So You Think Cleopatra Was On The Jeremy Kyle Show?

[rionaleonhart]

I have been to another recording of The Unbelievable Truth, with anewcitylife and causethesounds! It was hosted, of course, by David Mitchell; the panellists were Fred MacAulay, Susan Calman, Liza Tarbuck and Charlie 'Charlie Freaking Brooker' Brooker.

I'll say that again: one of the panellists was Charlie Brooker.

I cannot express how excited I have been for the past week.

I was trying to be dignified whilst queueing with anewcitylife and causethesounds, and almost succeeded until we spotted Brooker nearby, taking a phone call, his dry cleaning over his shoulder. Charlie Brooker is a real person! I can confirm this because I saw him with my eyes. We all promptly became extremely giggly, which set the tone for the evening.

Here is my report on that evening! (This report may, I'll be honest, be slightly biased towards recording exchanges between David Mitchell and Charlie Brooker.)


Charlie Brooker's hair was astonishingly stupid. It brought me a great deal of joy.

David Mitchell and Charlie Brooker have such chemistry. They really do. I just want to sit and listen to them disputing things for hours.

Mitchell and Brooker were sort of monopolising each other's attention; they certainly seemed to have more extended exchanges than other members of the panel, although perhaps it just seemed that way because I was paying particular attention to the Mitchell-and-Brooker exchanges. I'd describe the tone of their relationship at the recording as 'playful hostility with occasional outright flirting'. I don't think I could have asked for anything better.



After MacAulay's lecture on skiing, Mitchell explained a type of uphill skiing called 'yak skiing', in which yak and skier are connected by a rope around a pulley. When the skier empties a bucket of nuts, the yak runs towards the nuts, dragging the skier uphill.

Mitchell: ...which is obviously the best sort of skiing, because not only is it anti-gravitational but it involves a hungry yak.

I have no idea why this amused me as much as it did. I just love the way Mitchell phrases things.

Speaking of Mitchell's wonderful phrasing: at one point he had a dispute with Calman over whether simply throwing oneself down a ski slope whilst wearing skis could technically be called 'skiing'.

Mitchell: It's certainly a subset of throwing oneself down slopes.

May as well gather together all the things I've quoted just because I enjoy Mitchell's wording, in fact; one of Calman's made-up facts was that Brian Blessed once played Cleopatra. MacAulay buzzed it as true.

MacAulay: If he shaved and dropped a couple of decibels, I think it'd be within his range.
Mitchell: Well, nobody is disputing that it would be within his range, but sadly no director has been blessed with that vision.

(Well, all right, I'm also quoting this because I enjoy the image of Brian Blessed as Cleopatra.)



Brooker occasionally commented on things he'd like to see made into television programmes, including:

- a show in which skiiers fling themselves down slopes in a bid to break the only bone in the human body that has not yet been broken in a skiing accident (a small bone in the inner ear, apparently), starring Vernon Kay and, MacAulay suggested, presented by Richard Hammond.

- a show in which elephants fling people twenty feet into the air with their trunks.
MacAulay: Imagine how far they could throw Richard Hammond.

- a show in which children crawl through the arteries of a blue whale.
MacAulay: And, if a child can crawl through a whale's artery, you know who else could fit in there...

There was a subsequent discussion on Richard Hammond's necklace, concluding thus:

Brooker: I never noticed his necklace; I was too busy being annoyed by his face.

(Apparently, a blue whale's artery is indeed wide enough for a child to crawl through. Brooker and Mitchell discussed this fact and reached the conclusion that the next whale to wash up on shore should be laminated and used as a children's playground.)

Later, Mitchell discovered that some parts of Tarbuck's lecture were missing from his script and had to try to sort it out.

Brooker: I love when he has to do admin.
Calman: That should be a TV show.
Mitchell: Admin Live! Tonight on Admin: filing receipts.
MacAulay: 'You sorted all the receipts into the correct order in one minute and twenty seconds, putting you just ahead of Jimmy Carr.'



Brooker: (on the covers of ridiculous 'true life stories!' magazines) It's a bit creepy, isn't it? It's always some smiling woman next to the headline 'I WAS STABBED IN THE FACE FOR FOUR HOURS'.

I love it when he speaks in audible capslock.

Calman proceeded to regale us with the tale from one such magazine of a woman who found her husband having sex with a frozen chicken. The panellists were rather taken aback.

Later, one of my favourite lines from the recording:

MacAulay: I'm still thinking about the frozen chicken.
Mitchell: In a hungry way or a sexy way?
MacAulay: You wouldn't eat a frozen chicken.



After a lengthy digression in Calman's Cleopatra lecture:

Mitchell: We've got to get back to that thing, what was it...
Tarbuck: Brothers and sisters.
Mitchell: Yes! Incest!

This will be more amusing to me than it is to most of you, of course, because I have the way he exclaimed it in my head. It was a splendid exclamation. You'll just have to take my word for it.



During MacAulay's lecture on ducks (in which, incidentally, he did a remarkable impression of Donald Duck sneezing):

Mitchell: Many male birds don't have penises at all.
Brooker: Is that why Donald Duck sounds like that?



During her lecture on Mozart, Tarbuck wondered aloud whether she was pronouncing 'Haydn' correctly. The audience called the correct pronunciation in unison.

Tarbuck: Thanks.
Brooker: What a posh bunch you all are!

Charlie Brooker was mildly hostile in our general direction! Amazing!



During Calman's lecture on makeup, Tarbuck buzzed a little after her claim that an anti-male feminist used mascara only on her 'lady garden'.

Tarbuck: I'm going back to that woman's lady garden.
Mitchell: Are you?
MacAulay: The way you said that... (sexual) 'I'm going back to that woman's lady garden.'
Brooker: And David's interjection; it sounded like you were doing Victorian porn.
(...)
MacAulay: 'Next on Countryfile, we'll be looking at this woman's lady garden.'
Mitchell: Which of course is why it's called Countryfile.
(audience cracks up)
MacAulay: Broadcast this, BBC. I dare you.



The rest of this report consists largely of Mitchell and Brooker affectionately insulting and/or flirting with each other. Hooray!



During Calman's Cleopatra lecture, Brooker and Mitchell had an exchange about faces on coins, ending thus (sadly, I cannot remember what prompted Mitchell's opening remark):

Mitchell: I don't - I'm not saying I fancy the Queen, because that could be treasonous, but I'm saying we know that the face on coins looks reasonably like her actual face, so why shouldn't Cleopatra's?
Brooker: Because it was thousands of years ago!
Mitchell: ...that's very patronising, Charlie.



At one point, Brooker buzzed on a claim that had been made some time earlier. Mitchell explained that he was too late to buzz in, but that this was fortunate for him, as it wasn't true.

Mitchell: So, had it been true, your lateness would have prevented you from winning a point, but in this case it's prevented your losing a point. I'm saving you from yourself.
Tarbuck: We've gotta take you to Iceland and pick you up a couple of chicks.



The part of the recording that literally made me laugh until I cried: at one point, a discussion of elephants wearing hats led to Calman asking Brooker whether he had ever put a hat on a dog.

Brooker: I have never put anything on a dog.
Mitchell: I've put a collar on a dog. Not a human collar. A dog collar. (audience laughs; Mitchell becomes flustered) I mean, not - not an ecclesiastical collar. I have - I have put on a dog something that on a human would be kinky, but on a dog is just a collar, and not for reasons of sex.
Brooker: A lot of things you do to a dog would be kinky if you did them to a person.
Mitchell: ...like what?
Brooker: Lots of things! Making them eat from a bowl. Deworming.
Mitchell: What's kinky about deworming?
Brooker: If I did it to you backstage...

The rest of the sentence was mostly drowned out by our mad cackling, but I think it may have been 'you'd say it was kinky'. (EDIT, post-broadcast: it was 'people would say we were kinky'! We would indeed.)

Your slightly alarming flirtation is not helping to make me any less tinhatted, Brooker. Not that I'm complaining.

(Shortly afterwards, Mitchell observed that, although putting a collar on a human would be considered kinky and putting one on a dog would not, the general response to having sex with a dog would not be 'oh, that's not kinky at all; it's just a dog'. 'Putting a collar on a dog isn't kinky. Having sex with a dog isn't kinky.')



A mildly confusing exchange on eyelids, which I include largely for Mitchell's wonderful wording and the fact that I enjoy it when Brooker calls him names:

Mitchell: If a duck's inner eyelid is transparent and protects the eye, why open it at all?
Brooker: Because it makes you feel alive! You know, when you put your head out of a car window - have you done that?
Mitchell: ...I have put my head out of a car window, but not for the purpose of ventilating my eyes.
Brooker: You're a coward.
Mitchell: ...yes, I am a coward.



Stolen from causethesounds' report, because this moment escaped my mind when I was writing up my recollections:

Brooker: (completely fucks up a line) Adjhnlakbf blah. (to Mitchell) Shall I read that sentence again?
Mitchell: No; it was perfectly fine.

I love it so much when they snipe at each other. They'd obviously have to be quite comfortable with each other in order to mock each other in the way they do. (On that note, Brooker called Mitchell a pedant at one point. I can't remember the context, but I enjoyed it, so I am noting it down.)



During Brooker's lecture on Edison, Tarbuck caught the true fact that Edison proposed to his wife in Morse code, which was sandwiched between two lies.

Mitchell: Yes, you've spotted a truth, despite Charlie's cunningly hiding it in a middle clause. (mockingly mimics Brooker's lecture)
Brooker: (sarcastic) Oh, I'm sorry; I didn't realise we were getting points for style.
Mitchell: Well, you're certainly not getting any points for style.
Brooker: Oh! You really are quite nasty, aren't you?

I can't remember what Mitchell said in return, but Brooker's response to it was, 'You tyrant! You've gone mad with power.'

Hiding something in a middle clause is a fairly common technique on The Unbelievable Truth, but I've never heard Mitchell make fun of it before. He clearly just likes to argue with Brooker. It makes me smile a great deal.



On the subject of communicating with the dead:

Brooker: Communicating with the dead's easy. It's getting them to say anything back.
Mitchell: 'Hello? Knock once if you're not getting this; otherwise, just stay quiet.' (pause) 'Glad you're dead.'
Brooker: You really are a bastard.
Mitchell: What? It's a nasty person. Like Hitler.
Brooker: Oh, you had to bring Hitler into it.
Mitchell: (rather petulantly, turning back to his notes) Charlie's sorry Hitler's dead.



One of the facts in Brooker's lecture on Edison was that Edison introduced 'Hello' as the standard telephone greeting, in preference to Bell's 'Ahoy-hoy'.

Tarbuck: It'd sound normal to us now, though, wouldn't it, if we were using it? 'Ahoy-hoy.'
Mitchell: Well, 'hello' sounds normal to us now, and I don't think it was something people were saying when they bumped into each other on the street. It'd be 'Good evening' or something.
MacAulay: It was an exclamation of surprise, wasn't it?
Brooker: You can imagine it in an adventure story.
Mitchell: (rather wonderful 'adventure story' voice) 'Hallo, what's all this? Strange place for a hooked man.'
Brooker: I think you should read all adventure stories.
Mitchell: What, read them to you?
Brooker: Yes. Beside me.

I am not imagining things; Brooker does flirt with Mitchell, and it brings me such delight. Boyfriends! ♥! (Well, probably not actual boyfriends, but such wonderful potential ones!)



It was an absolute joy. Thank you so, so much to amandapear for the tickets.

Comments

[rionaleonhart]

He did! Awww. He also tweeted Calman, of course, so I can't really take it as absolute proof that Mitchell and Brooker are in love for ever, but it still made me smile.

[inappropriately.livejournal.com]

Mind if I point out that David tweeted in response to Susan tweeting about how fun it was, whilst David tweeted Charlie of his own accord?

It's probably just a neuroses about courtesy, but the POINT REMAINS.

[inappropriately.livejournal.com]

(Man, am I even using "neuroses" correctly?)

[rionaleonhart]

I enjoy the point you are making there, although, yes, it probably was born of fretting about seeming rude. So long as we keep reality at a visible distance, we're fine.

('Neuroses' is the plural, but 'neurosis' would be correct.)

[inappropriately.livejournal.com]

Yep. I'm glad you're down to earth enough to remind me of that, I have been getting slightly carried away :/

(Aha, cheers.)