Ladies and gentlemen,
please welcome your
host for tonight, Angela Barnes!
CHEERING
Welcome, ladies and gentlemen,
to Live At The Apollo!
CROWD CHEERS
Ah!
We are back, baby!
Live comedy is back!
How good does it feel?
LOUD ACCLAIM
There's only so much bloody Netflix
you can watch, isn't there?
Do you know what I found myself
watching the other day on Netflix?
Genuinely true
-
this is how bad it got.
Found myself watching a documentary
called Hairy Women
and it's about
it's about this one woman
who just decided not to remove
any body hair for 11 weeks.
That doesn't warrant a documentary,
does it? That's winter.
Crying out loud,
it's good to be back.
We're all ready to go.
Give me a cheer,
the vaccinated people!
CHEERING
Yeah!
AstraZeneca in the house!
CROWD: Yes!
I'm Team AstraZeneca, I am.
I am. It's all right, it's all good,
85% effective
-
it's apparently very good
for a vaccine,
sh*t for a baby
-sitter. OK? Isn't it?
I would've had any of 'em.
I didn't care, I was so desperate
to be vaccinated,
I would've had Pfizer,
I would've had Moderna, sod it,
I would have had the Russian one!
Apparently it's much
less invasive.
They just send a bloke round
your house
who rubs it on your door knob.
I was very keen to get
vaccinated, ladies and gentlemen,
get back to real life,
because a week ago I got married!
WHOOPING AND CHEERING
Sorry, lads, sorry to disappoint
you, but I am a taken woman now.
We got engaged, this is the absolute
truth, we got engaged,
week one of lockdown one,
which was a rookie error.
It was.
That's why we had to drink so much
through the lockdown.
I had to just keep him pissed
till I could get him to a registry
office, you know?
SHE LAUGHS
Yeah, got married,
got married to my husband.
Weird using that word
still, "husband".
It's nice to have that word, though,
because, you know, I'm 44
and calling him my boyfriend
was getting creepy, really.
It's creepy, isn't it?
I'm glad to have "husband",
because I don't like any of the
words. Like, partner doesn't work.
We don't run a used car dealership.
I don't like any of them. "Other
half"
- that can f*ck off, can't it?
He isn't my other half,
he's a whole.
With a W. That's important.
It's, I do, I love my husband,
I do, I really do.
He's proper, like, proper,
good
-looking, my husband.
Like, I know you think I'm biased,
I would say that,
I'll tell you how I know for a fact
that my husband is out of my league
good
-looking, because every time
I introduced him to a friend
for the first time, the minute
he left the room,
they turn to me and go,
"How the hell did you do that?"
Charming, innit? What were
his friends saying to him?
"Are you all right?"
It's just that we're very different,
you know? Very different.
And it used to bother me,
it did, when we first started
going out, that he was out
of my league.
You know, it used to worry me,
but now I think, "I mean, he's
married me. If he is doing this
"for a bet, he's really committed
to winning it!"
Now, I'm going to say something
that's proved controversial
when I've said it before, but
I don't trust childhood sweethearts.
I don't. No, look, I'm sure if you
are one, you'll be fine.
I just think they're the same
people who go on game shows
and don't gamble for
the big prize, you know?
"I've had a lovely day,"
"You'll do!" You know?
There's seven billion people
on this planet.
What are the chances your ideal one
sat behind you in maths?
Really. Really.
You know? I just think you've got
to shop around.
That's all I'm saying,
and I REALLY shopped around.
Oh, my God, I shopped till I
dropped. And that's another thing
when you meet someone a bit later
on, you know, you've got
to acknowledge you've both got
a history, you've got a past.
You know, I said to Matt,
my husband, I said,
"It's like you've won the X Factor
"and look at all the people
who auditioned!"
Yeah, he didn't like that,
either! I, erm
I do think it's important to meet
someone who wants the same things
as you. Like, we both knew
from the start that neither of us
want kids, you know, and it's fine
now we're in our mid
-40s.
It's not going to happen now.
It's not Now his sperm gets
to my egg and just forgets
what it went in there for.
People do think that if you don't
want kids, you hate kids.
I just want to make it clear,
I really don't. I love kids.
I love my friends' kids, I do.
I take 'em out and spoil them.
I treat them. I love There's one
I hate, but the rest
Awkward, innit, when you hate
one of your friends' kids?
So, I think my friend knows
I hate her kid, as well.
See, he's an only child.
They live in a block of flats.
For his birthday,
I bought him a seesaw.
I took him out once, right, this is
a couple of years ago now
when he was a toddler.
I took him out.
Blew my mind. Taking
kids out now is a diff
Because I was OK, give me
a cheer, Live At The Apollo,
if you were a kid when I was
-
sort of late '70s, early '80s
CHEERING
If anyone can vouch me for
the younger people here,
our playgrounds were made
of concrete, weren't they?
Concrete and scaffold poles.
There was none of this bouncy sh*t
on the floor, was there?
You fell off concrete
onto concrete, that was it.
In the 1970s, a kid's playground
was completely indistinguishable
from a building site, wasn't it?
The only way you could tell the
difference is, on a building site,
they made you wear
protective clothing.
We were left to fend for ourselves.
No
-one born after 1987 knows
what it's like to have a scab
that lasts for six years.
Whatever playground you went
to across the country, there'd be
at least one bit of equipment
with the following rumour
"Kid died on that."
And that'd be the one we queued
up longest to get on, wouldn't it?
Wouldn't it? Do you know what
toddlers have got today?
Do you know what they've got?
Soft play centres.
Pussies!
If you haven't seen a soft play
centre, let me describe it to you.
It's like a giant sex dungeon
in primary colours.
That's what it looks like.
And my friend made me take
her son to one of those places,
in half
-term!
Half
-term! Look at the parents
all going, "Ha
-ha, they
knew what they were doing!"
It's carnage in half
It's like Dunkirk with crash mats.
It is. And you can't die in those
places. You can't.
The only way you could
die in a soft play centre
is to drown in the two inches of
piss at the bottom of the ball pool.
That's it!
People think, as well,
if you don't have kids
that you don't care about the future
of the planet, right?
And I do care about the future of
the planet, I want you to know that.
I think it's an important thing.
Climate change summit,
we have got to look at.
We can't keep ignoring it.
And I do my bit. Of course I do.
I don't use plastic straws,
er, cos I'm not five.
Erm
No, I mean, we definitely use
too much plastic in this world.
It's absolutely maddening.
It's, I went to Marks & Spencer's
the other day because, you know,
things are going all right,
and, erm, I went in there and they
had a coconut wrapped in plastic.
Now, I don't know what you know
about coconuts,
but they very famously
have their own wrapping.
You don't need to wrap a coconut.
What are you worried about?
What's the worst thing that can
happen if a coconut goes off?
Malibu!
Mad.
I had to, I had a vegan
diet for a while.
I can't call myself a vegan.
I did for a bit, but I can't,
because I don't subscribe to
the whole lifestyle of a vegan.
You know, I don't eat
meat and dairy and fish,
but I can't subscribe
to the whole thing.
It's a bit like I once didn't get
laid for five years,
but I don't call myself
a nun, you know?
I can't really
And also, I'll level with you.
I can't call myself a vegan
because I really, really struggle
to give a sh*t about prawns.
Plants that have learned to swim,
aren't they?
You know, I just can't,
I can't care,
although my friend did
point out the other day,
and it's a good point,
he said, "Yeah, but Angela, he said,
"when you eat a burger,
that's just a bit of a cow."
He said, "Prawn sandwich.
Whole village."
Good point.
Ah, but it does it doesn't feel
a bit futile, doesn't it, doing
your recycling and doing
your little bits for climate change
when, you know, the big corporations
are pumping out greenhouse gases
into the air. You just say,
"What's the point?"
"What's the point in me doing my
little bit, really, until we address
"the main cause of climate change
"in this country right now
at the moment?"
And we all know what that is.
The main cause of climate change
in this country right now
is Prince Andrew burning
all his clothes and documents.
APPLAUSE AND CHEERING
You like that.
I'm trying, I'm trying to look
on the bright side a bit more.
I am. Cos it can all get
you down, can't it?
It can all get you down.
But I do think there are good things
that have come out of this pandemic.
I do.
And I feel one of the major
good things that's come out of it
is how we've embraced new
technology, isn't it?
Because, could you imagine
if this pandemic had happened,
like, 30 years ago?
No internet, no Zoom,
no Pornhub
I dunno why I looked at
you, sir, but I did.
Cos I think we've forgotten,
here in 2021, we've forgotten
what really being bored feels like.
Like proper, proper bored.
My friend's little boy said
the other day
he gets bored waiting
for an app to load.
f*ck off, mate!
That is not boredom, is it?
I'm talking Sunday afternoon
in the '80s. THAT was boredom!
When it's raining, you'd read
every book in the house
-
so, I grew up in Maidstone
-
that's a Mills & Boon
and an Argos catalogue.
Your mum's watching something
black and white on the only telly
in the house. You listen to your
Walkman for a bit, but the batteries
are dying, so Madonna's
Like a Virgin
sounds like Barry White's
singing it.
You can't go buy more batteries,
can you? You can't,
because all the shops are shut,
and I mean all the shops are shut.
Even the petrol stations are shut,
and then when you think your day
can't get any more tedious,
your dad would go, "Get in the car,
everyone.
"We're going to go
and visit someone."
It's what we'd do, isn't it,
on a Sunday afternoon in the '80s.
We would visit people for no reason
other than to ruin their day.
Do you know what? Young people don't
believe this when you tell them.
We never told them we were coming.
Could you imagine doing that
to someone today?
They'd be livid, wouldn't they?
We used to spend every Sunday with
people wishing that they'd hoovered
and we'd f*ck off, didn't we?
I'm right, aren't I?
The only people who phoned ahead
in the 1980s were the IRA, fact.
I wouldn't be a teenager now,
though, would you?
I wouldn't be a teenager now.
When I think of the things I did
when I was a teenager, the thought
of that
being on the internet forever makes
me feel physically sick.
It does.
The way they have to communicate
with each other is something
I just can't understand.
You know, sexting.
I couldn't write a sext.
I don't know what to put
in a birthday card.
When I was a teenager, if I wanted
to leave a sexy message for a boy,
I'd have to ring his landline
and leave a message with his mum.
"You want to what, dear?
"All over your what?"
Different times, isn't it?
There was a boy I fancied at school.
I couldn't text him.
I had to write him a note,
stick it
in his school bag.
Make him a mix tape.
Write him a poem.
That's all we had.
I genuinely think a 14
-year
-old girl
today, she would be more freaked out
if you sent her a poem than if you
sent her a picture of your knob.
Freak her out more. She'd be
with her friends going,
"I mean, it was like a song,
but it wasn't a song."
"And there was no c*ck in it?"
"Not even a bollock, no."
Different times.
Apparently, young people today,
they are most likely now to have
their very first sexual experience
online.
By FaceTime or Skype,
they're not even in the same room.
We've got one teenager in this house
on their phone
and the other teenager in this house
on their phone, and that's
how they're having their first
sexual experience.
And I just think, do you know what?
Getting fingered behind a caravan
at a fairground is not ideal
..but at least I was getting
some fresh air.
APPLAUSE
Are you ready for your first
act this evening?
She's a really good friend of mine.
I love her, you're going to love
her, please go wild and crazy.
Welcome to the stage,
the wonderful Sarah Keyworth!
APPLAUSE
Hello. You all right?
Good stuff. Very nice to be here.
Very, very nice.
My name is Sarah.
I am
I'm g*y.
CHEERING
That's the sound of nobody
being surprised, isn't it?
You can all see me.
I look g*y, don't I?
I do. Yeah, I recently got told
I look so g*y
I look like the secretly g*y one
in a boyband.
It's not untrue, is it?
That's the thing. The reason that
happened, I was out for dinner
with my girlfriend,
the woman serving us,
she brought over a bottle of wine,
put it down on the table,
had a little look at me
and then turned to my girlfriend
and she went, "Oh, is it
just you drinking wine
"or can he have some as well?"
Well, I think we need to break
that one down, don't we, there,
because what's happened there is not
only has this woman clearly
had a look at me and gone,
"Yeah, that is a
"That is a small boy."
So she's clearly also had
a look at my girlfriend and gone,
"Yeah, no, that is also his mum."
And I'll tell you what,
it was the best moment of my life.
It was amazing because it's so rare
that you can be misgendered
and also be the least hurt party
in the situation.
She was fuming, honestly.
She was so annoyed.
I was delighted.
I was having a great time
until she was like,
"You know what, actually, it's just
me drinking wine."
And then she ordered me
fish fingers.
Fair play, isn't it? Makes perfect
sense, fish fingers.
That would be the food
of the l*sbian
if we had one, wouldn't it?
Signature dish.
I don't live with my girlfriend,
I live with my cousin,
because why have sex when you can
talk about your nan?
That's the rule, isn't it?
That's how we live.
I like it. I like living
with my cousin.
There's four of us in total
and it's nice.
I like living with other people.
It's quite lovely because I get
scared when I'm on my own.
I'm one of those people. I'm worried
I'm going to die all the time.
I don't know about you.
I'm very anxious.
I like people keeping an eye on me.
I was recently, I was
I was at home by myself.
Everyone else had gone out.
I was in the shower and I started
to feel proper unwell.
Like my head started to hurt and my
hands were shaking.
And I thought, This is it, isn't it?
This is how I go.
And I was panicking because
I thought, what's going to happen
is someone's going to have to come
home in a few hours' time.
They're going to find me
dead naked in the shower.
And the reason I was panicking
so much at that point
is because I'd only managed
to shave half
LAUGHTER
..of my fanny.
And I tell you what I did,
I considered doing the other half,
but my hands were shaking so much,
I thought, "Do you know what?
"On the off
-chance that I would die,
this isn't something
"to lose my cl*t over, is it?"
LAUGHTER
As I say, I'm a l*sbian
without my cl*t,
I'm just a glove, so it's not worth
it.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
Thank you, thank you.
Thank you so much for laughing
at that, honestly.
Oh, God. Sometimes people don't,
and it's actually horrific.
I've made some mistakes with that.
I once said that in a room
full of elderly people and it was
a bad choice.
Nobody laughed.
One person coughed.
I did, honestly, I said the words,
"without my cl*t, I'm just a glove,"
and one old man went
SHE COUGHS,
LAUGHTER
Horrible. All these men, like,
proper old men.
I think they were in their 80s,
90s, just staring at me like,
"I'm sorry, what?
"What You
"What's a cl*t?"
LAUGHTER
Yeah, I know, yeah.
I had to show them.
LAUGHTER
I'm at that stage of life, all of my
friends are doing very exciting
things
- getting engaged, getting
married, having children,
things like that. I'm not doing any
of that at the moment.
My mum's panicking that she's
never going to have grandchildren.
Not because I'm g*y, but because
this is my job
and my brother collects ceramic
ducks. So she's
LAUGHTER
She's not sure it's going to work
out for her.
One of my oldest and best friends,
she got engaged recently,
and then she and her fiance
bought a house.
I went round to have a look at it.
She wanted to show me
the house, show me all the rooms.
So she was showing me
I don't know what to make
I'm not very good at that kind
of thing. She was
I don't know what you do when an
adult shows you their bedroom.
What do you say? I was looking in
there. I was like, "Lovely stuff.
"Very nice."
I said, "Oh, which side of the bed
is yours?"
That's what I said.
That's what I asked. And she went,
"What do you mean?"
And I said, "Oh, which side
of the bed is your
"..side of the bed? Which side
of the bed do you
"..sleep on?"
And my friend, I've known her for
15 years,
she looked me full in the face and
she said,
"Oh, we don't have sides, we just
sleep anywhere."
LAUGHTER
So I said, "Oh, I'm sorry,
"what the f*ck are you talking
about?
"You maniac, what do you mean
you don't have sides?
"You go and pick one at random every
single night?
"You've got no idea what's going to
happen as you're walking upstairs?"
I was like, "Where do you cry?"
It's confusing, isn't it? It's hard.
I asked a friend of mine once,
I was like, "Which side of the bed
do you sleep on?"
He looked at me proper angry,
he goes, "Depends which way
"you're looking at the bed."
I was like, "Do you think so?
"Do you think I'm behind your
headboard like that?"
LAUGHTER
IN CREEPY VOICE: Which one tonight?
Everyone's got sides of the bed.
Everybody does it, every
couple in the world.
I talked to my parents about that.
I was like, "You guys have got sides
of the bed, haven't you?"
And my dad was like, "Yeah,
it's quite nice, actually.
"Your mum lets me have the side
nearest the door
"so that if I need the bathroom in
the night,
"I can just go quickly
and go efficiently."
And I was like, "That's proper nice.
That's romantic, isn't it?
"That's lovely." He got up,
he left the room. My mum was like,
"It's nothing to do with the bathroom.
It's if somebody breaks in,
"he dies first."
LAUGHTER
That makes more sense to me
than not having a side of the bed.
That's love, isn't it? That's
romance.
You look at the person you go,
"You're my soulmate,
"but you mean human shield."
LAUGHTER
Apollo, you have been absolutely
amazing, thank you so much.
I've been Sarah Keyworth. Goodnight.
Sarah Keyworth, ladies and
gentlemen!
Keep the applause going
cos we are going to welcome to
the stage
your second act of the show. Please
go wild and crazy.
Welcome to the stage,
the brilliant Mr Tim Renkow.
Hey, people,
thank you for having me.
Right, let's start out with the
obvious.
I make people uncomfortable.
I know I do,
because I do it on purpose.
But if I do make you uncomfortable,
don't think of me as disabled,
just think of me as every
white man
trying to dance.
I'm in a bad mood, I'll tell
you that.
Right before I got here,
I got in a fight with a friend.
We got in the stupidest fight ever.
We got in a fight about
breast
-feeding.
It was so dumb.
What happened was we saw
a lady feeding her child.
At least I assumed
it was her child.
LAUGHTER
You always do, you always
assume it's their kid.
You just have to.
They just get so mad
when you check.
LAUGHTER
But my friend went
"Oh, my God,
"that is disgusting.
"And it's not fair.
"Why is she allowed to do that
"but I can't piss on the street?"
And I went, "Well, Toby, it's kind
of different because, one,
"your p*nis is very strange."
"And, two, you are not feeding a
baby.
"And if you are feeding a baby
"..stop."
LAUGHTER
Stop.
See, guys, it's very hard to come
up with an excuse
to piss on a baby.
I've been thinking about it a lot.
I even Googled it.
My ads are completely screwed.
But I've only come up with one
excuse.
If the baby gets stung by
a jellyfish, then it's fine.
But even then there are provisos,
like
you need to be near the ocean,
or at least an aquarium.
You can't just walk around town
with a jellyfish.
It looks opportunistic.
The other thing people say, though,
"What if the baby's on fire?"
And it's like, yeah, but if there's
a baby on fire
and your first reaction
LAUGHTER
..is to urinate
..on the child
..you've started the fire.
LAUGHTER
I liked lockdown. I had a good
lockdown. I
I got married in lockdown.
CHEERING
Yeah, I did get married. I love my
wife. My wife is great.
My wife's also disabled
because I don't date outside my
race.
I
I do like my wife. She's
..evil,
which is my favourite part.
Like one time we were snuggling
in bed after sex
And yes, we do have sex
CHEERING
Thank you.
..which everyone wants to know
how.
And the answer is carefully.
Because when two disabled people
have sex
it bears a striking resemblance
to domestic abuse.
So we were cuddling, right,
we were cuddling,
and I looked down into her big,
beautiful black eye.
LAUGHTER
And she looked up and she smiled,
and she has the best smile.
Right, my heart just melted.
And I just went, "Oh, baby,
"if we do have kids,
"they will have the best teeth."
And she looked at me and she went
"Oh, that's adorable.
"You actually think our kids will
live long enough to grow teeth."
LAUGHTER
I mean, it's funny because it's true
because it's true.
Cos whenever I'm with a baby,
people say the same thing.
They always say, "Tim, stop
shaking the baby."
And I have to be like,
"Hey, it's either
shake the baby or drop the baby.
"Why the f*ck did you give
me your baby?"
And then they say, "Cos Toby's
trying to piss on it."
All right. I think you've all been
great,
I'm going to leave. Bye.
APPLAUSE
Tim Renkow, ladies and gentlemen.
People of Hammersmith Apollo, you've
been watching Live at the Apollo!
The acts that you've seen tonight
are
the brilliant Sarah Keyworth.
You saw Tim Renkow!
I've been your host, Angela Barnes.
Thank you very much.
Goodnight.
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