After all, as you know, there is a tradition, is there not, the very saying of the word Macbeth in a theatre brings bad luck.
You have to sleep with all your co-stars immediately.
Is that what you were told?
All S1
S1 E15Unfinished Business
[On The Lion King being based on Hamlet]
At what point does Hamlet say Hakuna matata?
[On Broadway musicals inspired by Shakespeare plays]
There was one based on The Comedy of Errors...
What happens in The Comedy of Errors?
There are two sets of identical twins...
[exasperated at Shakespeare's stock characters] Oh God, one of them's shipwrecked, "who's a girl, who's a boy?", "I'm married!", everyone's dead!
[On what the bill Ingram Fraser killed Christopher Marlowe over was for]
Might have been a prostitute, might have been a brothel.
So a brothel bill, then.
I didn't have that.
To be honest, the service charge in this is redundant.
I had one of them, two of them...
I asked for that, but it never happened.
It was off.
If we all chip in...
Why don't we have a big one, and we all have a bit?
[...]
Anyway, what made Lord Byron limp?
That's a follow-up question.
Item four on the brothel bill...?
Last night, I had an anxiety dream about coming on this show, and in this dream, I think I was sitting on the other side and you were asking the question very sternly "Why was the March Hare so important to the Aztecs?" And I didn’t know the answer and I said "Did they worship it?" And the screens went "Worship it. Worship it." which was absolutely terrifying.
[Much later]
Anyway. [very sternly] Why was the March Hare so important to the Aztecs?
[Egging Victoria on] Whatever you dreamt was the answer, is the right answer.
I know the answer isn’t "Did they worship it?", because...
[forfeit klaxon goes off - WORSHIP IT]
[ Bill Bailey has correctly identified a bird on the screens as a flycatcher.]
That was a flycatcher. It was a Juan Fernández Tit-Tyrant.
Here we go again...
Wait a minute...[writing in his notebook] A Juan Fernández Tit-Tyrant.
There are points for knowing where the Juan Fernández islands are.
*scoffs* Breastcock Lane...?!
Who speaks in terms, harangues and declaims in a long meandering cascade of sounds, syllables, stresses and intonations, that might at first seem to be full of sense and meaning, but soon reveal itself to be an empty, vain, hollow and completely meaningless stream of gibberish?
[To Stephen] You.
[forfeit klaxon goes off - YOU DO, STEPHEN]
We call our numbers Arabic numbers.
Do we? I thought our numbers... okay.
Roman alphabet.
Right.
And Arabic numerals.
And Gregorian chanting.
Have you played hangman for money?
Yes.
Who plays hangman for money?!
She bets on everything!
I was about to say I've done everything for money, but I know what you guys do with that.
So, what begins with J and appears to be alive?
Is it me?
You begin with J and are most magnificently radiantly alive.
He's on the turn.
James Blunt.
Closer, I grant you.
Jeremy Clarkson.
[forfeit klaxon goes off - JEREMY CLARKSON]
This is something that appears to be alive, but quite obviously isn’t.
Jedward then. I'm revising my original answer.
[forfeit klaxon goes off - JEDWARD]
I got jumbo wrists and I'm covered in tit juice. What have I been up to?
You've changed.
Is it a night out with Tarbuck and Perkins?
There is a thing called Dogger Bank itch.
Guilty as charged.
I hate the word breasts.
I do, too.
Lets just say jugs...
...tits...
...bosom.
[weighing in] I like titties.
Sue Perkins and Liza Tarbuck: [unison] Do you?
Historical death, if in doubt, syphilis.
Where the hell did I leave my passport?
I lost mine in a plane once, and it had gone down, under the cushion of my seat. The actual plane seat. And I was on the plane for ages, I refused to get off the plane.
You have to get your seat disassembled. I’ve had that.
And eventually I found it.
[There’s silence as everyone thinks he’s going to say more.]
That’s the end of the story.
That was a beautiful story. That is a lovely, lovely story.
Stephen, is that Alan Davies or is that Peter Ustinov? That was one hell of an anecdote. If that is the level of the bar this evening, I may go home.
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