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18x02 - Ria Lina, Lucy Beaumont, Josh Pugh

Episode transcripts for the TV show, "Live at the Apollo". Aired: 6 September 2004 – present.*
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British stand-up comedy programme performed from the Hammersmith Apollo.

18x02 - Ria Lina, Lucy Beaumont, Josh Pugh

Post by bunniefuu »

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome

your host for tonight
- Ria Lina!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Welcome to Live At The Apollo!

CHEERING

Are we well?

AUDIENCE: Yes!

Oh, wonderful.

Tell me, has anyone ever

had a mother?

WHOOPING

Excellent.

My mum's amazing.

I love that woman.

But I keep letting her down.

Now I know how husbands feel.

Are you a husband?

Do better!

When I tell people my mum is Asian,

they immediately picture

this tiny little woman

who might have been a nurse

or a carer or a nanny.

But that's not true at all.

My mum actually graduated

from high school at 16.

That's two years early

in any system.

She then went to university

and studied physics

before becoming

a computer programmer.

That's amazing for not just a woman

but for a woman of colour.

There is genuinely a picture of her

in the online

Computer History Museum,

the caption of which reads:

"This is a woman."

So, as you can imagine,

those were some difficult footsteps

to follow in

because they wereso tiny!

Teeny
-tiny!

Hey, where do tiny physicists

get their feet measured?

Quarks.

But I do love that woman,

of course I do.

And I want to make her proud.

So, last year, I successfully

completed my first marriage.

LAUGHTER

Thank you. Thank you so much.

I mean, it did take me 18 years,

which I know is a long time,

all right? But then, you know what?

My mum's still married to my dad,

and I think they're going to die

trying, sowho's the winner?

I think the take
-home point is

that I finished what I started

because I am not a quitter.

But it turned out,

after 18 years of marriage,

that my ex
-husband
- who was

more than 20 years older than me
-

was also not a quitter.

So I had to divorce him

because he wouldn'tdie.

And what's the first thing

that happens when you break up

from a long
-term relationship, huh?

If you're a woman, all your

friends gather around, don't they?

They all gather around.

"Oh, honey, honey, babe, babe

"Honey, honey,

babes, babes, babes, babes"

And they tell you how much they

never liked him in the first place.

You couldn't have told me

that sooner?

Like, I don't know,

when you introduced us?

Or, oh, I don't know,

maybe at the wedding?

There's a whole bit in the wedding

where we specifically ask you,

"Is this a good idea?"

Where were you, huh? Oh, too busy

eating the chicken, weren't you?

Mm, yum, yum, yum. Free chicken.

Everybody knows

wedding chicken is the best.

Who doesn't love a fricassee

when it's overpriced,

mass
-produced, and two time zones

away from being out of date?

I felt bad because I thought

the food made you ill.

But it wasn't salmonella, was it?

It was the guilt.

But what happens if you're a guy and

you break up from a relationship?

What do your friends do?

Absolutely nothing
- because they

don't even know you've broken up!

You guys need to talk

to each other more.

Do better!

I think, though, I mean,

to be fair to my husband's friends,

I think the reason

they didn't realise we'd broken up

is because, even though

we're divorced

we still live together.

I know, it's a party

in nobody's pants.

Well, sometimes his, but at least I

don't have to clean it up any more.

It's because of

the cost
-of
-living crisis.

That's why we just can't afford

two separate households.

The only difference is, instead

of sleeping next to each other,

now we're in bunk beds.

It's the longest I've been on top

in years.

I was actually supposed to move out

before the pandemic but then it hit,

and he was like, "Ooh, can you stay?

I need to shield."

And I said, "Of course I will."

And I did.

And I stayed and did everything that

was needed outside of the house.

I walked the dog, I took out the

trash, I did all of the shopping.

But then, when I came home,

he would have the nerve to make me

strip down at the front door.

I mean, I knew that man

was a pervert

when he taught me English

in high school, but

My ex
-husband and I

became single at the same time

because that's how divorce works.

And here's an interesting thing.

When a heterosexual couple

breaks up,

who usually pairs off first, huh?

It's the man. No idea why

Lower standards.

Scientists can't fathom it

They can't be alone.

More research is needed

Desperation.

It's a mystery!

And, lo and behold, we both

downloaded some dating apps

and he met someone

almost immediately.

And she's a wonderful woman.

The only thing is, she lives

more than an hour away from us.

He has to take two trains

to go see her.

And I said, "Oh, old man.

"So you could figure out

how to download the dating app

"on to your phone,

but you couldn't figure out

"how to set your search radius

to something sensible?"

And he said,

"Ha
-ha, the joke's on you.

"I'm over 60.

Those trains are free."

Not that I'm against online dating.

I do love this online dating,

by the way.

I do love online dating.

It's totally blown my mind.

I met my husband in person,

all right?

This online dating stuff,

it's incredible.

You can just download it

on to your phone.

It's so clean, it's so clinical.

You just swipe right

if you want to shag 'em.

Left if you don't want to shag 'em.

You can swipe up

if you want a super
-shag 'em.

I can go through hundreds of men

in a sitting.

I can literally shop for d*ck

while I sh*t.

You don't know

the true meaning of satisfaction

until you've curled one out

to make room for that one.

I think I genuinely love my phone

now more than I love my kids.

"Mummy, will you play with us?"

"Oh, honey, honey, honey. Can you

tell me when I'm ovulating, huh?

"Can you bring wine to the door

in under 20 minutes? Hm?

"You're great,

but you're no Snapchat.

"Go work on your personality, OK?

Mummy's dong
-scrolling."

I think I haven't found the right

dating app that's for me yet

because each dating app

has its own niche, its own angle.

The first one I downloaded

was Tinder.

Because when you're married, that's

the only one you've ever heard of.

It was one of the original ones.

And 10, 12 years ago,

when it first came out,

it was the place that

you could go to find love.

I know Tinder marriages

that are ten years strong now.

But that's not what Tinder is any

more. The marketplace has changed.

Tinder now is the app

that you go to if, like myself,

you've just been married

for 18 years

and you just want to know

what it feels like

to have gonorrhoea.

So I tried Tinder.

Didn't work for me.

Then I think I overcorrected

because then I ended up on an app

called Hinge.

Don't know if you know Hinge.

It's the trendy app.

It's quite pleased with itself

because Hinge has an algorithm.

It has an algorithm,

and what this algorithm does is

it watches you for the first couple

of days that you're on the app,

because then, after that,

when it knows you well enough,

it likes to suggest people to you.

I found this out five days in when

it suddenly suggested Steve to me.

Now, I don't know

what I did wrong

LAUGHTER

The first couple of days

that I was on the app,

maybe I swiped in my sleep.

Maybe a raccoon

got hold of my phone.

All I know is

Steve has no teeth!

I know my last guy

couldn't eat solid food

but that doesn't mean it's my type.

So I had to give up on Hinge

as well.

And then someone came up to me and

they said, "Ria, Ria, Ria,

"but you're a feminist,

you're a feminist.

"Why aren't you on the feminist

dating appBumble?"

I went, "There's a feminist dating

app? Tell me more.

"Yes, indeed I am a feminist.

"Tell me, what does this wondrous

feminist dating app do?

"Does it make the men pay 17% more

for it to address the wage gap?

"Huh?

CHEERING

"Or

"Or maybe it pays for my childcare

costs so I can go on a date?

"Does it do that? Huh? Huh?

"Or does it make my doctor believe

me when I tell him

"something's wrong?

Does it do that?!"

CHEERING

"Tell me, what does this wondrous

feminist dating app do?"

It turns out the only difference

between Bumble and every other app

that is out there is that when

the woman matches the guy

..she talks first.

That's it. She starts

the conversation.

Cos, ladies, that's what we've been

struggling with

for hundreds of years!

Trying to get a word in edgewise.

Really? That's it?

You're telling me that this date

doesn't happen unless I talk first?

What kind of feminism is that?!

Where I'm still doing all the work!

That's like every important

conversation in the last 18 years

of my marriage.

It didn't start unless I started it.

That's not a feminist dating app.

I'll tell you what a feminist

dating app is.

A feminist dating app is one where,

when the woman matches the guy,

he can't talk to anybody else

..until she says he can!

I'm going to design that app myself

and I'm going to call it Marriage.

Oh. Who's on the dating apps?

Give me a cheer.

CHEERING

Did we do a survey?

Did we only sit single people

in the balcony? What is that?

In case their pheromones disrupt

the recording.

"Ria's single. She's on the prowl.

Put them far, far away.

"She's working."

Really? All right. Give me a cheer

if you're in a happy relationship.

CHEERING

Wow. Almost all of the stalls.

Just a small pocket over there

that went, "Happy? Hmm."

Bless you.

Well, then, I'd like to speak to

everyone in the room, but, you know,

obviously, those of you in

the balconies

that relate to this, but I think

to everyone here,

we need to talk about d*ck pics.

We need to clear up some

confusion about d*ck pics.

To be clear, nobody wants

an unsolicited d*ck pic.

CHEERING

If you own a p*nis

And I mean attached to your body,

not in a jar on the shelf.

LAUGHTER

..never, ever, ever send a picture

of that to somebody

without their permission.

Because let's be honest, the p*nis

is not a pretty appendage.

That needs to come

with a trigger warning.

"The following image may

contain nuts."

"Objects may be closer

than they appear."

Nobody wants an unsolicited

d*ck pic. Disagree!

AUDIENCE OOHS

And that's why

they put you in the balcony.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

You know what? He is that far away,

and even if he sent me a pic now,

it would still look just as small.

It must be hard to take a d*ck pic

with just the one hand when

you need the other one to split

the hairs so you can find it.

Hey, mate, can you hold the light

a bit higher?

Hang on, hang on. Hold it just

a bit high No, above the ba*ls.

I'm going to throw you a bone,

because you can't throw me one.

LAUGHTER

Nobody wants

an unsolicited d*ck pic.

But a solicited d*ck pic

I don't want to point any fingers,

but some young women out there are

making online dating

a little bit difficult

for those of us, because they're

making men scared to share
-

with permission, to be clear! OK?

I actually don't fully understand

why you wouldn't want to see

a picture of their p*nis in advance.

Why would you not want to see

a picture of what could potentially

be the last p*nis you ever

see in your life?

That could be your forever p*nis.

Why are you happy to see a picture

of their pets but not what's

in their pants? Huh?

Because you know you'd be happy

to stroke their pets.

I've just been married for 18 years.

I don't want to waste two weeks

dating him to find out

that he's "all personality".

I need the goods up front.

That's why I do my food shopping

in store and not online,

because I want to see what I'm going

to be putting in my mouth later.

Not getting a d*ck pick up front

is like having

your fruit and veg delivered.

You have no right to complain if it

shows up covered in strange bruises.

And it's so much easier

now on a mobile phone.

When I was dating my husband,

I had to go home with him

just to see his d*ck tapestry.

That's right. He was so old,

he had a d*ck tapestry.

I didn't mind. It was hung.

LAUGHTER

And you can learn so much about

a guy from his d*ck pic.

Is he a natural redhead?

Is there coffee in the background

to suggest there might be breakfast?

If it's taken in his bathroom,

how clean is the bathroom?

How much effort is he putting

into his d*ck pic, huh?

Is he just sending it to you on

WhatsApp, or does it arrive

in the post, printed on a nice

greeting card?

Are you one of those men?

Didn't think so.

Also, the amount of effort a man

puts into his d*ck pic is directly

proportional to the amount

of effort they're going to put

into your relationship. OK?

I was chatting to a man online.

I said, "Send me a d*ck pic."

He said, "I don't have one."

I said, "Everybody has a d*ck pic.

"When Apple downloaded that U2 album

on everyone's phones, they sent

"a d*ck pic along with it

as consolation."

I have thousands on my phone in

a folder called Dictionary Corner.

Which says a lot more about

my taste in music than it does

about my sex life.

But he didn't have one.

So he said, "Hang on a second."

And he went into the back and he

plopped it out on the sink

And I say "plopped" because that's

the noise it would have made

in the state that it was in.

..and he took a picture.

Didn't even do the washing
-up!

Swipe left.

In fact, if anything, I think

the d*ck pics are more important

than face pics when it comes to

online dating

because what do face pics lead to?

Catfishing.

I went on a date with a guy

once who used photos

that were more than 15 years old.

I said, "Why did you use

photos that were so old?"

He says, "Cos that's

when I looked best."

And I said, "Then that's when you

should have dated me."

The only time I want to see a

face pic when I'm online dating you

is in your d*ck pic,

with a today's paper

so I know it's recent.

If anything, I want an app

that just leads with d*ck pics.

OK? Just d*ck pic up there.

Then you can tell me underneath it

what it is you do for a living.

Then underneath that, you can answer

all those stupid questions, OK?

p*nis, pension, personality.

That's how I want to online date.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

It's beautiful, people.

Are you ready for your first act?

CHEERING

Then please go wild and crazy

and welcome to the stage,

the amazing Lucy Beaumont!

SHE COUGHS

I'm asthmatic.

That is so scary.

Everyone just walks through it.

It's really You can't see.

Hello.

Are you all all right?

CHEERING

Oh, good.

It's lovely to be here in London.

I'm from Yorkshire.

CHEERING

No, you can't all be from Yorkshire.

If you haven't been to Yorkshire,

it's full of warm
-hearted,

confrontational people.

LAUGHTER

I'm in London a lot, you know,

and it's still the only place

where someone takes the piss

out of my accent.

I was with a friend and this guy

overhead

me talking, and he went to me,

"Whoa!

"Where are you from?" Like that.

And I said,

"Hull, on the east coast."

And he said,

"Say 'east coast' again."

I went, "East coast." Like that.

And he went, "Aw, bless you."

And he had no legs.

LAUGHTER

But, like Do you know?

But you know what London's like.

You know, sometimes it's just nice

to get out of the city.

And I've been working down here

for a while, and I got a train back

up to Hull and I went

and got a pasty,

you know, when I got out

at the station, from Greggs.

And the woman went to me,

"And what can I do for you,

my little angel?"

And she handed me it, and she went,

"Now you take good care,

"me darling." And I took it

and I got in a taxi, and he went,

"Don't be f*cking eating

"that in here!"

And I thought,

"Ooh, it's good to be home."

A lot of Northern cities now,

they've had a lot of regeneration,

like, they're sort of done it

themselves, you know,

sort of like There's a lot of

places a bit like

East End of London, sort of thing.

And I was in Hull, down this place

called Humber Street, and it's got

an independent, modern art gallery.

And I thought, "Oh, has it

lost its roots a bit?"

And I went in cos they've got

Well, they had a sculpture

of an upside down vag*na

smoking a cigarette.

It's true.

And I went in and I said,

"Oh, how much is it to get in?"

And she said, "£12.50." I was

like, "Oh!" Like that.

And there was a woman mopping

the floor next to me and she said,

"I'll do that round

the back for a fiver."

LAUGHTER

Do a lot of you have children?

SCATTERED CHEERING

It's awful, in't it?

Is anyone thinking about it?

Don't do it.

Obviously, like, it's unconditional

love, you know, like, it really is.

But if you had your time again,

you wouldn't do it.

And I've learned a lot about young

people since I've been a parent.

I've learned that if a child

under the age of seven says

that they like olives,

they're a twat.

LAUGHTER

My daughter, she's

Oh, she's lovely.

She's really well spoken.

She sounds like

a young Princess Margaret.

But there's just a bit of

a language barrier every

now and again. Like, I was making

a buffet the other day

and I said, "Ooh, I'm in

hosting mode.

"You know, I'm the hostess with

the mostest."

I was like, "Hosting mode!"

And she looked at her dad and she

said, "What is she saying?"

I've tried to bring her up quite

spiritual, you know,

so I was burning sage, you know,

in the living room to get

away negative energy.

And she's quite sharp.

And she said, "Don't, Mum.

My dad will disappear."

LAUGHTER

I'm married to a comedian.

Did you know? Jon Richardson.

Oh, yeah, good. You know who he is.

CHEERING

Do you know, because I'm going on

tour, my management company,

they took a Facebook advert out

and someone said,

"Don't read the comments."

So I did.

There was just one that bothered me.

And this guy had put, without trying

to be too crude,

"How many

WHISPERS: "..dicks..

ALOUD: "..has she had to

WHISPERS: "..suck

ALOUD: "..to get the career

she's got?"

I mean, the answer's one, but

That's weird to applause that,

in't it?

It's only weird for my grandad,

who's watching.

That's not

You've made that weird for an

87
-year
-old.

But the thing, cos, like, I don't

know if ever you've noticed,

but I've started to do a bit

of telly now and I'm in this weird

stage where I'm getting recognised

but I'm not used to it yet.

I walked in a pub last night

and there was a woman staring at me

and I thought, "What are you

f*cking looking at?"

And then I realised, "Ooh, it's me."

I did You know Michael McIntyre's

The Wheel?

Have you seen it,

the game show?

I lost someone £98,000.

I know!

If you've seen the show, you know,

they go back down in the ground.

When he went down, he turned to me

and said, "I've had a lovely day.

"Thank you."

I would have slapped me!

OK. We're both vegan now.

I'm a vegan that likes steak.

For the iron.

And Jon's a vegan

when he's interviewed on TV.

It's a weird life for him, though.

You know, seeing it

through his eyes

The situations we're getting

Cos he's been on TV ten years.

And we went and did this gig,

you know, in a school.

And then we packed up and he turned

to me and he said, "I've got to go."

I was like, "All right, then, just

wait till you get in."

He was like, "I've got to go now."

And he didn't even let me get out.

He got on the backseat,

and luckily we had a bucket

because we'd been to the seaside.

We've got blacked
-out windows.

And I got out and there was two

of his fans waiting for him, and

they said, "We've come all the way

"from Rotherham to see Jon."

They said, "Where is he?"

I said,

"He's sh1tting in a bucket in"

"..the back of the car."

And they said at

the same time, "We'll wait."

Yeah. But we're both vegan.

WHISPERS: Sort of.

And then when we go

When we go out for a nice meal,

I'll order the steak,

for the iron.

And he'll order butternut squash,

and then he'll be looking

at my steak and he's not listening

to what I'm saying.

And so what I do

right at the end, I go,

"Oh, I can't eat that last bit.

"Oh, what a waste." Like that.

And then we just swap the plates

round. And it's all in silence.

And he eats this bit of steak,

and the look on his face

after he's eaten it is like

You know those Facebook adverts

that go viral of the deaf baby

when it gets a hearing aid?

It hears its mother talk.

That's what it's like.

My mum, she came

to visit me recently.

She spoils my middle class

bubble sometimes.

She came round, and it was just

when my daughter had lost a tooth,

and my daughter turned to her

and she said, "Nanny, what will

"the tooth fairy do with my tooth?"

And my mum said, "Well, she's going

to take all your white teeth

"and all my black teeth and make

a piano out of them."

And she said to me, "Lucy, like,

you know, I don't want to, like,

"sort of, you know, get involved

with your parenting,

"but I just want you to know,

I think you're bringing her up

"a little bit spoiled and, you know,

that's not how you were brought up."

And it bothered me, that,

you know, and I was thinking

about it, and I was bathing my

daughter that night and I said,

"Come on, then. It's time to

get out."

And she said, "No." Like that.

I said, "Come on, it's time

to get out." She said, "No."

And I took the water out and all

the toys, and she was shivering.

I said, "Come on." And then it just

all came out of me,

all my '80s Hull upbringing,

finally.

And I said, "Right." I said,

"For Christmas, all you're going to

"get in your sack is two lumps

of coal and a tangerine,

"and it's going to get wrapped

"around your ribcage and rot

your insides.

"There's children in Africa dying!"

I said, "Are you going to get out

now?" And she said, "No."

And I said, "Do you want an olive?"

And she said, "Yes."

Just before I go, I just want

to tell you, I've done a show called

Would I Lie To You?

You know that, don't you?

Oh, I love it. I've finally found

the show for me, cos

the researcher said, "We've never

had so many mad stories."

And there's, like,

loads I want to do.

Like, there was a time a crow

tried to pick me up.

No, it's true. Honestly.

I felt its talons,

you know, gripping.

And then there was another time

I was just walking down the street

and a slice of raw mushroom

fell out my sleeve.

I know.

And there was another time I was on

the tube, on the Northern Line,

and a g*ng of youths got on

and parted a chocolate Wagon Wheel

and stuck it to my forehead.

LAUGHTER

And I've been looking, you know

This happened quite a while ago.

I've been looking all this time,

you know, has anyone else

had that level of public

humiliation?

And the closest I've ever seen

was I did a gig in Scunthorpe

and I was going past in a taxi,

and there was a woman at the bus

stop, you know, with one of them,

like, massive rollers,

like, just in a fringe?

And a lad walked past and put

a saveloy through it.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

Goodnight.

CHEERING

The wonderful Lucy Beaumont!

Are you ready for your second act?

Then please go wild and crazy

for the fabulous Josh Pugh.

Hello, everybody. Good evening.

Good evening. Thank you so much.

I'm Josh.

Big news about me.

I've got a dog.

He's a good dog.

He's a Staffordshire Bull Terrier.

Yeah. Don't judge. I walk him with

my shirt on.

But no trousers.

Just how I do it.

He's a good dog, right, but bless

him, he's scared of the Hoover.

My dog is scared of the Hoover.

Every time I get the Hoover

out, my dog panics.

But I suppose it's understandable,

really.

Like, imagine it from his point

of view.

Like, to us as humans,

we know it's a Hoover, don't we?

But to him it's just a noisy

robot that keeps attacking

his owner's d*ck.

LAUGHTER

It's a Henry.

I like the eye contact.

It's powerful, I'll tell you that.

Straight into the mains.

Bagless. Both of us now,

to be honest.

Got a wife as well.

Should say that

before the dog stuff, really.

Very happy. Been together our entire

adult lives.

Very happy. But a part of me wonders

sometimes if I've still got it,

you know, if I could still

attract a woman.

I'll tell you what I mean. The other

day I was walking down the street.

There's a lady parked up in the car.

I thought, "She's giving me

the eye.

"OK, I'll be polite."

So I gave her the eye back

and then she locked the car doors.

LAUGHTER

Yeah. Didn't trust herself.

I've still got it, ladies.

It's a gift. It's a gift,

and a curse. And a curse at times.

Any married people in?

CHEERING

Yeah, you loving it?

SCATTERED CHEERING

OK.

It's good being married.

What I would say is it's not

like the films.

That's what I'd say. Like,

in the films, whenever

there's a couple, you always hear

what the other person has said.

First time, every time.

That is not real life, is it?

From what I can tell, about 80%

of being married is just one of us

screaming, "What?" from the top

of the staircase.

The other 20% is her accusing me

of mumbling.

And that's our entire lives.

"You get your ears tested!"

"YOU get YOUR ears tested!"

It's exhausting.

She's always telling me I've got

things wrong with me, my wife.

Always telling me I've got different

things going on.

She's not medically trained.

That doesn't seem to be holding her

back at all.

She keeps telling me at the minute,

like, I've got ADHD.

She keeps saying to me, "Josh,

I think you've got ADHD.

"I think you should get tested.

I think you've got ADHD."

Well, I think that's quite

an arrogant thing to tell somebody

they've got if you're not a doctor.

Break that down for a second.

Like, you've told me a story,

I've lost interest in that story

..and your first thought is

that I must have some kind of

neurological condition.

The arrogance of that!

Like, can we maybe work on your

storytelling skills

before we put me on mind
-altering

medication?

Should we try that first?

See how we get on?

She's a great person. I could never

be without her.

I could never be single. I was

single before I met her. I hated it.

I hated being single. Even my wife,

when I first met my wife, she didn't

like me at all,

didn't fancy me one little bit,

but I ground her down

and now we're married. And people

forget you can do that.

Like, that is an option.

Like, if you like somebody

and they don't like you back,

don't just give up straight away.

Like, don't get weird about it.

If you find yourself

going through their bins,

that's too farshe said.

But, like, my generation

My generation especially, we're

obsessed with this idea,

this notion of fate.

Like, you hear it all the time,

don't you?

"If it was meant to happen,

it'll happen."

But come on, we've got more control

over our lives than that, surely.

Like, if you're in the supermarket,

shopping with your kid,

and your kid wandered off,

you'd go and look for it.

You wouldn't be like,

"Guess it just wasn't meant to be.

"I'll just carry on shopping."

You get back and your partner's

like, "Where's the kid?"

"Just didn't work out. Yeah.

"Right person, wrong time.

We go again. We move forward."

I'm not a good husband,

if I'm honest. I'm not unfaithful or

controlling, but I am incompetent.

And that can really grind

a person down.

I don't know what this says

about me, but I'm not my

wife's emergency contact.

It's not a great sign, that, is it?

It's like, "I love you, Josh,

"but if the sh*t hits the fan,

I'm phoning my dad, you stay

"out of the way."

I just make mistakes.

That's all it is.

I make silly mistakes. The worst

mistake I've made in our marriage,

actually, my wife's favourite dinner

in the whole world, right,

is beef stew

in the slow cooker.

A very exotic woman.

That's her favourite dinner.

One day she gets up early for work.

She puts her beef stew

into the slow cooker.

She goes out to work.

She text me at lunchtime, saying,

"Can't wait for this beef stew.

"Really looking forward to it."

Gets in, five o'clock in

the evening,

rubbing her hands together.

"I can't wait for this beef stew.

"I've been looking forward

to this all day."

What neither of us realised was

that at about 12 o'clock that day,

I'd accidentally unplugged

the slow cooker

so that I could plug in Alexa

to ask how old Ronan Keating is.

She was furious.

She was like

"What were you thinking?!"

I was like, "I don't know.

Late 30s? Early 40s? I don't know"

LAUGHTER

He's 47. I've got to tell people.

I get stressed.

We're very fortunate.

A wonderful time in our life.

I became a dad 18 months ago.

CHEERING

He's actually nine years

old, but I've only

just started getting involved.

The hard work's done.

I'll step in now, I think.

No, he's a baby.

He's a wonderful boy.

It's stressful.

Very stressful. Not for me.

For my little boy.

It's very stressful being a baby.

His socks just fall off all day.

Just start the day, you look down,

his socks are off again.

Imagine if you were going

through that as adults.

Your mental health would be in

the gutter

if you were going through that.

I'm amazed it isn't more babies'

first words when they learn

to speak. Not Muma, Dada.

"What the f*ck's going on with

these socks? Seriously?!"

Mad being a baby.

My little boy, he's 18 months old.

He's got three xylophones.

Why would anybody need three

xylophones?

There's professional xylophone

players with less xylophones

than this kid. I said to my wife,

"Why has he got three xylophones?"

She goes, "Oh, he likes

to play one in the bath."

Like some kind of eccentric

billionaire! What is going on here?

I'm enjoying being a dad.

It's changed my whole perspective,

to be honest, being a dad.

Like, growing up, I used to think

that I had an angry dad. Growing up,

I always thought I had an angry dad.

And now I'm a dad, I'm like,

"Oh, no, we just pushed a very

"reasonable man to breaking point."

Just He's just a lovely guy.

I think being a parent is a lot

like eating a pomegranate.

Like, there's really nice little

bits, but ultimately I'm not

sure it's worth it.

It's really hard.

People give you mad advice as well

when you have a kid.

My little boy, actually, he was

about a week old,

I was holding him, and my

mum, actually, she said,

"Josh, just think, that little boy

you're holding there

"could go on to be anything

he wants to be.

"He could be a top doctor,

a politician, an astronaut."

I was like,

"Wow, that's incredible."

But also,

I wouldn't have thought so.

An astronaut?!

From me to an

astronaut in one generation.

That's a hell of a leap.

I went to the pub the other day,

it was a push door,

I was pulling it.

I thought the pub was closed.

I just went home.

LAUGHTER

I could see people inside. I was

like, "How have they got in there?

"What's going on?"

NASA are not

knocking down my door.

I don't think he'll be a politician

either because he's going

to go to the same sh*t school in

the Midlands that I went to.

And politicians, they all go

to the posh schools, don't they?

People don't like that. They say,

"Oh, politicians,

"they all go to the posh schools."

I think that's OK.

I think that's fine.

I don't think you'd want anybody

from my school being in charge

of the country.

Maybe this isn't very progressive,

but I think if you learned maths

in a portacabin, don't get

involved in Government.

I don't know. If you learned

about history from watching

Blackadder on a wheeled
-in TV,

stay out of it.

I'm not a political guy, really.

But I did I watched Matt Hancock

in the jungle.

Did you see Matt Hancock

in the jungle?

What do you think to that guy?

Yeah. Absolute front wiper,

that guy, man. He's a

So, if you don't know, Matt Hancock,

he famously

broke lockdown restrictions

to cheat on his wife, right?

And his justification for doing

that was, he said, "I fell in love."

Oh, that makes it OK,

Matt. You fell in love.

What about those of us that lost

work, lost income, lost homes?

But you fell in love.

That makes it OK, does it?

What about those of us that lost

loved ones and relatives

and couldn't be at their bedside as

they took their last dying breath?

But you fell in love, Matt.

That makes it OK, does it?

What about those of us that were

so lonely during lockdown

that we ordered a sex doll

from China

and three days later when we tried

to send it back,

the seller wouldn't accept it

because, in their words,

the an*s was damaged beyond

recognition?

But you fell in love, Matt.

That makes it OK, does it?

You guys were there, man. You were

there with me in the trenches.

It changes your relationship,

being a parent, having a kid,

you know, it really does.

My wife won't mind me telling you

this, but after we had our little

boy, we didn't have sex for ages,

like, so long.

Like, I didn't know edible lingerie

could go past its use
-by date,

genuinely. I had to break it up,

give it to trick
-or
-treaters

because it's expensive stuff, right?

LAUGHTER

But getting back into it, right,

we started mixing things up.

We've started doing sexy talk.

Yeah.

I've not done well with

this sexy talk.

Long story short, one evening,

during the throes of passion,

I called my wife a dirty git.

That is not the right vibe,

let me tell you that.

That's something you say

to an old man that's pissed himself

at a bus stop,

not the love of your life.

The other thing we've tried,

we tried spanking.

I regret the spanking.

I was not good at

the spanking either.

By all accounts, my wife said

I was too tentative with it.

My wife said I spank like

I'm reassuring a nervous greyhound.

"You're OK. You're OK."

I regret the spanking, man. Should

not have done the spanking.

I know there's couples in here

tonight. My advice, right,

and I'll leave you on this.

My advice, if you're going to spank

each other, do it in the first

six months of getting together.

Don't let ten years

of resentment build up

..before you're bringing

that into the equation.

I was spanked with

a closed fist one evening.

I don't think that's right.

My name's been Josh Pugh, enjoy the

rest of your night.

Take it easy. Thank you so much.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

The marvellous Josh Pugh!

Have you enjoyed yourself tonight?

Thank you so much for watching.

Give it up one more time

for Lucy Beaumont!

CHEERING

And Josh Pugh!

CHEERING

My name is Ria Lina. Goodnight!