If Miranda Hart Doesn't Have A Livejournal, She Should.

[rionaleonhart]

I was going to be responsible. I really was. anewcitylife offered me a ticket to last night's Would I Lie To You?, and I reluctantly turned it down; my deadline was approaching, after all, and I needed to work.

And then I got another offer from amandapear, and it turns out I have only so much willpower.

Whoops.

So, Would I Lie To You?! The guests were Rhod Gilbert, Rufus Hound, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Miranda Hart.


Out-of-Context Theatre:

'I'm just going to take some cocaine and shag my rent boy.' - Lee Mack

'A Garibaldi and an anus are fairly different-looking things.' - David Mitchell

'Please don't use the bit where I compared paedophilia to drink-driving for the trailer.' - Lee Mack

At the end, David Mitchell got to his knees behind Rob Brydon's desk.



Mack: Hello. I'm Lee Mack; I play the dick.
Mitchell: The sexiest musical instrument.



Fearnley-Whittingstall's claim was that he sometimes put Marmite on his face and allowed his dog to lick it off for a treat. ('Is it a treat for you or the dog?' Hart asked.)

Mitchell and Gilbert got into quite a heated argument over whether it's possible to prove whether or not dogs like Marmite, despite being on the same team.

Mack: (to Gilbert) You don't want to get into one of these arguments with him. Just look him in the eye and say, 'David, you were right about the dogs and the Marmite,' and he'll drop it.

Mitchell: I'd be fairly confident in saying that no cats like baked beans.
Hart: Our cat was once shut in the fridge for two hours, and she ate half a melon and a bowl of baked beans.
Mitchell: The crucial question is: in what order?
Mack: (after a few questions from other panellists to Hart regarding what the cat ate) You are the only people in this room not wondering 'How did the cat get stuck in the fridge?'

(EDIT: After this story, Mitchell said he was already obsessive about checking whether he'd locked the door, and now he was going to obsessively check whether he'd accidentally shut a cat in the fridge. As Mitchell doesn't have a cat, Mack pointed out, that would be really obsessive.)

Mitchell: There are some things humans eat that certain animals won't. Flies eat excrement, but I'd say there are very few humans who like it.
(Mack raises his hand)
Mack: Well, I didn't really like it, but it was the only way my dad could get me to lick his face.

Brydon: I'm detecting an air of civil unrest here. I'm warning you once, David: keep your team under control. I feel I've just been parachuted in as the headmaster of a school for problem children.

Mitchell extended this metaphor to make himself a head of department. This was the first of many exchanges that reflected Mitchell-related prompts that had previously been made on the brookerfic anon meme.

When Mack described the fighting between Mitchell and Gilbert as 'sexual tension':

Mitchell: Oh, is that sexual tension? Well, I don't like it.



Hart was massively 'shipping Mitchell and Gilbert, actually. She is such a slasher. I sort of want her to appear on something with Mitchell and Brooker, just for the comments she'd make on their relationship.

Deciding the veracity of Fearnley-Whittingstall's claim (Hart and Gilbert were both on Mitchell's team):

Gilbert: I'll go with whatever our captain decides.
Hart: You can't see it, but he just touched David's knee. It's quite beautiful, actually; I feel I should go over to the other side and just leave them to it. I'll keep you updated on whatever happens under the desk.

During the 'This Is My...' round, in which Hound claimed that he and the guest, Steve, had visited almost every pub named the Red Lion within the M25:

Hart: I'm just not buying Steve and Rufus at all. (to Mitchell and Gilbert) Not like you two.



Hart claimed to always test the temperature of her bathwater with her ear, because it amused her and because she felt that the skin of her ear was more sensitive than that of her elbow.

Hound: If you were kneeling, how would you be able to get your ear down to the level of the bathwater?
Hart: Well, I'm quite tall and bendy... you can run my phone number along the bottom of the screen now.



If Mitchell were to test the temperature of his bath with his ear, he'd have to do it with his right ear because he wouldn't be comfortable turning his back on the taps. They're responsible for the temperature, so he wants to be able to look them in the eye and hold them accountable.

Mack twisted this into the image of a murderer taking sadistic pleasure in looking into the eyes of his victims.

Mitchell: I'm not going to murder my own taps.



Mack made a reference to treating himself with the occasional bubble bath. Mitchell was amused and intrigued.

Mitchell: I didn't have you down as a bubble-bath man.



Brydon told the story of how he used to piss in the shower, and it became Pavlovian conditioning to such an extent that he couldn't leave the house when it rained.

Mitchell has never peed in the bath, incidentally. Mack and Brydon can't understand why anyone wouldn't.



Hart was called upon to demonstrate how she would test the temperature of the bathwater with her ear.

Gilbert: Can I be the bath?
Hart: You can be the bath. Come here.
(Gilbert lies down and attempts to look bathlike)
Mack: Can I be in the bath?



I cannot for the life of me remember how this subject came about, but:

Gilbert: (to Hound) I've seen you bending over, and if you say your anus looks like a Jammy Dodger you're flattering yourself.
Mack: David's looks like a Garibaldi.
(later)
Mack: (facepalm) I'm just trying to get David's anus looking like a Garibaldi out of my head. I don't even know what a Garibaldi looks like!

Later, when Mitchell and Gilbert started arguing again:

Hart: It really is sexual tension.
Mack: Tonight, in a darkened room: 'It really does look like a Garibaldi!'



Gilbert had to redo the reading-out of his claim (that he once had a job in which he had to answer the telephone and say 'Hello, beef!') twice because the card on which the claim was written was covering his mouth.

Gilbert: Oh, and you think the viewers won't be able to work out who's speaking, do you? 'What's he doing behind that card?'

Mack began the interrogation whilst holding a card over his entire face.



I can't remember the context, but at one point Mitchell used the construction 'of whom'. He also described beef as 'cattle rendered foodstuff'. Half of the reason I love him so much is the wonderfully careful way in which he phrases things.



Brydon recited the names of a number of places in Wales.

Gilbert: You should be a train announcer.
Mack: Won't be long now.
Brydon: (outraged!)



EDIT: Here is an extremely strange Czech song played at the beginning of the 'Ring of Truth' round. It had essentially no connection to the actual claim. I think the man at the very beginning looks a bit like Robert Webb with silly facial hair.



Lee Mack is afraid of flying, moths and heights, ficwriters may be interested to know. Also, he is wary of Derren Brown because he doesn't trust anybody who can't spell 'Darren'.



In the 'This Is My...' round, Mack claimed that he and Steve, the guest, had been camping with the Scouts and woken to find their tent stolen.

Gilbert: Was it one of those tents with a built-in floor lining?
Mack: No. Because then I would have said 'This is Steve, and we were once kidnapped'.

Mitchell: How old were you on this camping trip?
Mack: I was twelve or thirteen, and Steve... (looks at Steve; Steve is clearly a fair bit younger than he is) ...Steve hadn't been born yet.

(Mack has amended his claim to say that Steve was seven or eight)
Mitchell: Seven or eight. So he wasn't in the Scouts; you were a Scout, and he was a random seven-year-old you dragged along with you.

Gilbert: Let's rewind: you said, 'We were a heavy sleeper.'
Mack: Well, we were!
Gilbert: I'm curious about the fact that you consider yourselves one person.
Mack: WELL, MAYBE WE WERE THAT NIGHT.

Mitchell has never been camping (sadly invalidating a meme prompt) and seems to be under the impression that tents are pitched in perfectly orderly rows. Also, he refers to tent pegs as 'nails'.



Mitchell had a possession to claim.

Mack: Is it my bloody tent?

It was the cricket ball with which Mitchell had allegedly bowled Jeremy Clarkson out.

Mitchell: I only had one over, and I managed to get him out in it.
Mack: Getting a bit street there? 'I managed to get him out, innit'?
Mitchell: God the fuck no.



Brydon claimed to have dressed as a woman in order to play in a football match.

Mitchell: Now, I'll be the first to admit I don't know much about football, but...
Mack: (Mitchell-voice) But I'm an expert on crossdressing.



After a pick-up of a joke, as Brydon had said 'similar' rather than 'sillier' the first time he had told it:

Brydon: That made no sense the first time, but it still got a bigger laugh.
Mitchell: They probably enjoyed it more when it was just a string of random words.
Hound: The Mighty Boosh-style humour. 'Unicorn Toblerone!'



EDIT: Oh, I forgot to mention! One person in the front few rows was always trying to get the last clap. Hart noticed this and began trying to foil her by clapping herself, leading to a last-clap battle between most of the panellists.



That was a rather disjointed recap. I apologise! My memory is somewhat impaired, because we were seated behind a camera and the autocue and so we had to strain to see anyone.

(causethesounds' recap is over here.)

And now I really am going to get some work done. No more recordings until my deadline! Unless a ticket for the Mitchell and Brooker Sexually-Frustrated Bickering Hour happens to fall into my lap, because I can't resist that. These things are terrifyingly addictive. TWO MONTHS AGO I HAD NEVER BEEN TO A COMEDY RECORDING BEFORE. NOW I HAVE GONE TO SEVEN. (My considered opinion: The Unbelievable Truth, You Have Been Watching and Would I Lie To You? recordings are all great fun, but the You Have Been Watching ones are my favourite.)


According to causethesounds, I sound very like David Mitchell online, and so seeing me interact with sos_your_face is a strange experience, as she sounds like Charlie Brooker. I was amused and rather flattered by this.