rionaleonhart | Whoops, Forgot The Title.

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Whoops, Forgot The Title.

On Tuesday, there was a You Have Been Watching recording that I could not attend. I sort of hate everyone who could be there, because the panel were Andy Nyman, Victoria Coren and David Mitchell. BROOKER, COREN AND MITCHELL IN THE SAME ROOM. I WOULD HAVE FAINTED.

I also love the people who could be there, though, because they wrote wonderful reports: derryderrydown, causethesounds.

Apparently (this isn't spoilery for the episode, as the context, alas, means it won't be broadcast), Brooker at one point, whilst relaying instructions from the voice in his ear to Mitchell, said, 'You want me to take off his what? Kiss him tenderly?'

BROOKER. BROOKER. YOU ARE MAKING IT VERY DIFFICULT FOR ME TO BE SANE ABOUT THIS PAIRING. I HONESTLY BELIEVE THAT YOU ARE GAY FOR DAVID MITCHELL AND YOU HAVE ONLY YOURSELF TO BLAME.

Anyway, last night I was able to attend another recording of Would I Lie To You?. I was rather hoping that the universe would make up for my absence at You Have Been Watching by having the guests be Charlie Brooker, Victoria Coren, Derren Brown and a clone of David Mitchell, but alas it was not to be. It was excellent fun, though!

The guests were Stephen Mangan, Kevin Bridges, Professor Brian Cox and Keeley Hawes (♥!). Fans present were

anewcitylife,

causethesounds,

chocolatepeach,

swing_set,

amandapear and

sawnoffcourtney.

Here is my report.

Some people with priority tickets must have failed to turn up, because we ended up only two rows back, very close to David Mitchell and Keeley Hawes. Hawes was gorgeous. Mitchell was adorable. It wasn't quite as wildly sexual-frustration-inducing as sitting near Brooker, but it was still fairly distracting.

David Mitchell and Keeley Hawes, incidentally, need to make out. She stroked his hair whilst the makeup lady was combing it! Also, Rob Brydon verbally wrote Mitchell/Hawes fanfiction; I'll return to this later.

(When I mentioned that I wanted Mitchell/Hawes,

anewcitylife misheard. After a moment's confusion, I realised it would probably be best to refer to Hawes as 'Keeley' when speaking aloud.)

Mitchell cackled a lot! Perhaps four times? The audience cracked up every time he did. (Mitchell's cackle, for those who have not had the pleasure of hearing it, sounds like this.)

A couple of out-of-context quotes:

Brydon: Lee Mack is on fire tonight.
Mack: If only.

Mitchell: Is this show sponsored by Rohypnol? Because it seems to be mentioned an awful lot.

Mangan claimed to have names for both his big toes: Leslie and Scruple.

Mack: Do you do their little screaming voices when you cut your toenails?

Bridges told an absolutely bizarre, rambling, highly implausible story about accidentally buying a horse. During the cross-examination (which lasted a good twenty minutes. Hawes: 'Are there really three more rounds?'), Mitchell laughed so hard he doubled over at the desk and turned red. I laughed so hard I hyperventilated.

Mitchell: So what did he say when you tried to return the horse?
Bridges: The guy said - the guy said - the guy was gone.
Mack: (facepalm)

Cox: (looks at card) It says 'I once accidentally bought a house'!

Mitchell, summing up: So you were in Bulgaria, and you thought you would hire a horse for twenty-five minutes, presumably to leave time for adverts. You were on your way to the stables, but you met a man on the way there, and, thinking 'oh, there must be some sort of system', you paid an extortionate amount to hire this horse. When you were finished with the horse, you tried to return it not to the stables but to the random halfway point where you met this man, who of course was gone, and you tried to say 'hello, we've hired a horse under your Meeting Someone At A Random Point scheme', at which point over twenty-six locals ran up to you to say 'oh, no, you own it now'. If I live in a world in which all that can happen, I really don't care about losing a point on a parlour game, and on that basis we're saying it's false.

To the astonishment of all, it turned out to be true. It was mentioned throughout the rest of the recording, because it was just so ridiculous.

Mitchell: The horse incident has changed my perception of reality.
Mack: In the future, episodes of this are going to be divided into 'before the horse story' and 'after the horse story'.

When Bridges later started talking to Cox about Cox's past music career (rather to the annoyance of Brydon. 'Are you trying to start your own chat show?'):

Cox: The thing is, you talk so much bollocks I don't believe a word you say. I'm doubting my own life now.

Cox claimed to have shut down the Large Hadron Collider for three months by spilling yoghurt in it. He started trying to explain the technical function of the part on which he allegedly spilt yoghurt. Hawes pretended to fall asleep at her desk.

The gist of what Cox was long-windedly saying was that it transferred some sort of energy.

Mitchell: So are you telling us that it was a wire?
Cox: (laughs) It - it's a tungsten alloy -
Mitchell: I'm not saying it's not an excellent wire.

Later:

Cox: Well, as Mitchell well knows, [SCIENCE!]
Mack: Will you stop flirting with Mitchell?
Mitchell: Well, I'm very flattered, but I'm a historian. What I know is that Hitler died.

Eventually, Mitchell decided that the story was false, reasoning:

Mitchell: It's certainly more plausible than the buying-a-horse story, but I have to cling to the belief that some things that are more plausible than the buying-a-horse story haven't yet happened.

The 'Ring of Truth' question was about Richard Madeley. Cox explained that he thought Madeley was sinister because his (Cox's) wife had had a recurring dream in which she opened a door to find Richard Madeley there, wearing nothing but a pair of Speedos.

Hawes was horrified by the images. Mangan was strangely intrigued.

Mangan: Was he very hairy?

The 'This Is My...' guest was called Drak. He responded to Mack's 'All right, Drak?'

Brydon: Don't talk, Drak! I don't want to be draconian about this, but...
(audience silence)
Mitchell: (cackle!) ...oh, I'm horrible. I am a terrible, evil person. Sorry. I liked the 'draconian' remark very much. I'll enjoy it when I get home.

Bridges claimed that Drak had given him a driving lesson in which he reversed through a chip-shop window.

'Given that he was a driving instructor and you were at a chip shop,' Brydon says, 'you're lucky that he haddockar.'

Mitchell objected to this pun on the grounds that the setup made no sense. 'If he was a driving instructor, I would have thought it incredibly likely that he had a car. You could have said, "Given that he was a driving instructor, it's not surprising that he haddockar."'

Mack claimed that Drak was the winner of a Pie of the Year contest with which Mack was helping. Mitchell's team doubted it, thinking it the sort of clichéd Northern thing the researchers might have come up with.

Mitchell: Then again, if you have some sort of pie awards ceremony, who better to ask than Lee Mack?
Mack: (strikes cheesy advertising pose) Can you just say that again to camera? And then I'll do the same for you and the annual pipe-smoking awards.

Mitchell later commented that he thought Drak looked like a magician (I had been thinking this since Drak walked on-set; I'm glad I wasn't the only one). 'He could be the Derren Brown of pies.'

At one point, Mack was miming reading a tiny book and then caught himself putting it on the desk as he moved on. 'I just put the book down! It doesn't even exist!'

Mitchell's claim was that he'd been prising his bedroom door open for two years, since the handle fell off ('Two years is the length of time the handle has been broken, not the amount of time it takes to pry the door open').

Someone asked how the doorknob broke.

Mack: All the rent boys trying to get out. Or rent girls.
Mitchell: A variety of prostitutes trying to escape my bedroom.

Later:

Mack: You see, I can believe it's a sort of truth, in that the researchers for this show went to his flat to look for facts and there were scratches all over the door and he had to come up with an explanation quickly.
Mitchell: So your confidence that I am a serial murderer is telling you to say 'true'.
Mack: I didn't say you were a serial murderer! I wouldn't say that, because you're my friend. I'm saying you're a serial rapist. Murder victims don't scratch at doors.

Brydon painted a picture, complete with Mitchell-voice, of Hawes meeting Mitchell prior to her marriage, going back to his place, playing Boggle...

Brydon: And you're feeling good, 'cause he let you win, and he says, 'Shall we go upstairs?', and you go up, and there's no handle on the door... would that put you off?
Hawes: This actually happened to me.
Mitchell: ...I don't remember this.
Hawes: I woke up...
Mitchell: I've got to stop drinking.
Hawes: ...and I couldn't get out! He'd gone to work; I had to go to the window and call down to a granny to get the fire brigade.
Mitchell: I feel I should make it clear at this point that this wasn't my house.

The door-prying story, it turned out, was true. Brydon recorded a number of jokes afterwards. The first involved Mitchell's mother throwing Mitchell's clean underwear through the window; the second was blander and didn't get a laugh.

Mitchell: Thanks to your silence, you've just ensured that the mum-pants joke will stay in.
Brydon: No, there's one more.
Mitchell: Ah. (addressing the audience) You'll know whether or not I want you to laugh at this.
Brydon: (to camera) Yes, David has been prising his bedroom door open for two years! The doorknob broke in the first place, of course, because of the stream of nubile young Hollyoaks actresses...
(audience laughs)
Mitchell: Don't laugh at that!

Hawes claimed that she was releasing her own fragrance, named 'Dave' after her son's imaginary friend. Mack made the connection with David Mitchell.

Mitchell: The scent of defeat and decay.

Brydon gets to participate in the claim-making in this series, it seems, and his claim was that he pretended for a while to be his own agent on the phone, using a different voice.

Brydon: Someone actually said to me, 'Your agent is such a nice man.'
Mack: 'You're a twat.'
(laughter)
Brydon: (in the direction of amandapear and sawnoffcourtney, I believe) Don't cackle at that!

The panellists started asking questions like 'Did you ever have a big falling-out?' and 'Do you still keep in touch?', causing Brydon to have an identity crisis and then sulk.

Brydon: Lee and these bastards: truth or lie?

Finally, an exchange that took place prior to the actual recording, because it amused me. During a conversation about Mitchell and Brooker:

anewcitylife: Fuck it, they just need to get married.

causethesounds: And then they can adopt me!

anewcitylife: Yeah, but that'd be creepy, 'cause you'd keep trying to walk in on them.

And she would!

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EEE! THANK YOU FOR THIS!

Also, I now have an incredible urge to go round to David Mitchell's and do DIY. *headdesk* I want to go and put up shelves for him and fix his bedroom door and he'd keep offering me cups of tea, despite me pointing out that I don't drink tea, and and and.

DAMN YOU, MITCHELL! Why must you be so adorable???

You're welcome! Thanks for writing up the day the collective fandom mind somehow spilled into reality and chose the You Have Been Watching lineup.

You can't fix his bedroom door! I find the fact that the door is broken rather delightful.

But perhaps he's holding off on taking Charlie home with him because he's embarrassed about his broken door! And Charlie thinks it's because David isn't serious enough about the relationship to take him home! Charlie thinks that David views it as a series of drunken one night stands!

THE BROKEN DOOR IS BREAKING THEIR RELATIONSHIP!

Wow, is Chris still alive? Although I suppose after surviving the Mitchell/Brooker YHBW thing, a little Keeley Hawes is easy for her.

Hurr hurr Keeley Hawes is easy for Chris.

ANYWAY. Reports make me warm and fuzzy. But you failed to mention how magnificent Stephen Mangan's hair is looking. On a scale of 1 to 12, how would you rate its magnificence? The curls are important.

Hurr hurr Keeley Hawes is easy for Chris.

Oh if only.

His hair was fairly magnificent, although I haven't really seen enough of him to establish a baseline for the magnificence of his hair. (Also, he had a Mitchell and a Hawes next to him, which I fear was a bit distracting.)

Rah! ^_^

:D :D :D

Laughing so hard. Can't stop! Mitchell: I've got to stop drinking. HAHAHAHA

Brydon' Mitchell/Hawes fanfiction, OMFG. Playing Boggle!!!

Everyone flirting with David = no surprise there.

And I am LOLing so hard at that pre-recording conversation.

We need some sort of tally of celebrities who have flirted with David Mitchell, don't we? Clive Anderson, Charlie Brooker, Rob Brydon, Susan Calman, Professor Brian Cox, Stephen Fry, Keeley Hawes, Lucy Porter, Jonathan Ross, Catherine Tate... goodness me, that's ten already off the top of my head. Everyone fancies David Mitchell. Scientific fact.

............I demand David Mitchell/whores. I DEMAND IT. HE WOULD BE MAKING THEM CUPS OF TEA AND THEN WOULD TURN AROUND AND THEY WOULD HAVE NO PANTS ON AND HE WOULD BE LIKE O-OH, WE DON'T HAVE TO DO THE SMALL TALK PORTION OF THE EVENING, THEN?

THIS IS SUCH AN ADORABLE SCENARIO. Someone clearly must write this.

what ho, ignore that comment posted before I finished typing as I WAS saying

looks like I have another person to add to my list of people I inexplicably ship david mitchell with.

The 'mitchell is evil' meme makes a freakish amount of sense in the context of "long story short I did a terrible thing but I got away with it"

I'm trying to resist the urge to post a Serial killer david/ silent enabler or voyeur Charlie prompt because that would be a bit sick of me :/

I'd read it.

I've just requested it, I'm definitely evil now.

You are possibly a tiny bit evil, but we'll forgive you. We're all going to end up reading it if it gets filled, after all.

I also demand Mitchell/whores! And also Mitchell/Hawes because ohmygodhot.

THEY WERE SO GORGEOUS SITTING NEXT TO EACH OTHER. (Mitchell and Hawes, not Mitchell and whores.) I love the strange and intriguing pairing possibilities that panel shows bring up.

Professor Brian Cox

*ENVIES*

(Mitchell's cackle, for those who have not had the pleasure of hearing it, sounds like this.)

*FLAIL*

Mack: Will you stop flirting with Mitchell?

Lee, Darling, everyone flirts with Mitchell the way everyone flirts with Fry. Because they want to impress him!

I wonder if he was so giggly because he'd been on YHBW the previous day and was buoyed up from having been around Charlie?

Mack: All the rent boys trying to get out.

*violent tinhatting* FREUDIAN SLIP. It's an Industry Secret! Everyone knows Mitchell likes men! *FLAIL*

I do love them confirming again and again my theory that, for a very neat-looking man, Mitchell basically lives in Chaos. Oh My.

... I want to do sex to that man. I feel vaguely guilty about this; I'm sure he wouldn't enjoy it.

YOU HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO RIGHT TO ENVY ME. Brooker! And Coren! And Mitchell! At the same time!

...er, I think I may have worded that in a way that implies your participation in the world's most amazing foursome. Whoops.

I wonder if he was so giggly because he'd been on YHBW the previous day and was buoyed up from having been around Charlie?

That or the sheer ridiculousness of the horse story, but I think I prefer your tinhatty theory.

Mitchell confuses me by being simultaneously obsessive and untidy. It is rather endearing, though.

I didn't like to bring it up, because I felt it would be unkind, but we *DID* have rather the ROMP in a seedy hotel when everyone else had gone home... :P

I cannot wait to hear this horse story because it sounds FUCKING DEMENTED.

simultaneously obsessive and untidy

AUTISM. *waves* Um. Well, probably also other things, but that's a character trait combo I know very very well.

First off, rionaleonhart, I'll have you know that stumbling across your livejournal earlier this year inadvertantly forced me into the Mitchell/Brooker fandom. I didn't even know who Charlie Brooker was at that point!
Also, I madly adore your recording recaps. A delight to read. Being a bonkers David Mitchell fan, I love seeing the bits of cleverness that don't make it in. I marvel at a mind that quick, dang.
ALSO also, I was just now prompted into replying to this post, because I myself identify so terribly much with David's obsessive/messy dichotomy. I tend towards OCD (if soemthing isn't exactly even I have to FIX IT until it is, I require symmetry, I caught myself chanting "the germs are gone, the germs are gone" to convince myself to stop washing my hands, I need phrases and sentences to have even numbers of syllables, etcetera), but am hideously messy and disorganised.
Of course I also have ADD, which may go a ways to explaining all of that, haha. I wonder if David Mitchell has ADD . . . it's an idle speculation, of course, but I remember on one of your other recaps, regarding 10 O'Clock Live, someone mentioned how he keeps his top half still but madly fidgets his legs.

Hello! Because I am astoundingly rubbish it's apparently taken me about a week to reply to this comment; I'm really sorry about that.

I'm delighted that you enjoy the recording recaps! The recordings are so much fun to go to, and if I manage to share that fun with other people I feel that I'm doing my job.

Come to think of it, I'm simultaneously messy and obsessive as well. One of the reasons I love David Mitchell is he embodies so many things about myself that are rarely represented on television. We're not alone!

How did that take me a week to write? Rubbish. (And, after all that, I forgot to actually say hello. Hello! It's nice to meet you!)

Edited 2011-11-04 15:37 (UTC)

I am quite excited about Brian Cox turning up, although I have no idea why he turned up, and his apparent flirting with David, and it makes me a bit sad that his long-winded explanation as to what he broke with yoghurt will probably not make it into the actual show. MORE LONG-WINDED SCIENCY EXPLANATIONS, TV!

I hope for your sake that some science makes it in! I'd love it if the '...so it's a wire?' exchange stayed.

Fingers crosed that it was suitably funny.

Also, that brookerfic anonymeme IS rather fun and rewarding!

Ooh, are you writing over there? I thought there was a hint of you about the Top Gear bodyswap fill, but I wasn't sure because I didn't think you were in the Brooker fandom.

I may have slightly written a few ficlets - there was one prompt in particular (surprisingly, not the Top Gear one, for which I need to figure out some sort of plot) I couldn't resist.

Oh, I'm so curious now! There are over a hundred fics on there, though; I'm not sure I can go back through all of them in an attempt to hunt out your writing style. I suppose I'll just have to continue being curious.

Well, I didn't start writing for it until the 20th of April, so that's a clue ;)

Brydon: (in the direction of amandapear and sawnoffcourtney, I believe) Don't cackle at that!

Actually, it was the woman next to us, who laughed even louder and more raucously than us in most cases! ;)

Thanks so much for the report - filled in the gaps where I can only remember truth-and-lie stuff because my head is crap ;) Tempted to take a notepad or dictaphone along tomorrow XD

Hee! I love that we were able to look over and see you cracking up.

Ooh, the recording should be just about to start, shouldn't it? I hope you have fun! If you can manage a report afterwards, that'd be excellent; if not, don't worry about it. (I am not likely to be so lenient if you ever find yourselves the only ones in the fandom at a Mitchell-Brooker recording, though.)

Apparently (this isn't spoilery for the episode, as the context, alas, means it won't be broadcast), Brooker at one point, whilst relaying instructions from the voice in his ear to Mitchell, said, 'You want me to take off his what? Kiss him tenderly?'

So, hypothetically, if I were interested in fic on the subject, would there be any where Brooker says this and then starts following the instructions in the earpiece, and David Mitchell is sort of worried and pleased and confused and alarmed all at once, and Brooker goes "Don't blame me", taps his earpiece, and grins?

Hawes claimed that she was releasing her own fragrance, named 'Dave' after her son's imaginary friend. Mack made the connection with David Mitchell.

Now I want David Mitchell to actually be the imaginary friend of Keeley Hawes's son, and for her to not be telling him he's imaginary for fear he'll vanish into a puff of logic.

Erm, possibly in fic form. It might be unduly complicated if that were the case in real life.

Hypothetically, were you interested in fic on the subject, there probably would be some before long were you to request it on the anon meme.

Hypothetically, I would fully support this endeavour.

Now I want David Mitchell to actually be the imaginary friend of Keeley Hawes's son, and for her to not be telling him he's imaginary for fear he'll vanish into a puff of logic.

I ACTUALLY 'AWW'ED OUT LOUD. QUITE LOUDLY. And now I kind of want to cry. And also for her to hug imaginary!Mitchell, because SOMEONE SHOULD OH MY HEART.

I'd write it, except I feel weird in RPF giving children of famous people anything more than an incidental mention.

Oh, her son actually exists? I thought he was hypothetical :/. Y-You could write it with a hypothetical son? Is that even possible? /acting like this comment isn't months late.

I'm not sure. He'd need to have a defining feature that was somehow different from her real son, to make it less creepy. And I don't know anything about her real son.

BROOKER. BROOKER. YOU ARE MAKING IT VERY DIFFICULT FOR ME TO BE SANE ABOUT THIS PAIRING. I HONESTLY BELIEVE THAT YOU ARE GAY FOR DAVID MITCHELL AND YOU HAVE ONLY YOURSELF TO BLAME.
OH ME TOO. IT'S REALLY FUCKING HARD

(Mitchell's cackle, for those who have not had the pleasure of hearing it, sounds like this.)
OH MY GOD. *plays over and over and over and over and over again*

Thanks for the write up, I can't wait to see this episode! <3

I find it reassuring that others are also having trouble maintaining a sense of sanity when it comes to Brooker/Mitchell. GUYS, I WOULDN'T BE SO RIDICULOUS ABOUT YOU WERE YOU NOT SO IN LOVE.

MITCHELL'S CACKLE IS SUCH A DELIGHT. I wish we got to hear it more often, but I suppose that would rather devalue it.

Glad you enjoyed the writeup!

OH GOD IT IS UNREAL HOW IN LOVE THEY ARE. I AM INCREDIBLY CERTAIN THAT CHARLIE FANCIES THE PANTS OFF DAVID EVEN IF IT ISN'T RECIPROCATED. YET.

OH GOD NOW I HAVE TO LISTEN TO IT AGAIN. I LOVE IT

Write-ups are my crack.

I find it very amusing that Brooker started behaving as if he fancied the pants off Mitchell just after the Brooker/Mitchell fandom sprang up. We have clearly altered reality!

Also, I enjoy the fact that 'write~up' has been punctuated differently in every comment in this thread.

OR PERHAPS WE'VE ONLY STARTED NOTICING IT MORE. Or he really is a lurker on the anonymeme and we have caused him to realise his gayness :)

YAY INCONSISTENCY!

Hi. I just discovered the episode-by-episode purchasing options for Doctor Who on iTunes, and in addition to telling them to send me all of S5, I'm picking up selected bits of the RTD-era (mostly Moffat episodes - I like his writing).

Keeping in mind that I do like Moffat episodes, I don't like Rose, and I tend to dislike the RTD-era finales, what do you recommend from S4? I liked Donna in Runaway Bride, and don't need to be won over, so don't worry about that.

Ooh, get 'The Unicorn and the Wasp'! It is delightfully ridiculous. And 'Turn Left' is sort of amazing, but you'll need to watch the rest of the series for it to really make sense, so perhaps that's not the best suggestion.

Moffat wrote the two-parter 'Silence in the Library' and 'Forest of the Dead', so you may want to check those out, but I personally wasn't a great fan of them. It may just be that I'm not a big Moffat person, though (I liked 'Blink' and 'The Eleventh Hour' very much, but that's it), and I don't think Doctor Who tends to pace its two-parters very well (which may be the reason I don't consider myself a big Moffat person; four of his episodes are halves of two-parters).

I am really, really excited that you're watching Donna!

The Unicorn and the Wasp sound good. I'll think about Turn Left. I'm already getting the Moffat ones. And even people I know who intensely dislike RTD have recommended Midnight, so I'm getting that one.

I tend to like two-parters, because I started with the old show where everything was four or six parts (or, on occasion, an entire series long). I think that brings different expectations for pacing.

RIONA THIS IS COMPLETELY OT BUT IS SAW THIS (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QODLLEqcgUI&NR=1) AND IMMEDIATELY THOUGHT OF YOU.

THANK YOU YOU ARE THE AWESOMEST.

Hey, my door handle fell off too! And I too have to pry my door open! And I'm the only one that can open it, meaning family members sometimes get stuck in my room! I sort of revel in the fact that THIS IS ALL I AM COMPETENT AT. I am mildly piqued at the fact that everyone in the fandom has glorious things they have in common with Mitchell and Brooker, and MINE IS THIS. Failure to fix doors. WELL DONE, SELF. VERY WELL DONE.

SURELY YOU FOUND THE DRACONIAN REMARK FUNNY TOO. COME ON, IT WAS HILARIOUS. ...S-S-SURELY?

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