times.
I miss some of the conversations
you'll have with drunk people is
The best conversation I ever had
was with this one kid
that called me a racist.
Now, this wasn't weird
because I'm black.
It was weird because HE was, OK?
I took one look at this kid
and said,
"Look, you can't come in tonight,"
and you have to be very diplomatic -
it's not what you say,
it's how you say it,
because these situations can get
very, very, very, very
volatile very quickly, so you have
to be careful how you say things.
And I said,
"Look, you can't come in tonight.
"You're not barred,
but tonight isn't your night,"
and he got very, very annoyed
very quickly.
He said, "You lot are racists.
"You're not letting me in your club
just because I'm black."
Now, I didn't let him in the club
because he had a line of cocaine
on his face.
Which I think is a perfectly
acceptable reason
to not let anyone into a nightclub.
Here's the irony -
if he was white
I wouldn't have seen it, so
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
Oh, Hammersmith Apollo,
are you ready for a fun evening?
AUDIENCE CHEERS
It gives me great pleasure
to welcome to the stage
your first act of this evening.
Please welcome to the stage,
it's Troy Hawke.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Oh, stop it.
Let me just take you in for
a second, you remarkable sight.
What a wonderful cocktail
of vibrancy and expectation.
I love it.
Taking you in, taking me in,
taking you in.
I'm used to my appearance provoking
the full spectrum of facial
reactions, everywhere I show up and
you absolutely did not let me down.
You were delighted, weren't you?
You gave me some wonderful face
when I came up here.
You looked at me like your
mother-in-law just cancelled dinner.
I've been lucky enough to travel,
and I'll never forget
my first trip to Australia.
I went to a place called Perth.
I got off the plane.
First person that saw me
said the following.
"Hey, mate! Hey, mate!
"Why's Freddie Mercury
wearing a kimono?!"
Hey, mate.
Why is Freddie Mercury
wearing a kimono?
Now, this man opened the interaction
with the words, "Hey, mate."
Our eyes met.
I was the mate.
Case closed.
Then he said, "Why is
Freddie Mercury wearing a kimono?"
I looked around.
There was nobody else there.
I was persons one and two
in the rhetorical question.
I'd never met this man
and already, grammatically,
I'm on the back foot.
I wasn't going to put up with that.
You would have been proud of me.
You can't show any weakness.
I summoned up every ounce
of testosterone in my body
and I fired it ocularly
at this chap, and I said,
"I think you'll find
that this is a smoking jacket."
That showed the bugger.
There's a lot that's not made sense,
though, and one of the things
that I still struggle with to this
day is how uptight us Brits are.
I didn't realise
in the UK, "How are you?"
is a rhetorical question.
"How are you?"
is a rhetorical question.
If somebody from the UK asks you
how you are and you tell them,
they would be mortified.
Now there are geographical
anomalies, I'm delighted to say.
If you ask somebody
from Liverpool how they are,
they will tell you, ten times out
of ten, and I love them for that.
Now, from personal experience,
they oscillate wildly between
two very distinctively
different states.
The first one is thus.
SCOUSE ACCENT: "How am I?
I'm sound, mate. I'm buzzing.
"I'm having a belter.
Do you know what? Work's sound.
"Her indoors is sound.
Even our Anthony's being sound.
"Look at the weather, lad.
Cracking the flags.
"I love you, kidder!"
Apologies for the accent,
by the way.
I have the ability to blend in
seamlessly with my environment
wherever I go.
I feel an energy, I match it,
we become almost indistinguishable.
Silly.
That's the first state.
Now, the second state of
Scouse being is rather different,
and it is as follows.
SCOUSE ACCENT: "I'm fuming, lad.
"Oh, don't you start, lad.
I am fuming here, mate!
"I'm fuming. I am fuming.
I'm up the wall with work.
"I've seen me arse with me dad.
Everton are being shite again.
"You're doing my fucking head in.
I am fumigating here, kid!"
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
There's so much
that doesn't make sense.
I tell you one thing that
I do struggle very much with
that makes no sense to me at all,
is the fact that the nurses in
this country have had to strike for
better conditions and better pay.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Literal insanity.
But
LAUGHTER
..I've just found out about
something called dopamine.
Now, dopamine is a reward chemical
in the brain.
Every time somebody does
something nice for somebody else,
they get this huge drug-like rush
of dopamine through their system,
this enormous narcotic hit.
Essentially, nature's cocaine.
I mean, cocaine is nature's cocaine,
but the point I'm trying to make,
all of the do-gooders,
all of the Good Samaritans, myself
included, all of us - junkie scum.
Junkie scum getting our dopamine
fix off the needs of the needy,
and this has been going on
for decades.
Why do you think Sir Bob Geldof
slurs his words so much?
These people are everywhere.
There'll be somebody in your
book club, sir, I guarantee it.
"I see Kenneth was clearing
the weeds from the paving stones
"in front of the church."
"Yeah, I bet he was, the skaghead."
And this brings me to the point.
The worst offenders,
the crack addicts of the care world,
the nurses.
Good Lord! Why do you think
these people
can tirelessly work 18-hour shifts?
I'll tell you why.
They're all chongoed out the wazoo
on dopamine.
"Does that need changing, love?
Mmm!"
And some of these people
will go home
and help folk in their spare time,
just to keep the buzz going.
I mean, if you think about it
like that, why are they even paid?
This is clearly why
the Government hates them so much.
And what were we doing
a couple of years ago?
We were out on the streets
banging cutlery for these people.
We had our saucepans
and our crockery
and we were banging away, for them.
Why don't we perform a haka
for the Wetherspoons day drinkers
while we're at it?
Honestly!
"It's six o'clock, everyone.
"Let's do a Macarena
for the bag heads." Come on.
Do we have any nurses here?
WHOOPING
You make me sick!
You make me sick.
And then you make me better.
Which makes you high,
which makes me sick.
It never ends.
No, I know why
the nurses are mistreated,
if we're talking, you know,
in straight terms.
I tell you why.
90% of nurses are women,
and it is not a level playing field
for you women.
I've found that out.
I've consumed an awful lot
of literature on the subject.
The most clear and decisive
indication on exactly how unfair
it is for you women
is in a series of books
called the Mr Men.
Vile sexist propaganda.
The author, Roger Hargreaves -
a men's rights activist
decades ahead of his time.
Do you know what he called
his female protagonists?
He called them Little Miss.
Patronising.
Why are none of them allowed
to get married?
It gets worse.
Get your heads round this.
Every single Little Miss,
every single one,
is the villain of her own story.
Genuinely.
Little Miss Naughty, right? She's
careening around being naughty.
It's her name. It's her job.
She's carrying on like
a tiny purple Liam Gallagher.
Just being herself,
living her best life.
The Mr Men, they don't like that.
They form a kangaroo court and
they have Mr Strong grab her nose
to stop her, and that works,
and that's the end of the story.
And the moral,
from Roger Hargreaves -
women, know your place.
It gets so much worse.
The entire storyline of
Little Miss Chatterbox,
beginning, middle and end -
"Quiet, love. Men are talking."
Trust me, I have missed nothing
from the narrative arc there.
She talks, they don't like it,
they shut her up, everybody's happy.
Little Miss Neat leaves her house.
It's in perfect order, you know.
She's riddled with
obsessive compulsive disorder,
but that does have
its fringe benefits.
The house is immaculate.
While she's away,
Mr Muddle comes in, uninvited,
and attempts to make himself
a cup of tea, during the process
of which he levels the entire house,
top to bottom, and then leaves.
Never punished in
the narrative at any point.
According to Roger, he's fine.
Little Miss Neat comes back and
has to tidy everything up herself.
And the moral of that one -
men should never have
to make the tea.
Seems very much to me
that every time Roger Hargreaves
had an argument with his wife
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
..every time she got on
the wrong side of him,
a brand-new Little Miss character
was created.
"Have you been to the shops?
Did you remember my pipe tobacco?
"No, no, it's fine.
You just get on
"I'm just going to
get on with my work.
"All right?
Little Miss Forgetful."
Could you imagine
in your relationship
if every tiny domestic mistake
that you made
was turned into a colourful
caricature by this man,
translated into
86 different languages
and published around the world?
"Little Miss Paranoid As Fuck."
You wouldn't dare breathe!
And what about the men?
Mr Perfect, Mr Happy, Mr Strong.
Where's Mr Afraid of Commitment?
Where is Mr Emotionally Unavailable?
Where's Mr Passive Aggressive?
Oh, I'll tell you where HE is.
He's writing the damn books,
that's where he is.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
And the less said about Mr Tickle
This is from that grim tome.
"Sitting in his armchair
"in his house at
the other side of the wood,
"he laughed and laughed
"every time he thought about
all the people he had tickled."
It's practically Prince Andrew's
biography, for Christ's sake.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
You have been delightful.
Thank you so much.
One more time for Troy Hawke!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Are you ready for your second act?
Then put your hands together,
stamp your feet,
go crazy and please welcome
to the stage Olga Koch!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Hi, everyone, hi.
Hi, my name is Olga.
I'm originally from Russia,
and I need to start
every set like that
WHISPERING: ..because I know
that they're listening.
And in case they are listening,
let me be completely clear.
I am obviously on
Ukraine's side in the war.
I stand here completely
in solidarity with Ukraine.
And, controversial opinion,
I don't think Vladimir Putin
is a very nice man.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
That is a very low bar for applause.
I think all Russians are evil,
and I can say that because
I am Russian, and the reason
all Russians are evil is
because the Russian language -
and this is true - the Russian
language doesn't have
a word for empathy.
I was 17 years old
when I found out about
the concept of empathy.
Can you imagine what
that feels like for a person?
I couldn't.
I did recently become
a British citizen.
CHEERING
There's a lot of hoops
you need to jump through
in order to become
a British citizen.
My favourite hoop by far
was the Life in the UK Test.
Have we heard about
the Life in the UK Test?
The Life in the UK Test is a test
that every immigrant has to take.
It's a test that has no grounding
in reality whatsoever.
The only two things that
I learned from the test were
that Belfast is the capital
of Northern Ireland,
and that William and Kate
are happily married.
And the test will start
really innocent.
It'll be like,
"What's the War of the Roses?"
or, "Who's the Beatles?"
and then it'll be like, "When you
move to a new neighbourhood,
"what do you have to do?"
That is genuinely a question
on the Life in the UK Test.
"When you move to
a new neighbourhood,
"what do you have to do?"
You're never going to guess
the right answer.
Introduce yourself
to your neighbours.
That's the least British thing
I've ever heard in my life.
Introduce yourself
to your neighbours?
Like a sex offender?
And look, I empathise
with whoever had to write
the Life in the UK Test,
because it's difficult to come up
with questions that apply to all
of the United Kingdom, because the
UK is such a divided nation, right?
Like Brexit - 50-50.
Marmite - 50-50.
Boris Johnson's
illegitimate children - 50.
Any in tonight?
Statistically
One of the most annoying parts
of the Life in the UK Test
is the amount of time
it spends on the pub.
One of the questions on
the Life in the UK Test is,
"What time do pubs open?"
Can you imagine being a refugee
from a war-torn country
..and not being able to stay
in a place you call home
because you didn't know that
the earliest you could get
a lukewarm Foster's was at 11am
or noon on Sundays?
That is dark!
That is dark. And don't
get me wrong, I love the pub,
the pub is fun,
but there's a reason why
Sigmund Freud came up with his best
ideas sipping on a cappuccino
in a cafe in Vienna,
thinking of things like the ego
and the superego and the id,
and then he moved to London,
had one pint at a pub
and was like, "Hic!
I think I want to fuck my dad."
Let's not over-romanticise
the pub, OK?
I also don't think that people
who were born in the UK
should write
the Life in the UK Test,
because people
who were born in the UK
can't point out all the weird stuff.
I think adult immigrants
to the United Kingdom
should write the test.
I think I should write the test.
You were born into Mr Blobby.
I had Mr Blobby thrust upon me.
I should write the test, OK?
And I've come up with
a couple of questions
for my own version of
the Life in the UK Test.
If you'll indulge me,
um, I'll just do a couple.
Question number one.
What can you see out of the windows
of the Houses of Parliament?
Anyone? Anyone at all?
AUDIENCE MEMBER: The Thames.
The Thames, OK,
that's an excellent guess.
Thank you so, so much for answering.
Technically that is
a correct answer,
you can see the Thames out of the
windows of the Houses of Parliament,
but I am looking for a very specific
answer in my version of the test.
Of course, the correct answer
to the question,
"What can you see out of the windows
of the Houses of Parliament?"
is The Shrek Experience!
We live in hell, baby.
It's true, look it up.
OK, question number two.
Again, do try and answer it
in earnest.
We'll see how we go from there.
Question number two.
What is the official currency
of the United Kingdom?
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Pound.
Pound sterling. That is
technically a correct answer.
Thank you so, so much.
I do have a little bit
of a different answer on my test.
So the correct answer is,
to the question,
"What is the official currency
of the United Kingdom?"
it is of course
Boots Advantage points!
Boots Advantage points
are the cryptocurrency of now.
What other currency makes you go,
"How much thrush medication
do I need to buy
"to get a free mascara?
"How much Dioralyte
do I need to purchase
"to get the crayfish sandwich
"that gave me the diarrhoea in
the first place free of charge?"
I am paying for my pregnancy tests
with my past pregnancy scares.
We live in hell, baby.
I love going to Boots.
I love going to Boots.
I love paying for things
with my own pain.
My favourite thing to buy at Boots
is obviously the pill.
Yum-yum-yum-yum.
I love, I love going to Boots.
I love buying the pill.
I love exercising my right
to buy the pill.
I love that we call it the pill.
In Ireland they call it
the contraceptive pill,
but here in the UK,
we have our priorities straight.
We got together and were like,
"Which one is just
the generic pill?"
Is it the one that treats cancer?
No.
Is it the one that treats allergies?
No.
Is it the one that treats
a random guy you just met
to an orgasm without a condom?
The way we talk about the pill is
always so fun and so flirty, right?
It's always like, "Oh, you take
the pill and you don't get pregnant.
"You just take the pill
and you don't get pregnant.
"Oh, you take the pill
and then you can't get pregnant."
That is not how the pill works!
The pill turns you into
a completely different person,
and that person coincidentally
can't get pregnant.
"That sounds dangerous."
It is!
There's a one in 10,000 chance
you'll get a blood clot and die.
It's OK, it's not you who dies.
It's that other person.
It's not like she has any children.
I should probably start
investing my Advantage points
into other prophylactics,
because the pill does not
protect you from everything.
What I'm trying to say is
I do have HPV, thank you.
I'm very brave. Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Ladies, you can have it all.
Yes, I do have HPV.
I got a Pap smear,
like a responsible adult,
and then I got a letter from the NHS
saying that I got a bad Pap smear,
and I don't know if anyone here has
ever had the luxury or the privilege
of receiving this very formal,
very scary letter
from the National Health Service,
but it just opens with,
"hey slut."
All lower case.
I know that's not what it says.
I know what it says is,
"Dear Olga Koch, we are writing
to inform you
"that following your Pap smear,
we're diagnosing you with
"being a dirty little slut."
And then it proceeds to be
THE most sarcastic letter
I have ever read in my life.
The NHS just goes, "Well,
does it make you feel any better
"that one in four women is a slut?
"Does it make you feel any better
"that being a slut cannot be
diagnosed in a man?"
"You're a slut, OK?
And you might die."
What?!
"We're not saying
the two are related.
"We're just giving you two
isolated pieces of information
"in the same letter.
You're a slut who might die.
"Does it make you feel any better
that everybody dies?"
No.
"Well, don't shoot the messenger.
"Don't even touch the messenger,
you dirty little slut.
"Anyway, here's the time and place
for your cervical scraping,
"parentheses - NOT recreational."
Then you show up
to your cervical scraping.
You nod at everybody else in
the waiting room, like,
"How do you do,
you fellow raw-dogging legends?
"Hello, bare-backing aficionados."
You're lighting each other's cigars.
It's a great vibe.
They're my people.
Some of you need to lighten up.
Everybody gets HPV
at least once before they die.
At least that's what
the letter said.
Some of you are confused as to
what HPV is, and that's because
you're a man and you've
definitely given it to someone.
There's one extremely
annoying response that you get
as an immigrant, and it's
it comes exclusively from Londoners.
Not you, you're different.
And it's a very smug,
very London-based response.
You'll tell this person, "I recently
became a British citizen,
"I recently got a passport,"
and they without fail will come
back with the following.
You'll say, "Oh, I recently got
a British passport,"
and they'll say, "Welcome!
"London is open."
Welcome? Have you guys
heard of Priti Patel?
Have you seen what
Suella Braverman has been up to?
These women are going to
accidentally deport themselves
any day now.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
And I'm sure if you ask Priti Patel
who gets to be British,
she'll be like,
"Only the best people.
"Also, anyone born here."
Which is also my hook-up policy
at nightclubs,
cos I'll be like,
"Only the hottest dudes.
"Also, anyone here.
"Anyone within
a two-metre radius will do."
"Welcome. Welcome."
The reason I hate "welcome" is
because it treats my decision
to immigrate as if it were
a flippant one, as if I woke up
one morning and felt like it.
I did not wake up one morning
and feel like it.
It has taken me ten years,
and I'm one of the lucky ones.
I know more about this country
than any of you.
I know every line-up of the band
Sugababes since the year 1998.
WHOOPING, CHEERING
Keisha, Mutya, Siobhan.
Keisha, Mutya, Heidi.
Keisha, Amelle, Heidi.
Jade, Amelle, Heidi.
Keisha, Mutya, Siobhan.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
And I didn't just repeat
the original line-up.
They reunited with the original
line-up in the year 2018,
and you would know that too if
you took the Life in the UK Test.
Thank you so much.
I've been Olga. Goodnight!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
One more time for Olga Koch!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
So, one more time for all
the acts you've seen tonight.
You've seen Troy Hawke.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
You've seen Olga Koch.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
And my name is Emmanuel Sonubi.
Thank you very much for coming
to Live At The Apollo.
Thank you, goodnight.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE