Everybody, look at the time!
It's Shadow Clock!
Let's start the show!
Good evening, everybody.
You are all so welcome to the show.
Everyone feeling good?
CHEERING As one they spoke.
I know I am.
I tell you, I've got so many guests on my sofa tonight, but not as many as this dog has tennis balls in his mouth.
Look at that, that is Finlay!
Finlay!
Now, that is not just a dog with tennis balls in his mouth.
That, I'll tell you, is the Guinness World Record holder for six tennis balls in his mouth.
Who's a good boy?
Listen, we've got a great line-up tonight.
Top comedy, top music, a top boy, and one of the top songwriters of all time.
So let's get some guests on!
Later, we're going to have music from French superstar Christine and the Queens!
First is a top comic and a strict lead champion to boot, it's Mr Bill Bailey!
He's a rapper, actor, director, now starring in the final series of hit drama Top Boy, it's Ashley Walters!
Lovely to see you have a seat there at the Walkers.
And she's one of our finest comedy performers.
Now preparing to scare us on the stage in the Enfield Haunting, it's Catherine Tate!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE Meet them, meet them.
And he's an Oscar-winning music legend, who, together with Elton John, has penned some of the greatest songs of all time.
Please welcome Mr Bernie Taupin!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE Hello, sir, lovely to see you.
Hello, thank you.
Meet everybody, Bernie, the record label guy.
Thank you.
Have a seat, you.
Welcome, welcome, welcome.
Nice to see you all.
Welcome to the show.
Am I the only one with the alcoholic drink?
Cheers.
So now, here's the thing.
Welcome to the show.
Bernie, such a famous name, but we're not used to hearing you or seeing you.
Are you enjoying this, stepping into the spotlight and telling people about your life?
Is this where I freeze?
Yeah, so you start to cry, have a nosebleed.
No, this is fabulous.
I mean, I've been doing this all week, so it's nothing... I mean, I've not done anything quite as spectacular as this, I might add.
Wow.
But...
I've reached them already.
You're changing your publicist.
I actually always thought I'd be perfect for one of those American Express commercials.
You know, you don't know my name, but you know my music.
Oh, yes.
Yeah.
That would be quite... Actually, do you get that with your credit card?
Yeah, but that's the way I mainly get recognised now.
Back in the early days, people saw my picture on album covers.
Obviously, I'm somewhat older now.
I wasn't going to say a thing, Bernie.
The recognition factor isn't high, but yes, the name on the credit card helps a great deal.
I'm sure the colour of the card helps as well.
Do you know what?
I've just remembered the most dreadful time when I was recognised.
When my show first came out, I went to have a smear test.
This is true.
Why are you looking at me?
Cos you did used to job about, before Top Boy.
We know you've got that medical degree.
And while I was getting my smear test, and I don't know how she made the connection,
She realised it was me and started laughing, right?
Wow.
As I'm... And I'm just hearing... As I've got my legs in syrups.
Yeah.
And I was like, is everything all right?
And she's like... Is my vagina bothered?
Wow.
Is my vagina bothered?
I mean... You don't mind that, do you?
Not really.
It's not right.
It's a first-time welcome to Ashley.
Hello.
Hi.
Thank you very much for having me.
Congratulations on the success of Top Boy, going into the final season.
Thank you.
And I just wonder, when you're out and about now, do people call you Ashley or is it always DeShane, your character?
DeShane, yeah.
Always?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I've started, like, introducing myself as DeShane, just to get it out of the way.
Yeah.
Sorry, it's time, yeah.
What was it that you were in a restaurant with your kids, I think?
Yeah, so I have an ego, if you didn't know.
And I was in a restaurant with my two girls, and the waiter came over and said, card or cash?
And I thought he said, wagwan ash.
He had his hand out to get the bill paid, and I kind of gave him a fist pump.
LAUGHTER It was all a bit mad, yeah.
That can be embarrassing.
That actually happened to me.
Somebody came to the door with a parcel, you know, and he opened the door and there was a package, and he said, can I get a photo?
And I went, yeah, sure.
And he went... LAUGHTER Of the package.
Yeah, yeah, of course.
Thank you, thank you, sir.
It's not just me.
No, no, no, it's not just you.
That happens a lot.
Right, let's get started tonight with Bernie Taupin.
Oh, now, by the way, before I say another thing, am I saying your name right?
Yes, you've got it absolutely correct.
But you say Frank Sinatra was the only person to ever say your name right, and he didn't say Bernie Taupin.
No, he said Taupin.
He introduced me on stage as Bernie Taupin, which is my original French name, but he's the only person, I think, in my entire career that ever pronounced it that way.
So is it too late to change?
In fact, I didn't even know it was pronounced that way until Frank...
If Frank says it, that's your name.
So I can say Bernie Taupin.
Accent.
OK.
All right.
The book is called Scattershot, Life Music, Elton and Me, and it is out now in Harbach.
And I have to say, what surprised me the most about this book was because I always had this vision that Bernie Taupin... Taupin.
..in seclusion, occasionally faxing a lyric to Sir Elton, but you lived the life.
I mean, it is very rock and roll, there's drugs, alcohol, it's all going on in here.
All the good stuff.
Yeah.
All the good stuff.
Yeah, I mean, I lived the same life as all of my contemporaries.
It's just that I lived it in the background, so... And the...the sort of urban myths are rife about how we wrote in the first place and how we write now.
And it...I mean, it has changed over time, absolutely.
I mean...
In the late 60s, when we first met, we actually shared a bedroom in his mother's apartment in Northwood Hills.
That almost sounds glamorous.
An apartment in the Northwood Hills!
Yes, in Pinner.
In the suburbs of glamorous London, yes.
But, yeah, and we had bunk beds, those old bunk beds that are sort of all put together, you know, you stack them on top of each other, and the mattress is about that thick, and they sort of have chain hammocks underneath them.
And so I was on the top bunk and he was on the bottom bunk,
And at that time, everybody was wearing caftans and bells.
And what he would do at night, he would put all his jewellery on the side of the... ..hang it on the top of the bed next to my head.
So, during the night, any movement and there'd be these bells swinging, you know.
So, in the middle of the night, I'd be just throwing them off the side of the bed.
But, yes, it was fairly Spartan conditions, definitely.
But you mentioned that writing process with Elton, and I've tried to talk to him about it a few times, but essentially it seems very simple.
You never explain your lyrics to him.
Well, not if they're not self-explanatory at the time.
I mean, some of them make sense, some of them are slightly more esoteric, obviously.
But no, I mean, when we get to the... He never really writes until he gets to the studio.
So he will take what I've given him in the studio and basically put it on top of the piano and just sift through it.
And certain things will appeal to him, like a title, or he'll check out the first line of a chorus, and that might spark something inside him.
But he never really questions what the songs are about until we've actually recorded them.
So he doesn't really question anything till later in the day.
I mean, it's a fascinating process.
I'll tell you what we've got.
We've got a little clip.
I think this is from 1971.
And it's a clip of the two of you, you and Elton, talking about this.
And he's literally just finished composing Tiny Dancer.
Look at this.
Reg has to write very fast because he can't sort of he hasn't got the patience to sort of spend hours or days on something you know I mean that's that's Reg yeah when you look at it on the words uh blue jean baby la lady seamstress of the band pretty eyed pirate smile you marry a music man ballerina as soon as he gets the word ballerina you know it's not going to be fast it's got to be sort of gentle and
and it's sort of quite slow.
So, I mean, like, the way it's written here is it's a verse, it's a chorus, or a mid-late and a chorus, then another verse.
I just sort of ran it through and put two verses together, then a mid-late, then a chorus, and then back to the verse sort of thing.
It's a very, it happens very quickly, it sounds long, but it's sort of, it sort of starts off...
I had to say that I wasn't terribly eloquent back then was I?
Or going to a good hairdresser I would say.
That fringe... That fringe is something to go... Hence, hence this.
I didn't lose my hair, I just wanted it gone.
Yeah, it ran off.
It ran off.
I'm still envious, though, of that.
You take it, will you?
I'll take that, yeah.
I'm rocking the skullet, I call it.
But also, isn't it amazing to think that, you know, that's your favourite song?
So much.
And you sort of, in your head, you imagine that song has existed forever.
And yet, there it was.
Yeah.
Well, they definitely have legs.
They seem to keep coming back, which is, for me, the beauty of them.
They seem to be timeless, which I really appreciate.
And talk to us about Candle In The Wind.
I found that really interesting in the book, because we all remember Elton singing that song at Diana's funeral.
And at the time, I don't know about you, I just thought, oh, Elton's rewritten it.
But of course he hadn't.
You did those new lyrics.
Right, well, the thing was, he'd called me up and was very close to Diana, and the thing was, I was not much of a royalist.
I live in the United States, so the royal family and the whole sort of pantomime of the...
the hounding of Diana didn't really resonate with me, but obviously I was sympathetic.
And so, you know, he asked me... I think originally we were talking about possibly writing a completely different song, but time was of the essence, so I suggested... I think it was me that suggested, why don't we just rewrite the lyrics to Candle In The Wind?
Because it seems appropriate.
And so I just sat down and did it in probably half an hour.
You know, because it wasn't particularly difficult.
I mean, that's no record for me or anything like that.
So I've really only ever heard the song maybe a couple of times.
And as I said to somebody the other day... I'm so gangster.
If you...
If you put a gun to my head and said, recite the lyrics to The New Candle In The Wind, I'd be a dead man, cos I don't remember one word of it.
Well, let's not do that.
Thank you.
It was a massive moment, though.
I mean, it was a huge moment.
No, it's a huge cultural moment.
It was.
The whole nation was watching, you know, and the whole world was watching.
I was actually in a hotel room in New York when I saw it, and I was very, very moved by it, but I think I was more moved by his performance rather than the event itself, because, you know, I wasn't terribly familiar with that whole thing.
And, Bill, you know, you write songs, so, lyrically, what do you think makes Bernie so special?
Well, I mean, this is actually something I'm very interested in.
Here's the gun.
I mean things like, I mean I loved you know Tiny Dancer, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, and there's a lyric in Rocketman, you know Mars ain't a place to, is it Mars ain't a place to raise the kids?
Which is just a brilliant line.
And it's just a kind of line that, you know, there's a big sort of panic now about AI and about chatGBT and about the whole idea that the arts is under threat from, you know, AI versions of actors, musicians.
and whether they can actually write songs.
And things like that, I just don't think AI would come anywhere near, because that's sort of... It's so kind of random and eccentric and funny and charming and poignant that it just doesn't get anywhere near it.
I certainly agree with you about AI, I think, you know, because AI is a completely soulless sort of entity.
Yeah.
I don't think it can create great art.
I don't think it can.
It can copy, but it can't create.
And that's the thing that we have.
But you don't want copy, you want originality.
Yeah, exactly.
I think about the bit in your song where you go, then again, no.
Like, no-one would have gotten the lyric, but it's so perfect, it's so moving.
But that's very much from my personality at the time, because I wrote that when I was about 18 years old.
Isn't that nuts?
a complete virginal novice.
And so when I was writing that, I was thinking... I literally was thinking, am I going to say this or am I going to say that?
And I was actually putting it down that way.
And I personally, that's why I think that song is so unique, because it's not just an adolescent love song, it's a very sort of thought-provoking adolescent love song.
Yeah.
Of course, many songwriters on the show tonight.
Let's not forget Ashley Walters, So Solid Crew.
Oh, yeah!
APPLAUSE Represent.
I know.
That's some of So Solid Crew.
At its height, I mean, how many people were in So Solid Crew?
There was about, like, 35 of us.
You whittled it down, you whittled it down.
Well, it was a collective.
It was a collective, so we were made up of, like, different groups.
Did you all write the songs together?
Well, we all wrote our own lyrics.
How did you get all those on the record?
So, um, there was a funny story, actually, like, there were so many of us in the group, there was actually 11 members of Soul Solid Crew, and...
We already had one single out that was doing pretty well, but we wanted to get everyone out at once.
We worked out that radio only allowed three minutes 30 for a song, and we divided that by the amount of people in the group, and 21.99999 or something like that came up, and we were like, all right, cool, everyone gets 21 seconds.
And that's how the song was born, really.
So you all wrote your own 21 seconds?
Yeah, yeah, we all wrote our own 21 seconds.
Did anyone cheat and try to go for 24?
No, there was a few people that were maybe slightly over.
I mean, it kind of morphed and moulded after that.
Do you remember your 21 seconds?
Of course, yeah.
If I play a beat, can you give us your 21 seconds?
Of course you deserve.
OK, OK, OK, OK.
So, here comes the beat, here comes the beat.
Struggling, stay strong till I'm fading PA to the D's never phasing I've run into my enemies, you've been racing You're chasing, so solid that I'm mazing The Gucci's are bound to be laced in Addicted to this life that we're tasting You blame me for the life you've been wasting You're hating, yeah, there's money to be making Actor, MC, yeah, I'm raking Smoking my trees like a Jamaican So while you're looking at me, you start taking Create it
Just under.
Just under 21 seconds.
Very good.
That's someone counting in a back breath.
Brilliant.
No, embarrassing that one.
No!
It's so good!
It was so good!
You remember your words.
I couldn't do that cos I don't remember anything.
Like I said, I think that's so gangster.
That's extraordinary.
You're walking around with all these hits and you don't even remember them.
It's crazy.
But it is weird that you never have to perform them.
You just walk away.
Lucky, aren't I?
Yes!
And Bernie, now that Elton is slowing down, are you going to be like a gun for hire?
Because you have had hits with other people, haven't you?
Oh, absolutely.
I mean, not a great deal of people, because I don't particularly enjoy doing that, but if it's somebody I really respect or if it just happens...
I'll do it, but yes, I've had hits with other people.
Like We Built This City.
Yeah, We Built This City.
I didn't know that was you.
Yeah.
Which I'm quite proud of because it's been often voted as the worst song of all time.
I think GQ magazine But there was a magazine in America called blender a rock and roll magazine that said yes It was absolutely the worst song ever made and I'm very proud of the fact that the song still exists and blender no longer does
Well, it's a terrific memoir.
Scattershot is the name.
Thanks for sharing it with us.
Bernie Joplin, everybody!
Thank you.
Now, Catherine Tate is returning to the West End in The Enfield Haunting.
It starts off at the Brighton Theatre Royal and then Richmond Theatre, but then it comes into the Ambassador Theatre in London's glittering West End from the 30th of November to the 2nd of March, 2024, all the way through.
Some people will be familiar with The Enfield Haunting.
People aren't.
It is a true story.
It's based on real events that happened, I believe, in the 70s.
When a family in Enfield, on a housing estate in Enfield, were convinced or had the experience of believing that their youngest daughter had been taken over by a poltergeist.
And I think at the time, I think it was like 1976 or 1977, because I've seen research of it, it gripped the nation.
And it was in the newspapers, because, of course, it was a time when everyone got their information from newspapers or the news.
The BBC did a big documentary about it.
And I think over the course of the few years, while it was bubbling up, it kind of split the nation.
And people thought,
Some people thought they were just getting people at it, and of course it's not true.
And other people were like, oh, my God, what's going on?
You play the mother.
Yes.
But the haunting happened to the... To the child.
It's a bit like the English version of Amityville Horror, isn't it?
Right.
Well, it was the same... Wasn't it the same...?
Because in America... I know they had to bring over Americans, kind of supernatural investigators, because I don't think there was too much of it here.
But who does David Telford play?
No, he does.
He plays a kind of the English, I guess, branch.
The poltergeist branch.
Of the police.
Come on.
Come on, you fucking bully.
OK, yeah.
I'm interviewing the poltergeist.
The interview is starting at 3.22.
Where were you, Mr Goats?
Where were you?
Oh, you were in the spirit world, were you?
Oh, yeah.
So, what was the outcome?
What was the outcome?
The outcome, to be honest, was that their lives were ruined, I believe.
Really?
You know, because they were pushed onto the stage.
Sorry, onto the public stage.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And had all this negative publicity about them, saying, you know, you're just doing this for the money.
Charlatans.
But as they said...
we got nothing out of it, it just ruined our lives.
Yeah.
And it's interesting, because of your success in comedy, people kind of think, oh, oh, she's trying serious acting.
But actually, this is how you started.
I mean, you are a trained actor.
Oh, classical.
Classical, darling.
Classical.
Yes, I did.
I started... Like, even from before I even went to drama school, I was in youth theatre.
Oh, yes.
I was in national youth theatre.
Oh, with Daniel Craig.
With Daniel Craig.
Oh, yeah.
Whatever happened.
He was... I know.
LAUGHTER
I remember he was always the lead, and I... The greatest height I ever got in Ashley Mew Theatre, my character was called Girl 2.
But you were so good.
Oh, my God, I was so much better than Girl 1.
Ashley, you got into theatre really young, but am I right, it was kind of a guilty secret?
Yeah, kind of, yeah.
I mean, I grew up in Peckham, you didn't really go around talking about doing ballet and tap and stuff like that back then.
But what I was going to say is, we did a reading together, do you remember?
Yes, I do, yeah.
I was waiting to see you.
Was it at the Royal Court?
Yeah, it was.
It was like next door to the Royal Court, reading some restaurant.
Were you boy two?
No, I was boy D.
But, yeah, yeah, I did start pretty young.
Yeah.
And you managed to keep it a secret from your friends for a while.
Yeah, but not for long.
LAUGHTER Well, I did... There was two incidents.
I had one where my face... I was in Oliver at the London Palladium, right?
Sam Mendes directed.
Yeah.
Jonathan Pryce was playing Fagin, like, way back then.
And they put my face...
Like the front of the Palladium, you know in those little glass cabinet things to advertise the show.
I'm not like we've got that picture It is prepared to go all check this out.
There's
So they see your picture.
Yeah, so, like, some of the friends from school at lunchtime went to West End and they saw the picture, came back, told everyone.
But the worst one for me was being in Soul Solid.
We were doing, like, a live lounge set, Radio 1, right?
And we were all in the green room.
There's a TV there and it's on, just playing in the background, everyone's eating and talking.
And then my episode of The Young Indiana Jones pops up on the TV.
So there's me riding a camel in the African desert, right?
And one of the boys was just like,
Well, it's worked out quite well, yeah and Bill with you we always think that kind of music is an add-on to your comedy career Yeah, but you started off as a pianist, right?
Yeah, very much.
I mean, I was trained as a classical pianist.
And my sort of early jobs were playing piano.
Yeah.
And I actually got a job playing piano in bars and in hotels.
That was kind of like a regular bit of work.
And in fact, I was in the Basingstoke Hilton.
I mean... LAUGHTER
Rock and roll, right?
I mean, we're talking proper rock and roll.
And on the piano, the piano, let me tell you, the piano was built into the bar, so the bar went round the piano.
I love that.
I love it.
I know, right?
Yeah.
Seems like the music's secondary to the whole bar operation here.
Anyway, it was a padded bar, people could lean on it, and it was mainly drunk photocopied salesmen from Andover, but mainly...
They had a little pad of, like, a post-it note on the top, and it was a pre-printed sign, and it was for people in the barn.
It said, Dear Pianist, please play.
And then they could write something on it, and then the waiter would bring it over.
And, of course, it was like, somewhere else.
Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.
And... LAUGHTER With yourself.
Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.
So...
One of the biggest requests was Song For Guy.
Oh!
That was one of the biggest requests.
And so I got... Thank you very much for that.
That was an instrumental.
Yeah.
I know.
I know, exactly.
I know.
Sorry about that.
But, no, there was a lot of that.
It was, like, a load of your songs.
People would come over, they would, like, you know... I got to learn the whole canon of popular music through that gig.
Did you sing when you were the piano man?
No, I didn't.
Just the piano man?
I just played, yeah.
I was going to say, that would be a burn, wouldn't it, if the most... Yeah, exactly, yeah.
No lyrics, no singing.
Did you have to sing Piano Man a lot?
Piano Man?
No, I didn't.
I just did instrumentals.
And, yeah, it was a tough gig, I tell you.
I can imagine.
Yeah.
Basically, I got to stay in the hotel, I worked my way through the bar and the menu, and Potato Of The Day, I remember that.
Oh!
Potato Of The Day!
earlier this year you probably had the biggest audience of your life when you appeared at Eurovision doing the UK jury vote yes there you are looking so happy
Quite the balcony shot.
My daughter said to me that after that, cos I'm not on social media, and apparently what was trending on social media after that was, are her boobs real?
And they are!
I didn't realise they still had the Eurovision Song Contest.
Oh, Bernie!
What?
Bernie!
I won this year!
And I was her backing singer!
Let me just remind you, Catherine's new play is The Enfield Haunting, and it is coming to theatres very soon.
Catherine Tate, everybody!
All right.
Ashley Walters is back with the hottest show on Netflix, Top Boy.
It's the final chapter.
It's streaming on Netflix now.
And so this is the fifth and it is the final season.
It's over.
Okay.
Yes.
All right.
So it's all out there now, but if you haven't checked out the final season, where do we find you at the beginning of this season?
Same place you find me and Sally every season.
Looking for the food.
Yeah, no, pretty much, you know, we start...
Kind of with DeShane having desires to get out of the game.
I think that's what he's been doing the last three seasons, really, is working out how he's going to get out unscathed.
And we start the top of this scene with kind of a flashback to... Well, we actually start at the last... Just after the last scene of the previous season.
Season four, yeah.
It's so hard to talk about it, because I don't know what people have watched and what they haven't watched.
But anyway, you start there.
People will kill me if I spoil it.
So we kind of start there, and I think the journey for Dushane is trying to get out, and the journey for Sully is trying to take over.
All right.
We've got a clip.
This is you as Dushane, and this is you looking for an escape from the Summerhouse estate.
Yo.
I want 20 keys.
Yo, bro, that's way too much, man.
Well, in that case, good luck.
Bro, look, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Wait, man.
All right.
20K.
All right.
I'll send you a couple of guys.
Whoever you're gonna send, they better be on smoke right now, I'm telling you, because I've got fucking odds everywhere.
It feds on me, you know that.
They'll get you out.
For now.
Okay.
Even in that little clip, you can see kind of the Netflix glow up, like the big crowd scenes, the crane shots and everything.
And also what I love about it is because presumably when you were making it, it felt so specific.
I mean, not even just to this country, but even like a part of London.
And now, to find that it's so globally loved, I mean, it's top of the Netflix charts in like 55 countries or something.
Yeah, it is, yeah.
It's done so well, like, around the world.
And, you know, we're especially pleased with this progress in places like the US, because, as you know, as UK-based actors or musicians, we've always kind of imported what they do, do you know what I mean?
And, you know, followed that.
But now you see our music kind of going around the world a bit more.
Yeah.
And, you know, our TV shows and films as well.
I've got to have huge respect for what the show's done just by opening a door, so to speak.
I think particularly for TV and film, to get into that market from the UK is really hard.
Music has done it.
Was that always your dream, to break America?
Oh, absolutely.
I think none of my contemporaries or our contemporaries would disagree.
I mean, America is the golden goose, definitely.
But it's a lot of work, and if you're going to do it, you have to dedicate yourself to doing it.
It's not like touring anywhere else.
I mean, one of the misconceptions is that when Elton and I went over there, like, in 1970 and played at the Trooper Door in Los Angeles,
again, urban myth, would tell you that that's where we took off.
That it was an overnight thing, yeah.
That it was an overnight thing, and it was a wonderful experience, and we got incredible reviews, and it certainly was a launching pad, and that's definitely what it was, was a launching pad, but then we had to... I mean, from then, you know, everybody thought we were huge stars.
We came back, back to the bunk beds in Northwood Hills.
No!
Absolutely.
Weirdly, Katherine has a connection to that night.
Yeah.
My husband is from Los Angeles, and his parents were at the first gig at the Troubadour, cos they don't live very far, and they saw it and have been lifelong Elton John fans ever since.
Oh, that's great.
I'm glad that they were there, because...
If I had a dollar for everybody that said that they were there... Oh, no, they absolutely were.
I know, I'm sure they were, but Elton and I... LAUGHTER I'll give you a dollar.
Elton and I have always said, if everybody who claimed that they were there the first night was actually there... We were all there.
We could have played Dodgers here.
We loved it, it was really good.
Everyone in the entire So Solid crew, they were all there.
All 597 of them.
We actually played there a week.
We actually played a week.
It wasn't just one night.
I can go again.
I just went there once.
As the... Obviously, Top Boy is a big success in America, but here we had Stephen Graham on the show last week, and you're working with him now.
I am, yeah.
I'm directing him at the moment, actually.
Well, actually, I've finished.
I'm in post-production.
We just shot a really beautiful show for Disney+.
It's a period drama written by Stephen Knight, starring Stephen Graham, Malachi Kirby, amongst many others.
But, yeah, I just directed three episodes.
And is directing something you want to do more of?
Yeah, it's always been a love for me, and it's always... I mean, you can't act forever, you know, so at some point... I think you've got a few miles left.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'm prepping for my retirement, you know.
I'm thinking ahead.
I have eight children, so I need to make sure, you know.
OK, that's a lot of directing.
Wow.
My God, you've bred your own so-solid crew.
Once again, I set it up.
Listen, good luck with the directing, and Top Boy, the final chapter, is streaming now on Netflix.
Ashley Walters, everybody!
Right, we turn to Bill Bailey.
He's back on tour.
It's a big arena tour called Fortifier.
It's kicking off in Ireland next February 2024.
But I should say, we've got lots of viewers in New Zealand, and you'll be touring New Zealand this November and December.
Yep.
So it sort of starts there.
It starts there, yeah.
OK.
It starts in the Antipodes, and then I go around New Zealand, Asia, and then back to the UK, and then off round Europe.
So... It's quite nice you get there summer.
Exactly.
Yes.
Thought about thoughtifier.
You've thoughtified about this.
I have thoughtified about it.
Thoughtifier.
Is thoughtifier... Is it a new word?
It's a word.
I've invented a new word, which I like to do for my tours.
OK.
Because it's intriguing.
I like a conflation of two things.
Thoughts.
There's lots of thoughts and, you know, the spoken word and the stories and jokes and anecdotes.
And there's lots of music, so hence the amplifier.
So it's thought and amplifier put together.
So it's a thoughtifier.
And I am the thoughtifier.
I'm the person that comes up with the thoughts and plays the music.
And also, if you do a Google search, it takes you straight to the page.
Ooh, that's clever.
Yeah.
And in terms of your thoughts, I mean, so it starts in November, so you must have some of these thoughts already.
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, it's basically a sort of...
in fact what we were just talking about about the kind of this sort of panic about AI and about the high the idea that somehow the arts are under threat from chat gbt and ai and this is a kind of um the whole idea of the show is really a sort of a clarion call for humanity it's about the human experience it's about the random nature of us as people and the kind of the eccentric nature of of creativity and sort of saying look that's that's
That's what AI can't do.
It can't copy that.
It can only, you know, it can only sort of, like, grab together lots of bits of information and spit them out.
Some... I mean, I've got to say, chat GBT is getting quite sophisticated.
I did a trial run of it in a show when I was up in Tewksbury.
Oh, big...big comedy town.
Yeah.
Look out, New Zealand.
And I said to... You ask ChatGBT.
I've got a live link-up with the ChatGBT, and I say, so, ChatGBT, tell me about Tewksbury.
And he goes, Tewksbury is... And it whittles on like, you know, Wikipedia.
But now it's getting quite sophisticated.
You can say, tell me about Tewksbury in a sarcastic way.
And it will do it.
And we'll go, oh, Shakespeare's so great.
I love it.
With the abbey and everything, mm-mm.
And it's actually really quite scarily convincing.
So I'm going to be playing with that idea that AI is actually, you know, it's starting to become more human.
Yeah.
But there's music in the show, too.
There's lots of music in the show.
I've got lots of, you know, instruments.
I play lots of keyboards.
There's lots of songs in it.
There's lots of new sampling and all kinds of things.
Because you like learning new instruments.
Yes.
So I think you've got a new one with you.
I do, actually.
What is this?
I've brought a new one with me, yes.
It is... Well, I'll bring it out for you.
Oh, yes.
It's actually a Turkish instrument.
It's called a saz.
OK.
And it's basically a long-necked lute.
And it's a beautiful thing.
And it makes a really kind of beautiful eastern sound, you know.
Love it.
So it's got that kind of feel to it.
They're off.
They've started a march, they're leaving the studio.
We will follow you.
Yeah.
Lead us, Bill.
I know, but it's got a beautiful sort of tone to it.
And actually, I was going to play something.
Because you're here, Bernie, right, I thought I'd do a little arrangement of a song, right, which you wrote with Elton, right, but I don't think you've ever heard it on the Turkish saz before.
Possibly not.
It's the candle in the wind because we were talking about it earlier on and I just thought it's do you know what?
Even though this is a three-stringed Turkish instrument.
It does actually it's quite versatile.
So something like that sounds quite good I
Oh, yeah!
Well, there you go.
Oh, beautiful!
It's got a kind of an Eastern feel to it.
Coming to a theatre near you soon with his new show, Thriller Fire, Bill Bailey, everyone!
Cheers.
Thank you for that.
You're welcome.
Thank you.
Okay, time for my final guest.
This French superstar has conquered Glastonbury and Coachella, and now he's back with his new album, Paranoia, Angels, True Love.
Here performing his latest single, To Be Honest, it's Christian and the Queens!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE I've been resting my bones for hours of time.
It's making me feel like I am not alone anymore.
To be honest I'm trying to love but I'm afraid to kill And I never know when to search or stay still So I fly, to be honest, with you
In the noise, I'm Heading to the border Drowning in what's taking her life Kind of always cautious Don't you, don't you break my heart Feeling kind of loveless Yet always ready to try
I've been through so much Sometimes it feels hard Feels like a movie Made by another star She's a stranger To be honest Now I'm sitting alone And I'm trying to listen To the stories that could Make mine a little softer and fun
Broken in your tender heat Always in the noise of Hailing to the border Drowning in what's taken I Kind of always pushed us Don't you, don't you break my heart
Yellow is ready to drop
Away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away
I've been spending my life trying To get away from this pain, I'd say
Christine and the Queens, everybody!
Stunning!
Many thanks to Red for that stunning performance, and that single is off the album Paranoia, Angels And True Love, which is out now.
All right, that is nearly it, but before we go, just time for a quick visit to the big red chair.
Who's there?
Hello.
Oh, you are gripping on like dear life.
OK.
You're fine.
It's not as bad as it looks.
What's your name?
My name's Sue.
Sue.
Lovely.
And where do you live, Sue?
I live in Coventry.
In Coventry.
OK.
And what do you do in Coventry, Sue?
I'm an accountant.
An accountant.
OK.
We'll draw a veil.
We'll say no more.
Sue is an accountant in Coventry.
Off you go with your story.
One night I went out and drank rather a lot of barley wine and got very drunk.
And I was staying at a boyfriend's parents' house.
And I lay in bed thinking,
I need to be sick.
So I ran to the bathroom, opened the bathroom door and projected I vomited all over his mum, who was sitting on the toilet.
Is that the end of your story?
That's it.
I mean, if you had a chat GBT, read Terry's story, that would be it.
That would be it, yeah.
I got drunk on... Actually, the barley wine is a detail that only a human could come up with.
No, no AI would ever think of something so hateful.
Barley wine.
Can we have another one, please?
Hello.
Hi, everyone looks a bit nervous tonight.
Don't be, don't be.
What's your name?
I'm Claire.
Claire, lovely Claire.
What do you do?
I'm a housing officer.
OK, where do you do that?
In Coventry.
Do you know an accountant Coventry I I do okay, so you're friends, okay Lovely is your story similar
There's drink involved, I'm sure.
Aldi, go with your story.
No drink, no drink.
I took my sons on holiday abroad and we made lots of friends on the complex and we all decided to go to a water park.
After going down a few slides, I thought, I'm going to take the challenge and go down the kamikaze.
So one of the holidaymakers went down before me.
When it was safe to go, I decided I would follow.
Unfortunately, when I hit the water, my bikini bottoms flew off.
I landed on the persons before me.
He was submerged under water, I was trying to get my bikini bottoms, flapping everywhere.
I finally retrieved my bottoms and walked away at pace.
You can walk, you can walk, I like you.
If you ever bring your show back, she's going to be on it.
Because I walked away.
Do we have another one?
Yeah, why not?
Fuck it.
All right.
Hello.
Hi.
Are you from Coventry?
Actually, I'm from Coventry, yes.
Are you the bus driver?
So, wait a minute, your mum was in the bathroom...
Hey, what's your name?
My name's Sally.
Sally, and what do you do?
I'm a retiree.
Retired.
No, no.
I am.
So young, so young.
What did you do?
Oh, I worked in housing.
You worked in housing?
Yeah, housing.
We were born in housing.
Lots of other things, but housing.
But of curtains?
We don't know.
Okay, off you go with this story.
Okay, so one day when I was working in housing, I was in the housing office, and my manager called me in to his office.
And so I walked in, he said, Sally, I think you'd best turn round.
And I went, but why?
He said, Sally, please, you just need to turn round.
So then he diverted his eyes to my lower region.
and then I looked down and I realised, in those days, it's a few years ago now, when Lady Shave wasn't really popular, and the front buttons of my skirt had come undone, so when I looked down, all I could see was my little lady garden.
Oh!
Oh, no!
No!
What is going on in Carpentry?!
No, Sally, no!
Can no-one keep their pants on?!
I love it.
It was in the days before Lady Shave.
It was like the Triffids.
Before Lady Shade caught on.
That really is all we've got time for.
If you'd like to have a go on that, let's show yourself and tell your story.
You can contact us via our website at this very address.
Please, say a huge thank you to all of my guests tonight.
Christian in the Greens!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE Bill Bailey!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE Ashley Walters!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE Catherine Tate!
Ernie Taupin!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE Join me next week with pop legend Sugar Babes, top comedian London News, national treasure Dawn French and the triple Oscar-nominated star of Ozark, Laura Linney.
I'll see you then.
Good night, everybody.
Bye-bye!
And Graham is hightailing it to BBC4 now to introduce Elton John uncensored.
Here on One, it's shaping up to be a flawless Friday night.
RuPaul's Drag Race UK is next.